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I'm going forward with plans to have a home built in the Waterville area, and would like to seek input and opinions on how to best heat it. The home will be a single story, approx 2,000 sq ft, with a full basement. The basement will remain unfinished for the forseeable future, with the possibilty of finishing down the road. I am having a hard time deciding upon what type of heating system to put into it, and I don't know much about the technical details of them either. My builder thinks hot water baseboard is the way to go and didn't seem to care much for my "what about radiant" proposal, but would put it in if it's what I wanted. But I just don't know. If I were building on a slab, I'd be more confident going with hydronic radiant, but I'm uncertain of it's performance when the foundation is a full basement? Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of whether a primary source of hydronic radiant heat will keep a home comfortable year round, especially in the cold winters? My family and I like our home around 68-70 degrees during the winter.
This brings me to my next part, whichever method I go with, what is my most efficient source of energy to run the system that will provide the heat? I'd really like to get away from the rising cost of oil, I don't ever see it going down to a reasonable level. I know they have coal fired boilers, but I'm also intrigued by the pellet boiler, but know little about it's performance. Any ideas here?
Lastly, I'm considering what to use as a secondary method of heat. As much as I like a wood fire, I have ruled out a wood stove for reasons I won't get into, but it's not a viable option for me. I had thought about a pellet stove, which I would guess should go in the basement. Let's say I had hot water baseboard heat as my primary and wanted to shut it off for costs reasons, do you think a pellet stove in the basement could heat the upstairs comfortably? I hadn't planned on running any ductwork in the new home, so I am not sure how the pellet stove would be able to effectively distribute heat upstairs? And if I had radiant heat, I'm assuming they would install some type of heat shields under the PEX in the floor joists above, so I didn't know if that would hurt my ability to heat from below?
I'm also open to insulation ideas. I don't mind spending a little extra. I don't know that I could afford spray foam, which I'd love to do. I may get a quote, but I'm guessing it would cost a lot. If you can think of anything I should be asking the builder, please let me know.
any ideas,comments or suggestions would be welcome! Nothing has started yet so I'm open to your input! Thanks
If you have natural gas available at your site I would use it. That is the cheapest fossil fuel and should be for the next 10 years. Pellets require electricity so be sure to have a generator backup. You can heat the house with a pellet stove ducted up from the basement. Pellets are $197 a ton now if you shop around. They will be $250 again by November.
I'm going forward with plans to have a home built in the Waterville area, and would like to seek input and opinions on how to best heat it. The home will be a single story, approx 2,000 sq ft, with a full basement. The basement will remain unfinished for the forseeable future, with the possibilty of finishing down the road. I am having a hard time deciding upon what type of heating system to put into it, and I don't know much about the technical details of them either. My builder thinks hot water baseboard is the way to go and didn't seem to care much for my "what about radiant" proposal, but would put it in if it's what I wanted. But I just don't know. If I were building on a slab, I'd be more confident going with hydronic radiant, but I'm uncertain of it's performance when the foundation is a full basement? Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of whether a primary source of hydronic radiant heat will keep a home comfortable year round, especially in the cold winters? My family and I like our home around 68-70 degrees during the winter.
Our home is a single level on a perimeter foundation [no slab] with a partial basement/crawlspace.
We had read a lot about radiant floor systems, and how they are supposed to be more efficient. Which was why we chose this method.
I installed radiant floor heating. One loop for the entire house.
We have found that with a heated floor, the comfortable room temp [as measured by both digital and analog thermometers] is much lower. 60F feels like 70F.
From our observation; baseboard is more common and faster to install. On a previous home, I installed baseboard and it was much faster to install.
Also installing baseboard requires much less thinking. Go online, find a site that estimates your dwelling's total required BTU, and that breaks it down per room. With each room's required BTU in hand, you can buy baseboard by the foot to match, and you install it. Done.
With radiant PEX tubing, there is more guess work. How many feet of tubing? How close do the runs need to be to each other? Zones? Do you want manual zone control? Computer zone control?
I think that with radiant systems you can get much more techno-phile about it. And while there are many different opinions, there is also a lack of data as to how these opinions compare in the real world.
