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$5000 bucks, installed, to heat a 400 sf space, in a moderate-climate area? Crazy expensive. Projected savings from energy bill is $200/year. Doin' the math, I'd be in my nineties when I broke even. Falling energy prices don't matter here in OR; we're hydro-powered. Even the local energy company rebate doesn't make a big diff ($750).
Solution: there's a working floor heating system in the master bath: it's changed our perception of heating, entirely. There is nothing like being half-asleep and stepping onto those warm tiles on a cold morning. At one time, there also was a radiant system in the master bedroom: we've decided to get an electrician in and look into getting that working again: floor heating by far now is our preferred method (can't do it for the rest of the home 'cause it's already on a gas furnace that has highest efficiency rating and it's not old enough to scrap).
Anyone else here have radiant? This isn't a pipe system, it's an electric-wire-embedded-in-something (can't tell what 'cause there cork flooring above it).
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... Unless you are doing things for the specific intention of improving the home for sale I think it is silly to look at climate control as an investment.
The reality is you want to control the temperature for your own, comfort/pleasure/amenity/wellbeing.
What price do you put on your own comfort?
My main priority is being comfortable. I could save a lot of money by having no climate control at all. To be blunt, I'd much rather have less money and be comfortable all year around than to have more money and not comfortable all year around.
Your situation is simply a matter of you prioritizing your own wants/desires. Is being comfortable more important to you or is having more money important to you?
I have always chosen the former and will continue do so whilst ever possible.
Smile
Sox
----------------------
"Have you a water buffalo?"
I think that you may find the radiant system to be quite expensive as well, depending upon the particulars of your install. I would look at oil-filled baseboard units. What about ac - that's what is nice about the split systems. Do you have the capacity for electric heating in your panel?
the extreme and by far the most pleasurable heating choice.
There is usually a reason (not good) why such things are disconnected. Hope it works out.
home.
very slow to heat up, and when it gets warm enough and you turn it down it takes a long time to taper off. Lived with it in Palo Alto in the 1960s, most of the homes that had it have turned it off and had heating systems installed.
Expect lengthy periods of too cool followed later by too warm. It gets old real fast.
extreme temp variations, it works great. Nowadays (not the case when you lived in an Eichler, obviously), a programmable, multiple-adjustment thermostat eliminates those long heat up periods; also, ours is not water-pipe based, but rather electric coil.
We also have two working fireplaces, one huge one in the great room. But, because this is an urban area, we don't use it as a primary source of heating because of the air pollution; wood is plenty cheap around here, though…
BTW, how did you like living in the Eichler? Today, it's still a very popular design with homes in the Bay area fetching premium prices.
and moved into one and shared it with a guy who worked for Lockheed and sent spy satellites up...very hush hush kinda guy. The house was a piece of crap. The heating sucked. the walls were just wood, no insulation. Probably the cheapest house I ever lived in. Kitchen was a joke, totally ugy to boot. It was at 280 W Charleston, PA
They go for millions now, only because of the PA location and school system.
were notoriously inefficient and many had leaky roofs. Quality, also, was lacking in many.
The ones that fetch those prices nowadays mostly have extensively been redone, with modern membrane roofing, insulation (where possible), and double or triple pane glazing.
I like the way those designs erase the divide between living space and garden--- but they can make you feel, I bet, like you're living in an aquarium.
if you have a spare 1.35 Very Large you can own it. With an Eichler if there is a fire you can escape simply by running at the closest wall.
What you say is absolutely true; it's not the ideal heating configuration for a "programmable set-back" heat zone. We designed our new (well, I guess it's not so new any more -- we've had an occupancy permit for over two years now) house with a mixture of hot-water baseboard and radiant heat. You can see one of the radiant heat zones' manifolds in the top right of the photo above, mounted on the grey board.
One up-side to radiant -- it uses warm (not hot) water to heat, so it can be quite efficient in that regard.
It is absolutely wonderful in the bathrooms and the mudroom (entry from the garage) under tile floors -- it is SO nice, in the dead of winter, to traipse into the bathroom in the middle of the night... and the floor is warm. The whole first floor is radiant; we have baseboard heat in the bedrooms upstairs. Radiant is most effective in spaces with exposed hard, bare flooring (pine board and tile, in our case); I do also have it in the hifi room, under carpet. Special carpet pad is required. It actually works really well in that space (thankfully).
We also put radiant heat into the garage slab (since the hifi room is above the garage, it was necessary to heat the latter). This is really, really nice... we'll see how practical it will be in the long run.
The aesthetics of radiant are also nice (no vents nor baseboards)-- we didn't put air conditioning in the house, although we thought hard about it. Given the global climate changes, I do second-guess myself round about early July, though :-)
We'll see how well it holds up...I do worry about what happens when (probably 'when' as opposed to if) there's a leak.
all the best,
mrh
had the pipes buried in a concrete pad. When a pipe broke or leaked they had to break up the slab inside the house to fix it. That happened years after I moved from our house...All the Eichler's in PA had this heat system.
Nowadays the only heat we use is wood stoves. Right now the whole house is a toasty 78 and outside it is 41. Toss in an oak log at bed time and we awake to a house that is still 70 degrees with hot coals waiting for a fresh log.
Regulation of temp is by the type of log tossed in as well as the size.
The stove is freestanding and not near a wall.
The bathroom uses one of those instant on water heaters and it is at the back of the cupboard where our towels are kept. Stepping out of the shower/bath one grabs a nice warm towel to dry off, a real luxury...
It looks like radiant has come along ways if it is under a wooden floor.....
I use a soapstone woodstove at my cabin, and I have yet to see temperatures where it can't keep up, although I've admittedly not been there when it's 20 below. A ceiling fan really helps to keep the heat distributed. The cabin's in the middle of a forest - there's downed wood everywhere, so it seems silly not to take advantage of nature's offereings.
"Live Free or Die!" :-)
Actually, Mrs. H and I are sittin' in front of a fire as I type this. We have a moderately efficient fireplace insert in the LR; not an airtight stove, but it is pretty, burns evenly and slowly, and draws its air from outside (I guess all FPs do nowadays). Close the door and it works sorta like a real woodstove. Sorta.
Amusingly... it's a French Canadian product that has a sliding glass door and screen, guillotine-style. The model's name, of course... is Antoinette.
:-)
all the best,
mrh
occasionally being a "true" fireplace with an open burn. Nothing like the smell and the sound combined with the direct heat.
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