Need a New Heating System

[Jack M]

We want a new heating system. We have oil fired forced hot air. It smells. I think I would like a "warm air" system which runs constantly and quietly. The question is propane, wood pellets, or stick with oil? Other? We'd consider switching to a forced hot water system, but that would probably be too expensive. Anyone recently go through something like this?

[boarderboy]

Several years since I looked into this and don't know if latitude difference is a factor in heat pump efficiency/practicality. Here in Possum Pouch, summer cooling performance is greater concern than winter heating costs.

Depending on practicality of retrofit, you might want to take a look at the very efficient high velocity heat pumps. Up to last 13 feet (?) of "ductwork' is just 3" diameter. If memory serves, these system use a relatively smaller HP unit that runs more constantly and efficiently than a "normal" setup. Supposed to be very effective at maintaining ideal humidity, too.

Saw the innards of a couple, big, brick early 20th century college dorms that had been converted. Very impressive and very comfortable.

cheers

BB

[LeeW]

This may sound like a serious expense, but I do know a house built into the ground (or semi-buried into the ground) are very good at keeping it cool in summer and warm in the winter.

Otherwise, a coolant-filled with heat running into the pipes around under the floor is a good way to keep the house warm. That's if your floor is wood and the spending money is the "sky's the limit."

[lowrider]

A properly tuned furnace should "NOT SMELL" at any time. I'm assuming it has been serviced recently and smoke tested ? Somtimes the exhast piping becomes saturated with residue and may need replacing. If your basement is completely finished a hot water oil system isn't really practical since access to all floor joists is necessary to install piping. It does provide a very comfortable enviroment and eliminates the need for electric hot water tank. The price of oil is on the rise again (thank you alberta oil sands).No other system is going to feel quite like the forced air oil furnace you have now. Going propane has the added bonus of your wife wanting a new dryer, stove and hot water heater.$$$$$$ Pellet stove or fireplace is an option but not so good if you like to go away for extended periods of time. Wife and kids will only carry so many bags of pellets before they go on strike. If you are rural an outside wood furnace is an option but makes you a slave to the wood pile. New high eff. oil probably best short term option next to natural gas or propane. The oil water system is really comfy on the feet since all the floors are warm and radiate heat. The piping system is all plastic with a small circulating pump 1/12 hp. vs oil furnace fan blower motor @ 1/2 hp. you already have the chimney and oil tank. Ground source heat pump is only worth it if the ground loop is in fairly wet or moist ground necessary for good thermal exchange. We heat our house and indoor pool with outside wood boiler ,now after 20 years it needs replacing. Happy to say i outlived it since i built it but i'm feeling that i too am stuck for options. I do have an oil furnace for back up but @ $800 a fill there goes a new board .:( Hope this helps.

[chrisk]

Jack,

I had a GSHP (Ground Source Heat Pump, aka Geothermal) put in a few years ago. It was expensive, but it covers both heating and cooling. Its very quiet and highly efficient. Drop me an email if you'd like to hear details. This system makes a sense in Pennsylvania, it may not make sense in Maine.

Chris K

ckostarasATcartech.com

[Jack M]

A properly tuned furnace should "NOT SMELL" at any time. I'm assuming it has been serviced recently and smoke tested ? Somtimes the exhast piping becomes saturated with residue and may need replacing. If your basement is completely finished a hot water oil system isn't really practical since access to all floor joists is necessary to install piping. It does provide a very comfortable enviroment and eliminates the need for electric hot water tank. The price of oil is on the rise again (thank you alberta oil sands).No other system is going to feel quite like the forced air oil furnace you have now. Going propane has the added bonus of your wife wanting a new dryer, stove and hot water heater.$$$$$$ Pellet stove or fireplace is an option but not so good if you like to go away for extended periods of time. Wife and kids will only carry so many bags of pellets before they go on strike. If you are rural an outside wood furnace is an option but makes you a slave to the wood pile. New high eff. oil probably best short term option next to natural gas or propane. The oil water system is really comfy on the feet since all the floors are warm and radiate heat. The piping system is all plastic with a small circulating pump 1/12 hp. vs oil furnace fan blower motor @ 1/2 hp. you already have the chimney and oil tank. Ground source heat pump is only worth it if the ground loop is in fairly wet or moist ground necessary for good thermal exchange. We heat our house and indoor pool with outside wood boiler ,now after 20 years it needs replacing. Happy to say i outlived it since i built it but i'm feeling that i too am stuck for options. I do have an oil furnace for back up but @ $800 a fill there goes a new board .:( Hope this helps.

I agree it should not smell, and we have it tuned up every fall, and then by January it is smelling again and we have to have it serviced again. I fired our last oil company due to this, and the second one hasn't had much luck either with a permanent solution. We even had a draft inducer installed last year ($750). We go through this BS every year and we are sick of it and worried about health issues.

We have some propane in the house already - hot water, clothes dryer, cooktop, fireplace insert, Rinnai in the bonus room. We have a tank outside.

There is significant underground water on our lot, we had to have a french drain installed when we bought the house in order to have a usable basement. (had 2 feet of water down there after an extended power outage - now I have a generator!) I will look into geothermal.

The basement is not finished so radiant is a possibility for the first floor, which is all hardwood with some area rugs. I don't know if it would be possible for the second floor as we have wall-to-wall carpeting up there, and then there is the difficulty/cost of installing into existing construction.

