Advice wanted on new heating system
Its time to consider replacing the heating system and I’m looking for anyone’s experiences to help me out. Some particulars:
My home is a 1737 2 story colonial (1960 sq ft) with a 2000 2 story addition (1440 sq ft) for a total of 3400 sq ft. The old house had been converted to a 2 family (upstairs and downstairs) before I bought it and there were two of everything (furnaces, electrical systems, hot water heaters, etc). I’m slowly taking it back to a single family.
The old house has no insulation in the walls (but it has fiberglass batts in the attic floor). the new addition is 8″ SIP walls with lots of blown in insulation in the attic. There’s oil-fired baseboard heat in the old house and radiant floor heat on the main floor and master bath, with baseboard in the remainder of the upstairs in the new addition. (The outside walls of the old house are planned to be insulated next spring)
My furnace maintainer is trying to sell me on converting the two 45 year old furnaces to a single high efficiency unit. I see the benefit, but don’t know a thing about the various brands out there. If I need an oil-burning unit that will run the baseboard, radiant floor, and also provide hot water, what brands does any one have experience with?
Art
Replies
You should insulate first. If you put in the furnace now then insulate in the future your furnace will be way oversized and will short cycle which is costly and inefficient. If you insulate first you'll save tons of money on fuel and be able to buy a smaller furnace. The fuel savings could almost pay for the furnace in a year or two.
Redoing the heat now will also through the whole system out of whack. You'll need much more square footage of radiating surface (whether baseboard, in the floor, or whatever) in the rooms with no insulation. Then after the insulation is in there will be too much and it will be difficult to control the temperature comfortably.
If you can't insulate now, better to limp through the winter on what you have.