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Can somebody give us a cost comparison to install and use a hydro air system vs. conventional hot air system? Also, any helpful information regarding our situation (see below) would be appreciated. We purchased a timber frame home (open floor plan)that has an electric heating system and a propane fueled hot water heater. The house is 3000 sq. finished with another 2000 sq. ft. unfinished (basement and future tv room over garage). The house has an unfinished basement at ground level, main living area on 2nd floor and bedrooms and future TV room on the third floor. We need to add air conditoning and change from electric to oil (we currently pay approx. $3000 a year in electric bills). In a prefect world we want a system that will work for all of the rooms but the open floor plan makes it hard to hide the duct work to the bedrooms and we cannot reach the future TV room with a conventional hot air system. From what we have been told we can’t get air/heat into the bedrooms without boxing in new duct work, so we have considered keeping those rooms on electric heat and adding single unit air conditioners. We have had 3 heat/air contractors to the house and 2 recommended hydro air if we want to get to all of the rooms. We were told that if we go with the conventional hot air system we will still need the existing propane boiler (which needs to be replaced) and a separate system for the TV room over the garage. We have the cost to install the systems but I would like to know a cost comparison to use and mantain the two systems. Is there a system that would work better in the house. We checked out the Hi-V but it doesn’t really help us get into the hard to reach places.
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Can somebody give us a cost comparison to install and use a hydro air system vs. conventional hot air system? Also, any helpful information regarding our situation (see below) would be appreciated. We purchased a timber frame home (open floor plan)that has an electric heating system and a propane fueled hot water heater. The house is 3000 sq. finished with another 2000 sq. ft. unfinished (basement and future tv room over garage). The house has an unfinished basement at ground level, main living area on 2nd floor and bedrooms and future TV room on the third floor. We need to add air conditoning and change from electric to oil (we currently pay approx. $3000 a year in electric bills). In a prefect world we want a system that will work for all of the rooms but the open floor plan makes it hard to hide the duct work to the bedrooms and we cannot reach the future TV room with a conventional hot air system. From what we have been told we can't get air/heat into the bedrooms without boxing in new duct work, so we have considered keeping those rooms on electric heat and adding single unit air conditioners. We have had 3 heat/air contractors to the house and 2 recommended hydro air if we want to get to all of the rooms. We were told that if we go with the conventional hot air system we will still need the existing propane boiler (which needs to be replaced) and a separate system for the TV room over the garage. We have the cost to install the systems but I would like to know a cost comparison to use and mantain the two systems. Is there a system that would work better in the house. We checked out the Hi-V but it doesn't really help us get into the hard to reach places.