[bobdea]

depending on the house and what resources you have available masonry heaters are about the cheapest to run. even in germany they're big where people pay unreal sums for a cord of wood. but they are not for every house. the best part is you usually only need to run(load) them once or twice a day.

http://mha-net.org/

existing oil systems can be converted to waste oil systems. then, efficiency can be brought up if you go to steam instead of hot air. My mom helps out a old lady and after we consulted a few heating system installers they were pretty insistent that that sticking with her existing steam radiators was the way to go and replace the old boiler or whatever. one guy was saying people are even going out and savaging old radiators and installing them.

the waste oil systems are pretty neat, you can run them on vegi oil or used motor oil among other things. it would mean you'd need to haul the stuff but it's usually free and/or if you buy it around $1.50 a gallon. you can mix it in any ratio with diesel or heating oil on some systems so there's huge potential for savings on there.

heat pumps, I looked into them awhile back and it looks like in most places they don't come out any cheaper between install cost, electricity to run them and maintaining them.

with a high water table they might have issues too but IDK about that.

there's more options too but all of them are multitiered and would likely require some amount of lifestyle change.

if you're ready for that then there's so many cool things you could do.

coal is pretty good too in terms of price if you get a decent stove, some of the stoves you can even add a hot water coil to so you could do some baseboards with it or run it to your hot water tank. seems like to coal furnaces are less efficient than the stoves from what I can tell but they probably come out cheaper than oil to run as well.

[dano]

We want a new heating system. We have oil fired forced hot air. It smells. I think I would like a "warm air" system which runs constantly and quietly. The question is propane, wood pellets, or stick with oil? Other? We'd consider switching to a forced hot water system, but that would probably be too expensive. Anyone recently go through something like this?

What does it smell like? Oil? Smoke? Rubber belts? Burning electric? Sounds dangerous.

I'm shocked and amazed that it can't be fixed.

We have an oil fired forced hot air sytem as well, it works fine but is kind of old and noisy so we are also wondering. I hear it's tough to dispose of the old oil tank as well....

Our next door neighbors just got a great deal converting to gas, but the unit is pretty noisy from OUTSIDE of their house and bugs me.

I work with several guys that have pellet stoves and they love them, but lots of maintaining. Best as a supplement.

[GeoffV]

Jack my brother just added a Buderhus heating system over in Saco. I think he said the efficiency rating on that thing is in the mid 90's.

I've heated about 80% of my old house with pellets and saved a lot of money, but it's some work. Since you have a fire place you can get a pellet insert that should essentially heat your entire 1st floor.

But on the flip side you need to deal with 4-5 tons of pellets each season and constantly filling the hopper and cleaning the stove. It's a great heating source but comes with extra work.

How old is your current furnace?

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

We want a new heating system. We have oil fired forced hot air. It smells. I think I would like a "warm air" system which runs constantly and quietly. The question is propane, wood pellets, or stick with oil? Other? We'd consider switching to a forced hot water system, but that would probably be too expensive. Anyone recently go through something like this?

Ductless Heat Pump.

Simple, effective, efficient.

Newer versions can have multiple indoor units (providing true "Zone Control"), high end versions utilize a computer controlled refrigerant manifold that can further increase efficiency. You may want to have a back up system for the coldest days but you already have that. The local power company may have incentives and there are many other programs including Federal. Single unit is typically 3500$ approx before any incentives. 4 indoor units 8-11000$ approx. "City Multi" are very well built , high end systems, with plenty of history.

When was the burner updated? If it is older, replace the entire burner assembly. Modern oil burners vs 15 yr old burners, no comparison. Much better.

[lowrider]

Given your present conditions re; propane tank and all i would go with propane furnace and add more insulation anywhere you can stuff it! Geo is somthing you really want to investigate. Install, service, return on investment etc .As with a lot of gas furnaces after 10 years replacement parts become the main issue in keeping it running thats ok for a $2000 furnace. Imagine trying to source geo parts on a 35,000 dollar investment only to be told they don't make that part anymore. Pumps and pipes are one issue but the controls are the one area of concern that makes your investment vulnerable as the system ages. As far as air conditioning goes for us pool water passes through hot coil of air conditioning so it makes air con. super efficient but now that trees are growing around our house air runs less in summer than before. My advice insulate ,propane furnace ,plant some trees.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

Smell of oil in the house:

Use carefull housekeeping techniques.

If working on the system, all materials go in pastic bags and leave the home asap (including gloves!).

Be sure to have your tech check the integrity of the heat exchanger. (This is a serious issue)

Make sure you use a good oil supply filter and handle them carefully to

reduce spillage (plastic bags and absorbtion products) heating oil can linger for a long time. Do not spill a drop in the house!!!

Verify the timing of the atomization/firing. It must be correct to prevent unburned oil/fuel.

[hcw3]

My natural gas hot water boiler died on Sunday, so I can talk directly as to the cost of a high efficiency natural gas hot water boiler. A 75000 btu 90% efficient Weil Mcclain is around $4k installed with existing pipes. It's fairly easy to retrofit hot water heat as it's a plumbing exercise but you have to consider how your AC will work if you have no ductwork (I use splits similar to the heat pump example). I have radiant floor in my lower level and basebaord radiators upstairs. It is a wonderful even heating without dust blowing around, and is very efficient as I spend $60/mo. on gas maybe up to $80 in the coldest months.

If i had all the choices in the world:

1. geothermal

2. natural gas hot water

3. switchable waste oil/fuel oil hot water, with an outside wood burning boiler for supplement/back- up (also insurance for fuel costs). You can also use a pellet stove in an outside boiler and some pellet stoves can be converted to corn cobs if you have a ready source for cobs.

I LOVE my radiant floors where I have them.

Harrison

[Alpinbogen]

I think you've posted boards in front of a fireplace before, right? How about throwing a fireplace insert in there? (assuming you have access to cut/split wood, and don't mind it) We use one for probably 85% of our heating, with the furnace kicking on sometime in the middle of the night when the fire dies down. Very toasty and cheap to keep warm.