I designed our system. I spoke with a number of 'experts' and I read a lot about the topic. I ended with a wide variety of ways to do it. There are no hard fast rules, of how to be simple and quick. I over-shot our BTU needs by 50% just to be safe.
For a 2400 sq ft house I used 600 foot of 5/8" tubing.
Oh, before I forget, I need to stop with the engineering point-of-view and provide a Liberal Arts side to my comment. We like the heat and the feel of our home's heating system. It is comfortable for us.
Quote:
... This brings me to my next part, whichever method I go with, what is my most efficient source of energy to run the system that will provide the heat? I'd really like to get away from the rising cost of oil, I don't ever see it going down to a reasonable level. I know they have coal fired boilers, but I'm also intrigued by the pellet boiler, but know little about it's performance. Any ideas here?
I am a former career submariner, where I learned to love backup systems along with tertiary systems.
We started with an electric water-heater to make our system work, but designed the plumbing to make that a tertiary method of heating [in case the primary and secondary systems both failed]. Then I added our secondary heat source which was a propane water-heater, we tested that and it works fine. [Actually I bought a used propane water-heater that had previously been used to provide the heat to two apartments]. Then lastly I plumbed in our primary heat source which is a wood-stove.
Quote:
... Lastly, I'm considering what to use as a secondary method of heat. As much as I like a wood fire, I have ruled out a wood stove for reasons I won't get into, but it's not a viable option for me. I had thought about a pellet stove, which I would guess should go in the basement. Let's say I had hot water baseboard heat as my primary and wanted to shut it off for costs reasons, do you think a pellet stove in the basement could heat the upstairs comfortably? I hadn't planned on running any ductwork in the new home, so I am not sure how the pellet stove would be able to effectively distribute heat upstairs? And if I had radiant heat, I'm assuming they would install some type of heat shields under the PEX in the floor joists above, so I didn't know if that would hurt my ability to heat from below?
I'm also open to insulation ideas. I don't mind spending a little extra. I don't know that I could afford spray foam, which I'd love to do. I may get a quote, but I'm guessing it would cost a lot. If you can think of anything I should be asking the builder, please let me know.
any ideas,comments or suggestions would be welcome! Nothing has started yet so I'm open to your input! Thanks
I do not like ductwork. Ductwork needs to have enough accesses to allow you to get inside to clean it annually. Or else you stand to build-up mold, which can be a huge health threat.
I see no reason why a pellet stove downstairs [btw, all heat sources should be located downstairs] can not provide hot-water to your radiant system.
I installed spray-on foam for our house. 1 1/2" to 2" on all of our exterior walls and our roof. I sprayed it myself. It was rather fun. Then I installed 9" of fiberglass batt.
You only get the chance to insulate once. You can not do it a second time. So do it right the first time.
I didn't think natural gas was available up here around the Augusta/Waterville area. Am I wrong on that?
so you think I could get by heating the home from a pellet stove downstairs with no ductwork to carry it upstairs? Are you saying the pellet stove could be the primary source of heat and that I wouldn't need a furnace? Please clarfiy. And I'm confused how the heat would transfer effectively upstairs with no ductwork and no openings anywhere. NMLM suggested ductwork to carry it, but Forest you seem to think the heat would effectively transfer upstairs with no ducts? Are you basing that on whether the pellet stove is the primary or simply a backup, or both? I would worry I'd have an uncomfortably hot basement if I didn't have any ductwork coming off the stove?
how did you go the spray foam yourself? where do you get a the unit and materials to do it, I didn't know they were available? I thought that was something that wasn't a DIY kinda thing, but if I could rent the sprayer, I'd give it a try. If it was something you rented, would you mind sharing where you found it available and how costly it all ended up being?
One of the things I like about radiant is the absence of the baseboards in every room, which opens up more possibilities to furniture placement, looks better, etc.
thanks for the input so far. I'm open to any other ideas for a new home build, now is the time to plan it right.
Our home is a single level on a perimeter foundation [no slab] with a partial basement/crawlspace.
We had read a lot about radiant floor systems, and how they are supposed to be more efficient. Which was why we chose this method.
I installed radiant floor heating. One loop for the entire house.
We have found that with a heated floor, the comfortable room temp [as measured by both digital and analog thermometers] is much lower. 60F feels like 70F.
From our observation; baseboard is more common and faster to install. On a previous home, I installed baseboard and it was much faster to install.
Also installing baseboard requires much less thinking. Go online, find a site that estimates your dwelling's total required BTU, and that breaks it down per room. With each room's required BTU in hand, you can buy baseboard by the foot to match, and you install it. Done.
With radiant PEX tubing, there is more guess work. How many feet of tubing? How close do the runs need to be to each other? Zones? Do you want manual zone control? Computer zone control?
I think that with radiant systems you can get much more techno-phile about it. And while there are many different opinions, there is also a lack of data as to how these opinions compare in the real world.
I designed our system. I spoke with a number of 'experts' and I read a lot about the topic. I ended with a wide variety of ways to do it. There are no hard fast rules, of how to be simple and quick. I over-shot our BTU needs by 50% just to be safe.
For a 2400 sq ft house I used 600 foot of 5/8" tubing.
If in an emergency you lose heat, is there a danger of the water freezing in that 600 feet of tubing and splitting or otherwise damaging it?
Is the plan to drain the water in such an emergency? How is that done?
... so you think I could get by heating the home from a pellet stove downstairs with no ductwork to carry it upstairs?
Unless you do some thing to it otherwise, heat rises by itself.
I have seen homes that have had an iron grate opening between the basement and first floor, for heat to go up. Some with an open stairwell.
It may not be evenly distributed. But it requires to mechanical methods.
My grandparents had a home in California in the Sierra Nevadas [in the vicinity of glaciers up above 10,000 foot altitude] they had a big grate in their living room floor. Where you could see the stove downstairs.
Quote:
... Are you saying the pellet stove could be the primary source of heat and that I wouldn't need a furnace? Please clarify.
The definitions between 'stove' and 'furnace' commonly overlap.
We have two woodstoves that can heat water [granted one is 100 years old, tore apart and in the process of being re-built]
If you got a bio-mass pellet burning device that heats water, that hot-water can be plumbed to provide heat to baseboards, or to radiant flooring, or to your shower.
Quote:
... And I'm confused how the heat would transfer effectively upstairs with no ductwork and no openings anywhere. NMLM suggested ductwork to carry it, but Forest you seem to think the heat would effectively transfer upstairs with no ducts?
Heat rises.
Cut a 2 foot by 2 foot hole in the floor directly above the basement room with the stove. Buy a pretty iron grate to fill the hole and to support your weight. Done! Much less expense than ductwork and no fan is required [no electricity].
If your heated basement room is large, you could cut a series of 6 inch by 18 inch holes around the basement ceiling perimeter, like into different rooms on the first floor. Place louvered registers in each hole. Then you could effectively shut-down a room. I think that smaller register holes will require a fan [which requires electricity].
When we lived in Scotland our house had this type of smaller registers scattered about. That house was built long before in-home electricity became popular.
Quote:
... how did you go the spray foam yourself? where do you get a the unit and materials to do it, I didn't know they were available? I thought that was something that wasn't a DIY kinda thing, but if I could rent the sprayer, I'd give it a try. If it was something you rented, would you mind sharing where you found it available and how costly it all ended up being?
I found a wholesaler []Energy Federation who provided me the stuff. Two tanks the size of 20-pound propane tanks. An 'A' component and a 'B' component, hoses and a fancy nozzle. When 'A' and 'B' mix in the nozzle they spray out, getting hot and expanding. 200F when it comes out, it off-gasses N2 and is hard like wood within 30-seconds.
It is/was identical to Dow 'Handy-Foam' but I paid half price because I got it generic.
It sticks to EVERYTHING [including beards], the finish is R-8 per inch, it becomes structural, it sound deadens, it seals all drafts, it is great!
All of the stuff is disposable. When your done throw it away.
It is more expensive than fiberglass. To do 1 inch was like like 150% of the price for 9 inches of fiberglass. Of course I sprayed it on thick, between 1 1/2" and 2", and I also put up 9 inches of fiberglass also.
