Hey guys, poking my head in from the Fence here. I have a bit of a putting the cart before the horse problem that I’m hoping you-all can lend some insight into.
We have a 1700 SF Cape cod, very open concept house in Southern Ontario Canada that is all windows. The previous owner/builder did an OK job putting it together, but never got around to putting in a furnace. We heat with baseboard heaters and woodstoves with an annual cost of about $600 in wood plus whatever the baseboards use (can’t really separate it from the rest of the electricity costs).
We bought the house knowing we would be doing a gut job in a couple years to upgrade various systems, and high on the list was a good heat system. At that time we also wanted to double the house’s footprint, rewire the hydro, and replumb the house. Since then our budget has taken a beating and the improvements have moved to a further horizon. In the meantime we would like to get the heat system in the house a little more dependable/working. We wake up to inside temps around 6° C (43° F) through the winter.
What we want to do is put in a reliable, efficient system that can be expanded once we build on. We don’t have gas to the property, but could do propane. The property is an acre and a half with a drilled well and a seasonal stream (geothermal??). We have the hydro to run an electric furnace if we want to go that route. There are no ducts in the house. Also no AC, but it would be nice to have it in the future, although it isn’t a must-have.
Right now the gov’t is offering incentives to push home efficiency projects. If we billed this as a conversion from electric baseboard heat to somethign more efficient, there could be a sizeable rebate, but we would have to put the system in now.
Do any of you guys with HVAC experience have thoughts on this? My immediate thought is to convert to radiant floors with geothermal, but I don’t know how expandable that is. If Geothermal can run off our existing water well and drain into the creekbed, we could be looking at a $5,000 rebate on a $10,000 system, bringing it down to the same cost as a propane/oil furnace (factoring for landscaping, tank install, etc.)
I appreciate your thoughts.
If it can die, I can kill it.
Certified Brown Thumb, 4th degree
Edited 10/16/2009 5:00 pm ET by Dagwood
Edited 10/16/2009 5:31 pm ET by Dagwood
Replies
Are you on a crawlspace, basement, or slab?
8' basement, non-insulated block, house is stick framed with 2X6 exterior walls, cedar siding exterior and set up for big time solar gains.
Here is a pic of the house to give a feel for it: http://ravens-rook.blogspot.com/2007/08/before-photos.html
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If it can die, I can kill it.Certified Brown Thumb, 4th degree
Edited 10/16/2009 5:18 pm ET by Dagwood
Probably the lowest-cost long-term solution (short of heating entirely with self-harvested wood) is some sort of heat pump, either air-sourced, ground-sourced, or water-sourced. Ground/water-sourced would be more efficient, but more expensive initially and higher maintenance. (And note that you may have to jump through some regulatory hoops for the water-sourced setup, depending on local regulations.)
Another option is a "hybrid" system with both (air-sourced) heat pump and propane burner. This is a good choice in areas where the temps frequently fall below what's efficient for an air-sourced heat pump alone (roughly 20F, depending on system design).
You say you're considering radiant, but keep in mind that a heat pump "boiler" is trickier (and more expensive) to make work than it's hot-air-producing cousin, and generally you'd have to go with ground/water-sourced vs air-sourced.
Thanks Dan - if we went ground sourced, some local vendors show a system that taps into the water well at the pressure tank, that could evade having to drill a well - a considerable savings. If conservation authority goes for it we could outflow to a stream on the property. We have good flow with a 125 foot drilled well. I don't know how long it would take to kill the pump in the well running it constantly though.
The indoor componenets still sound tricky though. Your hybrid suggestion sounds interesting.
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If it can die, I can kill it.Certified Brown Thumb, 4th degree
Edited 10/16/2009 5:35 pm ET by Dagwood
Edited 10/16/2009 5:37 pm ET by Dagwood
Yeah, if you're drawing water from the well and not returning it you have to worry about drawing down the well too far, maybe violating local rules about how much you draw, how much you dump into the creek, etc. Some water-sourced setups use a return well (on the order of 100 feet from the source well) to avoid draining the aquifer, but that creates a potential for contamination, so some rules prohibit that.You have enough different issues to consider that it's not going to be a simple decision. Among others, you have to consider what the lead time is on the system you pick, relative to when the rebates turn into a pumpkin. A complex system could take months to get installed.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz