HVAC recommendation?

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Greenwood
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HVAC recommendation?

Post by Greenwood »

The two story addition on my 1912 foursquare is finally coming to the point where plumbing/electric/hvac is going in. Quite suddenly the builder proposed some new ideas for hvac, and now I have to think it through for a decision on Monday. I'm wondering if anyone here can assist with some ideas or opinions?

What I have in the original part of my house is a 1997 mid-efficiency furnace with 8"ducting that doesn't perfectly fit into my original vents, and for whatever reason the blowing in the upstairs is not strong. The central air conditioner is 1974 and replacing it was part of the deal with the builder.
The original plan was to simply add new ducts and new vents to the three levels of the addition, but this week the plumber advised he could only install 5 vents in total, which would not really be enough for comfort during the -30 C temperatures we often get in winter where I live. So now, tossing around new ideas.

The addition is this: a basement that will be used primarily as a games room. The main floor will be used for a family room and small bathroom. The upstairs will be a large master bedroom with medium sized bathroom and small walk in closet.

Some ideas to think about: in-floor electric heat in basement; same for bathroom and closet upstairs. Furnace vent heat to main floor; electric wall heat in upstairs bedroom.
The cons of electric heat in upstairs is that there is no air conditioning. I would then have to install a window or room-sized air conditioner.
Or, replace my old furnace entirely and redo all ducting for more efficiency all around.
The cons of this are the increase in cost and time it would take to complete (my stupid project is already a year behind! and it is already -20C here)
Or install new or in the addition only a hi-velocity furnace for all three levels in old and new part of house or just new part of house.
Cons are cost and time to complete, as well as few tradespersons experienced in installation and maintenance.

So many ideas. I like the idea of re-doing the whole house, but I'm not a fan of forced air. It's so dry and when the furnace cuts out in winter it cools off quickly.
I like the in-floor heat in the basement and upstairs bathroom area. I don't like the idea of no AC in the upstairs, nor not having a single thermostat that controls all areas.
Any suggestions or ideas? Is having a patchwork of heating systems silly?

Greenwood
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by Greenwood »

LoL, problem may have resolved itself to some degree as this afternoon the furnace motor stopped working (it's been running for a month and a half straight, to keep up with the cold and my renovation-exposed house).
Where's Mike Holmes when you need him?

Seabornman
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by Seabornman »

I hear lots of praise for "mini-split" heat pumps such as the Mitsubishi units, which gives you efficient heating and cooling. It also gives you a box that hangs on the wall, which is kind of obtrusive. And in -30 weather I assume that the unit will need electric resistant heat to keep up. I know people who have these and like the individual controls and low bills.

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Jeepnstein
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by Jeepnstein »

We did ducted mini splits. No units on the wall. They're awesome.

phil
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by phil »

In my house I dont; have a lot of forced air in the attic , some but the heat wants to rise anyway. AC is the opposite. also heat lost from lower flors leaks upwards to the attic but attic heat gets completely lost upwards through the roof so maybe there is some savings in not ducting too much up there if it isn't needed.

I personally wouldn't want in floor heat because although it can feel nice and constant, that might be a great feature if you are retired and home all day but if you work then you probably don't want the heat up all day and the recovery time is long.You can save by letting the heat drop lower when you aren't home and that is easily accomplished with a timer and that saves energy and you can program it to come on before you arrive home. of course the higher you keep the heat the more difference from inside to outside and the more heat lost.

I'm not sure that I agree about the dry air, I certainly don't have issues with that, I want my house to be dry inside.

a new furnace motor is an insignificant cost compared to the money you are thinking of spending I wouldn't let that coincidence phase you one bit. you can get a new motor for about 50 bucks or so.. its easy to change.

If you want electric you have to look to your panel and decide if it can handle the current. If it can electric baseboards are probably a good solution for rooms that are used intermittently. heaters with fans are noisier and the motors have issues eventually but baseboards take wall space. Probably gas is more efficient when you look at dollars to BTU's IF you need a new panel and larger wire to support electric that might be a cost factor too.

If you aren't getting enough heat upstairs it probably needs to be tuned. try dropping a book over the heat vent in the warmest area to get a feel for what happens if you throttle that line closed a little, then it should be forced elsewhere, the air takes the easiest path of course. perhaps if you aren't getting enough heat to the attic it isn't being returned properly. of course you can't push air into a room without it returning or it would have to expand like a balloon ;-)

my attic has no air returns but there is a big gap under the door up there, that's the air return. How you get the heat to the room is only half the equation. It still needs to get back to the furnace somehow.

You might have some trade offs with space for ducting. one nice thing about electric is not needing the ducting.

