My parents recently moved to Boston and I was wondering why quite a few of the homes they are looking at seem to have at least 2 or sometimes 3 methods of heat. They all seem to have scorched air and oil heat and some even have hot water radiators on top of the other two, just wondering why? Never lived in the north east before and in the midwest where I grew up homes generally only have one method of heat?
Replies
In the northeast, as in the rest of the country, most homes have only one main heating system. (Some rural houses, however, have a wood stove in addition to a fossil-fuel heating system.) Presumably, when you say "scorched air," you mean forced air. Forced air furnaces can have a variety of fuels, including natural gas, propane, oil, or wood. The all use forced air for distribution. It is possible that the radiators you saw are not operational. If operational, old cast-iron radiators indicate either steam heat or hydronic (hot water) heat. A boiler, like a furnace, can be fueled by gas, oil, or wood. It is rare for a home to have both forced air and hyrdonic distribution, but it is possible. In some "hydro-air" systems, a boiler is used to produce hot water, which may be circulated in some rooms (often in radiant floors), and may also be distributed in some other rooms via hot air ducts. In this case, a hot-water coil in the plenum allows the air distribution system to pick up heat from the boiler.
Martin Holladay
Thanks for the explanation, I know next to nothing on the subject, but when I was looking at the specs of the house on the web, quite a few two methods of heat, maybe I have just misread them.
My expereince growing up in the NE was that hot water heat was most prevelent. Forced air systems have often been added or included for air conditioning.
I don't know recent trends there, though.
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There's more!
The NEis one of the oldest settled parts of the country so it has a high number of extremely old homes. Additions and renovations sometimes require more heat than the original system could produce. Over the yeras different systems are designed and pushed to the front. In the late sixties, a lot of folks got convinced that electric heat was the way to go so they've got the original coal burner in the parlor on a chimney gathering dust, a boiler system rusting away in the basement, and electric resistance units sending the power bill sky high so they install a Monitor because they hear about the neighbors and how much they like theirs, no matter that it's wrong for their house.
I have one customer who doesn't want to see or hear his heating system so as we renovated, we put in as much radiant as possible to his wood floors but that won't quite cut it. Other areas needed more heat so we supplied it from the boiler via heat exchangers on ducts with fan unit removed as far as possible to separate noise from room.
Wood heat is really nice when the power goes out. On this island, that averages once a week.
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