Quote:
... One of the things I like about radiant is the absence of the baseboards in every room, which opens up more possibilities to furniture placement, looks better, etc.
thanks for the input so far. I'm open to any other ideas for a new home build, now is the time to plan it right.
I hear you.
I like big open rooms as well.
Last edited by Submariner; 07-26-2011 at 01:18 PM..
If in an emergency you lose heat, is there a danger of the water freezing in that 600 feet of tubing and splitting or otherwise damaging it?
Is the plan to drain the water in such an emergency? How is that done?
Could be.
I have considered that.
So far it has been my observation that with as many windows as we have, we get solar gain during the day.
If we leave before light and are gone all day, our house when we return will commonly be around 50F when we return at night fall.
Last winter we went to Oahu for 2-weeks to observe Christmas and New Years, while we were gone our house had no source of heat other than the windows. Our house did not freeze. It appears to have cycled between 40F-ish at night and the high 50Fs during the day.
If your home design was one such that it did freeze indoors, than it would be a good consideration to include anti-freeze.
When I was researching the brands of PEX tubing, it is okay for water to freeze in the tubing. The issue is not hurting the PEX, rather once it is frozen solid, you may have to wait until the following summer before you can circulate water again. It would be nigh impossible to heat and melt the PEX, by forcing warm water to circulate.
I have no antifreeze in our system. If I were to include antifreeze, the reason would be so as to avoid the water freezing in the PEX and therefore disabling the system. I do not think it would actually hurt any of the components.
Last edited by Submariner; 07-26-2011 at 01:22 PM..
On antifreeze: some forced hot water systems have it, some don't from what my plumber told me once. It's an added expense, and it somewhat lowers the heat transfer ability of the system compared to plain water, but if I had a hot water heating system, I wouldn't be without it. While it's true that the newer PEX heating pipes can take freezing okay due to their ability to swell a bit with the ice, not every bit of a system is plastic. In an extended power or other outage, some of the manifolds on the heater itself could freeze, and the parts are mostly metal there.
I'm planning on going with spray-on, closed cell foam when I renovate my house in Aroostook (built in 1925.) Presently, the very old drywall is moisture stained due to condensation on the interior walls upstairs during the winter. The old insulation in the 2 X 4 (old, solid, true dimension stud) walls was too thin and too settled to properly insulate and given that the house sits in an open, exposed location in a very cold county, the wall surface dropped to the dew point many times it seems and condensation occurred. Even this past winter, after I closed on the property, when I was the only occupant of the house, with very little cooking, showering - with very little domestic activity to release moisture at all, I found a light covering of frost on some of the upstairs bedroom walls (this with the heat set at around 62.)
The spray foam is expensive, but as Forestbeekeeper says, it's something like R-8 per inch. It also seals every nook and cranny in the walls to seal out air flow, along with finally closing out most of the places insects such as those tiresome cluster flies get in. Many people do a mix of spray-on and fiberglass batts as Forestbeekeeper did. They get the sealing ability of the foam, and yet some cost savings with the batts. I myself am going to fill the entire wall cavity with foam before I put up new drywall. As I say, my house is in a very windy, exposed location and has to deal with an 8500 heating degree day climate. I want as much insulation as I can fit in a four inch wall space. I may even add a one or two inch strip to the studs to build them out a bit more in order to gain more insulation cavity thickness even though I'd lose bit of floor space in doing so. To control costs I'm planning on doing the work myself as well and given that I'm only doing one of the three upstairs rooms at one time, costs should be able to be spaced out a bit. As Forest also said, one only insulates once, so it's best to do it right while the walls are opened up.
In addition to the EnergyFederation website Forest mentioned, here is a do it yourself spray foam dealer and website with online videos and other information on spray foam: Foam it Green Spray Foam Insulation Kits
I'm going to look at the EFI site as it sounds cheaper, but the Foam It Green website is a wealth of information on spray foam in general.
Not everyone is okay having 11 inch wall thickness. If your stuck with 4 inch walls then you really are limited in how much insulation you can hang.
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Antifreeze and spray-on foam
