Quote:
Originally Posted by DKVA
Hi Everyone
Need expert advice re: hvac. We are buying a spec ranch house with a walk out basement in SW ILL. We will probably will finish the basement. The builder recommends 1 zone with doing a fire place in the basement and if bedrooms get cool during the winter just to do electric base boards in the bed rooms (do a high seer ac). Our builder believes that there is no need for a dual system as in IL the summers are cool but in the winter if you have a firepace the bedroom would only need heating thus the electric base board. My husband would like to have the basement totally separate if we have our kids living down there. What do you think? DKVA
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Your builder said what??? Illinois is surrounded by water on three sides, plus a major waterway river runs through the middle. Summers are not partiuclarly cool and they are humid. Winters can be brutal even in southern IL. I've had baseboard heat and I've had patio doors in the basement. I've had fireplace in the living room and in the bsement and in both in the same house.
Unless your patio doors face the SOUTH they are cold in the winter, and most of them leak air. If you want a warm basement for kids you will need to insulate the walls, carpet the floor and put a heavy, lined drapery on the patio doors. Even with a fireplace it will still feel cool. Heat rises to the ceiling and cold air falls to the floor. A fireplace is warm when you are near it, but when you walk away you feel the cooler air. It won't heat the house. You do want to raise the harth and the fireplace off the floor so you don't burn the carpet.
Wood sparks. Baseboard heat is only effective in smaller closed rooms. It is not effective in open rooms. The advanage is you do not pay to heat unused rooms. If you get bb heat and have a cold winter you will buy heaters for the rooms that you do live in. What you can do is use baseboard heat to suppliment a furnace. Keep the furnace termperature very cool or off until you really need it, and use the bb heat where you need it until it is not effective. It is not a bad investment.
You need to remember that whether you heat or cool, everything in the house - walls, carpet, windows, flooring, ects is heated or cooled before you begin to feel any difference. I've had electric furnace too. They are less effective than BB heat. Heat pumps are only useful betwween 40-80 degrees and you willl till need auxillary heat and air.
For me every house needs two things: a furnace and a water conditioner. The gas furnace is the only unit that will give you uniform comfort heat or cool throughout the house.
There is an option to a furnace in the house. It is an outside unit thab burns corn cobs. They say a bushel will keep you warm all winter, but I think that's hype. You can also have a wood burjing furnace out side. They are both efficient, but none burn 24-hours and you have the smell in the house. The last time I checked a rick of wood was over $75 and that was 4 years ago.
Hi SEER air? I think that applies to furnaces, ie the difference between 80%, 93% or 95% gas efficieny. The diff between the first two is a 9% savings. They cost more to buy and install and most of the lower heating eleement have soot issues. They produce cooler heat which is why I am getting the lower rating.
This comment is made from someone who is repacing a 40 year old furnace. It isn't the first time. I've been a homeowner for a lot of years. Furnaces manufacturers have made great strides in the last forty years. Utilities will keep rising to meet profit demands. Nothing we can do about it.
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