If you ever plan suites, they can't share the air space so sometimes electric is a good solution as you'll need to separate the air zones. sometimes Ill simply put a book over a heat vent in a room I'm not using and it's easy to remove it when I am using the room. likewise you can just turn off electric in spare rooms and such.

with a lot of old houses they let the heat come up the center through a central grate, then when we go to forced air they want to blow it out under the windows. often there are some workarounds already in place, and you may find areas where the return is too close to the vent so it's sort of short circuiting itself. warmer air takes more space so return ducts can be smaller , there is a lot of engineering factors like that so it's hard for the average joe or even a lot of "specialists" to comprehend all the factors at play into scientific decisions. We can understand these theories but the calculations would be almost impossible as there are so many factors at play.. so a lot has to be trial and error. the lack of scientific calculations may give some of the contractors theories that make sense as they are supported by common physics. but could be way off in reality. If they are trying to up-sell it is an easy area to get opinions that are a bit over inflated so I'd be cautious of someone "advising you" on one hand and taking your money with the other.


Phil

Greenwood
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by Greenwood »

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I looked into ducted mini splits and hi-velocity and will discuss both with the HVAC folks when I see them (in the ongoing ridiculousness of this renovation, they were supposed to start work on Monday and did not show up). The mini-splits are not common here and I wonder about their ability to install them properly and maintain them over time.

I agree the heat run calculations involved are mystical, and it's further complicated by the fact that the addition will be built 'air tight' with heating under windows and scientifically calculated velocities etc, but it's connected to my cold and drafty old house with inefficient duct work running up the centre of the house. I'm thinking a lot of luck is involved in getting a system that works well for both parts of my house.

I wasn't clear on the description of my addition - it's a two story addition with a basement. So those are the three levels - basement, main floor, second floor (what I call the upstairs). Attic - a fourth level - is unconditioned space.

Phil - I think heating this house on the prairies is quite a bit different than heating on the coast. Forced air is the norm here, electric is typically used to keep pipes from freezing in winter for cabins/cottages, or for additions where ducting isn't practical. Electric is not cost-effective as a whole house principal heating system. For a bathroom it might work, and I get your point about heated floors being for comfort and not all-over warming. I hopefully would have a programmable thermostat. I have that for my house now and it has definitely reduced my heating costs. I'm on equalized payments for my natural gas heating and pay $95 a month ($1140/year). Having had my furnace run constantly since September means my 'settle up' will be really high in January and then the monthly costs will increase unnaturally for the following year. It will take another year after that for the true cost of heating my new house to be established.

My renovation has been quite painful and costly to me in ways that are not identified in the contract. Do other people have stories like this? What I mean is, I signed the contract in September 2016, for work to be completed before Christmas 2016.
Work didn't even start until May 2017 and was re-negotiated to be done by October 2017. As of now - end of November - I have a basement, an outside shell, and nothing else. It's been like that for 6 weeks. No windows, no insulation, no wiring, no HVAC, etc. I'm looking at end of January 2018 for completion now.
At every re-negotiating stage we've been through the Builder says once "insert stage of building here" is done, then it will move quickly. But that's never the case.
I'm paying higher insurance fees, $210 a month on a storage unit, increased heating and electrical costs, and I had to take a holiday in a hotel last weekend because the cold and frustration was wearing me down. The toll on my mental health has been significant.
I've probably been too patient with the builder and ought to have fired him a year ago. I missed that opportunity. But I think my patience has run out - this frog is ready to jump out of the pan. Has anyone fired a builder mid-project? Any advice on that?

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Manalto
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by Manalto »

It doesn't sound like "mid-project" to me; he's barely started. I'm not sure about Canadian law, but some quick advice from a lawyer should inform you if he has violated his contract, which seems apparent from what you've said, unless you've left out details from the fine print. Have you found someone to replace this contractor? It might be worthwhile to ask around, to avoid further delay when transitioning.

CS in Low Hud
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by CS in Low Hud »

Hi Greenwood,

Sorry to hear about your contractor troubles. That sounds awful.

Regarding HVAC, we have a 90+ year old home that we added a two-story addition with a basement onto about 12 years ago in New York's lower Hudson valley. At the time, I wanted to preserve and add to the steam rad system for heat in the new addition, and then add AC across the whole house. The cost for expanding the steam system properly, though was cost prohibitive, and for comparatively little additional money, we were able to add a heat unit to the high velocity AC system that we were adding. I would have considered the ductless mini-split units, but I hated how the wall units looked in old home settings (it's interesting to hear Jeepnstein mention a version of this that gets rid of those wall units!).

