Working with the owner of a basic New England Garrison Colonial house. They want to open up the ktichen and dining room wall. Of course the dining room is in the front left of the first floor and the kitchen is in the back left. This style construction the center wall running left to right is a bearing wall.
Have a handle on the steel beam needed to do the opening, but unlike most of the house I work on this one has forced hot air heat, not hydornic. Of course there are at least three duct runs that go to the second floor thru the wall that is to be removed.
There isn’t any easy way I can think of to relocate these ducts So we are considering what other options exist to provide second floor heat.
Wonder if any one on this forum has found a inovative way to deal with this issue.
Some of the ideas we have been tossing around are.
- Add a new forced hot air system in the attic to heat (and possibly cool) the 2nd floor.
- Add hydronic baseboard to the second floor. ( current HVAC heater is on it last legs.
- move the ducts to the exterior walls, sounds like a bad choice.
Any others??
Replies
When faced with the same challenge........
........we incorporated 2 runs into an island that we put at the wall line. Appeared as two posts that "held up" the beam which was inside a long soffit that also held can lights. We used 3 short beams-letting the duct runs continue to the upstairs wall registers.
What Calvin said -- can be done several ways, including an "industrial" look with round spiral ducts, if that appeals to the HOs.
Or you can certainly stick another heating plant in the attic, if there's enough headroom, room for a "legal" (pull-down stair) access, and reasonable load-bearing capacity.
Several ways to do the hydronic thing.
Another possibility is "high velocity" ductwork. It uses significantly smaller ducts and "registers". Mainly used for adding AC to existing hydronic systems, but I presume it can be used for heat as well. Dunno about relative costs.
Ductwork
in the attic or the exterior walls is a bad idea, unless the execution is impeccable. Usually the attic is outside the envelope and the ductwork sweats in the summer and loses a lot of heating/cooling energy year-round. Ducts in exterior walls are also going to lose a lot of energy.
A design solution might be to add a pantry or closet with a false back that conceals ductwork to the second floor. 4" deep by a couple of feet wide might be all you need.
If you want to stick with air and/or you need AC, you could consider a mini-split system to handle the second floor. Dunno how many rooms or what footage you have, but maybe a 2-3 head system, or even a couple of single-head systems. You can get very good performance out of those.
Hydronic is my favorite, especially in my region where we can install an electric boiler inside the envelope and get just about 100% efficiency, or an air/water heat pump and get considerably better. Heated floors are nicer than rads, but either will work.
Whatever you do, I would be considering the long term strategy if the existing equipment is getting close to failure.
Ductwork in the attic or the exterior walls is a bad idea, unless the execution is impeccable.
But we know the OP's work will be impeccable, right?
You're correct that there be dragons, but with proper care it's possible and reasonable. It's mainly a matter of attention to detail -- carefully air-sealing all joints and carefully insulating everything.
A similar situation
I am looking at a fairly extensive remodel in my own house. Similarly to the OP I have forced air and will be taking out walls.
David... I'm intrigued by your comment regarding using a air/water heat pump. I currently have a air source heat pump feeding the forced air furnace. Can this be adapted to a hydronic system? Being in the PNW and on an island, I'm pretty much stuck with electricity for my energy source.
Check out the
Daikin Altherma products. They are designed for hydronic heating.
You're on an island in the PNW, eh? Me too, I wonder if we're neighbors.
David.
David, look up.
http://forums.finehomebuilding.com/breaktime/general-discussion/hvac-ducts-way#comment-2157971
I like Calvin's idea ... to think a bit outside the box. Rethink your options. I take it 'moving to the outside wall' means TO the wall and not IN the wall. Difficult to provide advice w/ the limited information about specifics of exactly what you are dealing with. Think about now AND in the future. Are you just creating a situation that will be revisited soon? If your old furnace is swapped, what will the options be then?
It's probably important to establish what would likely be replaced when the old heating plant is upgraded. If ductwork is "modern" (post-1950 or so) then simply replacing the actual furnace should suffice (though no doubt there will be some reconfig in the utility area, since the new unit will be half the size of the old, and the flue will be gone). If the stuff is older, though (or has major remnants of an older setup), then a complete replacement of ductwork may be in order, and it would be good to get a jump on that now.
If you decide to seperate the upstairs from the downstairs systems, you will need to replace the whole HVAC system. It was sized (oversized?) for the existing layout, and cutting its load in half will cause it to short cycle.
This would probably be a great time to invest in a new high efficiency system(s)
HVAC
Great thoughts everyone, I love this site.
Hadn't thought of the last issue with the sizing of the existing plant separating the zones.
If we moved the ducts to the outside walls, I would open the existing bay. put if solid EPS foam insulation 2+ inches and then furred out the wall 3" for the duct.
I think we need to figure out the true status of the heating plant. Converting the whole house to Hydronic, might be the way to go if the furnace is being replaced anyways.
Hmm...
Sort of neighbors
I'm on Bainbridge Island. It would be a long swim to meet for lunch... but maybe on a hot day?
duct work to attic
The existing heating system is not adequate to provide the necessary heat.
Maybe you should consider electric radiant floorheating. This allows to separate the heating requirement/zoning
You would not need return air ducts, can place furniture anywhere, is very comfortable.
No need to re-configure the existing heating system