jenheartsrob
LIF Adult
Member since 5/06 1861 total posts
Name:
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Central heating?
We saw some new-ish construction homes today with CAC and their heating was also through the same vents. There were 2 zones, but 3 floors.
I've heard that this type of heating is a) expensive, and b) inefficient b/c it takes a long time to heat up and then cools down really fast.
Can someone who's currently living with this or has experience with it share their opinions?
The house is 2400 sq ft. How much is this heating bill going to be??
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Cheeks24
Living a dream
Member since 1/08 8589 total posts
Name:
Cheeks
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Re: Central heating?
How are the zones divided? If you have a basement as a separate zone, you might not even need the heat (I'm basing this on that our basement is toasty in the winter with the boiler and other pipes down there.)
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GoldenRod
10 years on LIF!
Member since 11/06 26792 total posts
Name:
Shawn
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Re: Central heating?
A large percentage of houses have force hot air heating, using the same ducts as the A/C. That's what we upgraded our system to, from hot water baseboard heating.
If you're running ductwork throughout the entire house for A/C, it is much cheaper to use the same ducts for the heat, since all you need to do is attach the furnace to the ducts in the basement. Your other option is to run another set of heating elements through the house (baseboard heating, radiators, etc), which would be very expensive, and take up more floor space.
Monthly cost, and how fast it cools down is really dependent on insulation, not how the heat gets into the room. I find that forced hot air heat is faster than baseboards, since the air moves around faster in the room, so you feel the warm air sooner.
If you have good insulation, it doesn't cost much to heat, and stays warm for quite a while.
If you count our basement as a floor (which isn't heated), we have 3 floors and 2 zones. One zone for each floor, and none for the unfinished basement.
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maymama
my little loves
Member since 8/08 18453 total posts
Name:
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Re: Central heating?
we have HV/AC and we love it! we have a single story condo with a HIGH open loft, one zone with system stops and we have no problems (well, in the summer it does get hot in the loft but that is an CAC issue due to hot air rising and to the one zone).
No complaints regarding the heat 
(1800 sq. feet)
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