Anyway, here's my notes after 12 years of living with the Unico high velocity system:

Overall, the system works great, is very quiet in most rooms, cools and heats the house quickly, and has been fairly efficient to run.

The heat is wayyyy drier than the steam system was, however, and I wish that there was a humidifying module that could have been added to the system at the time. There IS now, and if I were you, I would consider asking for that, if you elect to go with a system like this (or any type of forced air system). In the summer with AC, though, the quick reduction in humidity that the system delivers, is an asset. You wont want any humidifying then!

The new two-story addition holds the heat and cooling a lot more easily than the old part of the house. Our installer planned the ducts based upon room size, but it would have been better if he had also taken the old vs new into account. Our master bedroom in the new section, for example, has six outlets. That has turned out to be way too many, and I block five of them in the winter to keep the room from overheating. Part of the problem is that I made the whole house a single zone to save money. Had I had the cash, creating multiple zones - old and new and/or 1st floor and 2nd floor - would have made things easier to balance.

For what it's worth, I also added electric radiant heat under the two upstairs bathroom floors. That was more about comfort, as the rooms are heated and cooled by the high velocity system. But it sure is nice in the winter time! They have separate very programmable thermostats, so they heat the floors to a toasty state when we are home and using the bathrooms, but otherwise drop the temps down during the off peek times. And of course you can shut them off in the summer or when you are going to be away.

I don't heat the basement, but it only drops down to around 55 or 60 degrees during the winter months. That said, it's not a finished basement, like you are proposing, and other than laundry, we don't spend much time down there.

Chris

phil
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by phil »

my system is old. pale green furnace, probably 60's? probably really inefficiant but I cant; afford these updates so unless it conks out im continuing on..
I do ahve a lot of heat coming into my basement , probably not too efficient.
You are right we get so much rain here that any sort of humidifier isn't needed. I get a lot of heat in the bathroom and have no fan in there but it seems to work OK like that for now.
I agree with trying to locate others before you fire the contractor. i can feel the frustration and I;d be steaming mad a long time before I got tot hat point so you are obviously incredibly patient.. I try to do all I can myself. its slow but I'm all I can afford with the mortgage costs here. if things are slow Im to blame and I usually do everything as well as I can..
one thing with here there is so much building and deconstruction that there are a lot of materials and things free on craigslist. I watch it a lot and do pick stuff up and I do use most of it.. so unless it needs to happen, I plan my renos around what I have to use up rather than what makes the most sense ;-) If you have spouse to keep happy thats important too and you can;t put a price to that.

insulation pays off.. I'd pack whatever you can in. I did my living room wiht that foam board. it's the same stuff as the spray foam in cans but comes in sheets. most of the rest is roxul. I stopped using fiberglass because it isn't great as a sound barrier and it's loud here..

blankets over doorways and plastic over windows might help a little as a temporary solution to keeping what you have in the rooms you use. Myhouse was pretty bad when I bought it so during the electrical and drywall stages I lived through hell so I can relate.. I;d be a pest to the contractors and call them so often they got sick of me,, then they will be glad to walk away if they arent; going to do the work you agreed upon. I'd likely go so far as tracking them to other worksites that they are on and yelling at them in front of other customers and having conversations with them.. Try opening a call with the BBB it's easy to do. Id put that hotel bill in as an expense incurred by them and whatever else you can think of..or start proceedings for small debts court. Be in their face until they either do it or get out of it.Its a poo or get off the pot situation. I hate hearing these stories. It happens way too much! I'm pretty calm usually but stuff like that gets my blood boiling.. maybe you know others that could call them and get them uptight.. lots of calls on their work phone or even in the evening from different friends that are concerned about what they are putting you through could put so much pressure on them that they cave and focus on your job until it's done.. and they can't do much about it if it is several people calling incessantly.. and businesses dont; like changing their number.. I't probably be upfront ot begin with and just tell him you are going to ramp up the pressure if it isn't resolved. you could even put a sign up saying this house has been under reno by "contractors name" since "date" and they "still aren't finished !" that's really bad advertising for them, the paper might even print it.. you just have to make sure it can't be taken to court so a lawyer could perhaps help make sure you don't cross legal boundaries.

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Gothichome
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Re: HVAC recommendation?

Post by Gothichome »

At one time, they installed adjustable baffles in the ducting of forced air systems. You could then ‘balance’ the system and adjust were the heat went. You can still get the baffles at most hardware stores.
Greenwood I know this info may not help you much.
Have spent 40 years in Alberta I know how cold it gets. I think with the availability of gas I would stick to the basics and go with forced air in the addition and maybe look into those duct baffles for the older section.

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