by Pops » Mon 09 Sep 2013, 08:24:37
I agree with Surf, if your house has any age at all get a blower test done. Our house is 100 next year and I was amazed at the drafts that came in between the interior door casings and jambs when we had the test done. Of course ours is old balloon framing and newer construction methods (platform framing) are not as bad but the test is a good investment since infiltration is the biggest waster even in new construction.
Passive solar is so ridiculously simple and effective it amazes me. Cover up the windows on the North side and install a couple of patio doors on the south, be sure they have a roof overhang for summer, heavy curtains to keep the heat in at night, voila, free heat! Tile floors are good thermal mass.
The problem with heat pumps, at least in my experience, is they don't blow "warm" air, it may be warmer than the room it's heating by a degree or two but in the last house we had, sitting under the vent was like sitting by an open window, you were hoping the blower would turn off so you could warm up, lol. Maybe it was just that system.
Wood is a hassle but I just can't feel warm without a fire. I think the problem with any forced air system is it heats the air whereas whatever kind of radiant system heats "things". If you run a blower furnace enough the sofa and floor heat up some but not like a radiant floor, wood stove, south glass, etc. We use our gas central H/A unit like a big fan for the most part, just to circulate heat from the wood stove (Vermont Castings Defiant I think). The other consideration is independence, hard to be resilient on nat gas and electricity, of course hard to be sustainable on wood without your own lot.
I really wanted to expand the kitchen when we arrived here in order to work in room for a wood cook stove but it didn't happen, probably a good thing since I'm still working on finishing the cabinets here years later, LOL
I wouldn't want an outside boiler, the neighbor down the road installed one and every time I go by it's smoking like a train, the whole house looks like it's on fire. And Doesn't make sense to go outside to feed the fire, lol. I guess the same with one in the basement, you would get some radiant from the floor but I'd be down there standing in front of it all the time, LOL.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)