What do people prefer radiators or forced air heat?
Question:What do you like about either one? does putting in forced air heat add value to your home?
Trying to decide whether to remove radiators and put in forced air and central air in an older home. If you leave the radiators what do you do for ac?
Answers:
I guess it depends on who you are. Forced fan produces results faster whereas radiators slower. So I guess the real question is how cold are you and how fast do you want to get warm?
There are options for those types of homes with radiators to have a central AC option, it is used in Europe I believe. Forced air is always the way to go. Radiators generally are a dry, dry, heat. I prefer the forced air. Forced air adds value to your home.. baseboard heaters and radiators according to my real estate agent, take away.
I would prefer forced air/central heating. It is much more cost effective and much easier to maintian. If I owned an old house that came with rads , I would keep the rads to keep with the original bones of the place. IF i left the rads I would put in window rattlers for A/C. But I would prefer central heating and A/C
Boilers (radiators) do not cause dry conditions as stated before. They maintain the temperature within .75 degrees as opposed to 3 or 4 degrees with forced air. They are quieter too. I will always recommend a boiler over gas or electric.
Drawback is initial speed. If you turn the thermostat down, it takes a while for the temp to come back up when it is turned back up. (A programmable thermostat takes care of that problem.)
With gas prices what they are, an outdoor woodburning boiler may be a good option as well.
I have baseboard radiator heat and the thing I don't like about it is that it is running all the way around the outside walls of every room in my house.
Arranging the furniture gets tricky.
We have a big a/c in the living room wall that cools all the 1st floor.
Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms and each one has a window a/c unit, a real pain to put them in and out every year.
When we had added on 2 rooms upstairs I wanted to put in a central air unit and everyone, including my husband, talked me out of it due to the cost of putting in the whole system. But I can't see as 4 a/c units would be any cheaper.
The heating system is efficient and clean.
My mom's house has forced air heat and central air and the a/c is much more quieter than my walll unit. It does need to have a humidifier running during the heating season and that is filled every day taking about 5 gallons per day to make the air comfortable.
So really I guess it is all up to the individual and how much money you want to spend. Also what climate you live in.
I find it hard to believe that forced air OR radiators have any effect on the value of your home. (assuming that you current radiators heat the home well enough). I do not have radiators in my home I have baseboard heating which function much in the same way. Radiators/baseboard heating have the advantage of a more consistent/even heat, they use the more natural way of distributing heat (no mechanical apparatus to make the cool air sink or the hot air rise). It makes raising the temp slower but more comfortable. Forced air uses a fan to blow the hot air into the room and suck the cool air to your return ducts. It's a faster heat delivery system but not quite as comfortable and also kicks up much more dust. As far as A/C forced air is your only option. I hope this helps
Nice Question. I thought about that myself when I bought my house in a similar situation.
It does not add value to have forced air. However, central air does. I bought my house with central air and radiators and I am really happy with it.
If you are thinking that you would use the same vents to provide hot and cold air in your house, you are wrong.
Hot air rises & cold air drops down. So A/C vents are on the ceiling and the forced air vents will be on your floors or lower end of walls.
If you already have radiators it makes economic sense to put in central air. Also, central air would be possible only on your topmost floor because the vents would come down from the attic. If you try and create another zone for vents downstairs you might have to rip your floors/ceilings to put in a vent.
On a hot summer day, if you keep your doors closed, the Central air can provide cool air two storeys down all the way to the basement provided there is no open window/door for hot air to come in. As I mentioned earlier, hot air will rise and the cold air will try push down.
The downside of forced air is that if something were to go wrong in your oil furnace, black soot will be given out through the vents. It will cover every inch of your house in black color. It will appear as if someone spray painted your house black from the inside. It has happened to a friend of mine and I would certainly stay away from it.
Hope this helps.
forced air heat and ac
comfy and easy to maintain
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