Hydronic forced air heating (how much, houses, living)

[LIWannaBe]

Hi
Anybody have a hydronic forced air heating system. If so, what's your opinion of it, especially in comparison to other systems you may have had. Does the air seem too dry? Is it noisy? Have you had any problems with the system?
TIA

[totallyfrazzled]

We have that in the house where we're currently living (we don't own it, it's my SO's sister's house which we're "sitting" while she's abroad... long story..) and I absolutely hate it. In a way I'm glad we have this experience because now I know never to consider it in any subsequent house we may own. I grew up in a 1940s house with steam-heat radiators (the WORST) and after that always had hydronic baseboard which I loved. But I hate the forced air. It is definitely drier. When we first moved in we had noise in some rooms but after getting the service company in to 'rebalance' the system that problem went away (I guess my SO's sister was never bothered by it). I do find that there seems to be a lot more dust in this house than in any of the baseboard-heat houses I've ever lived in, even though the floors here are all either hardwood or tile. The thing that annoys me most is that because it's a shared system (delivering both central air in warm months and heat in the the cooler ones) the room registers are all in the ceiling. That's great for the central air months because cold air drops, but lousy in the heating months because warm air rises and stays near the ceiling. If you want more air circulation you need to up the fan speed which brings back a noise problem so it's a catch-22.

I've seen houses with forced-air heating registers in the floor rather than the ceiling and have always been grossed-out by the thought of how much dust and dirt must settle down into those registers only to get blown up into the room again every time the system turns on. Ugh!

The only good thing I can say about forced air heat is that unlike baseboard you don't have any furniture-placement restrictions along certain walls.

[Kbinspections]

a good system will have 2 supply ducts for each room. High for cooling and low for heating.

[Teresa1127]

thanks for your thoughtful reply totallyfrazzled. I'm hoping the new systems are improved over yours and will make sure proper vents are placed in our house if we go with it. Our builder plans to install this type of system. He says it filters air well and provides a moister heat than regular forced air. Sounds like it may not be as moist as radiators though.

[rocafeller05]

If your still in the design stages with the house ask the builder how much it would cost to upgrade the system to baseboard heat. Which is way better than forced hot air, in my opinion.

[Kbinspections]

Originally Posted by Teresa1127

thanks for your thoughtful reply totallyfrazzled. I'm hoping the new systems are improved over yours and will make sure proper vents are placed in our house if we go with it. Our builder plans to install this type of system. He says it filters air well and provides a moister heat than regular forced air. Sounds like it may not be as moist as radiators though.

The humidity will be the same as a forced hot water boiler which is its main benefit. System must be well designed otherwise it will take a long time to get the house to the proper tempature.