Tell me about Hot water baseboard heat?
 

Looking at buying a house built in 1955,very nice brick house.I noticed the house has Hot water baseboard heat.Is that good or bad?I know nothing about it,the heating unit looks like it is only 10 years old.Thanks in advance!:)

I love my baseboard heat!no drafts,consistant warmth..3zones here.a zone is each area of the home you will heat when the t_stat calls for heat..take the time to remove the "covers"and vacuum ,blow out the debris from previous owners lack of maintenance..nice evenheat..

My 2 homes as a kid were hydronic,as well as the 1st house I bought. Much more efficient than forced air,especially if it is a newer unit. I WISH I had hydronic in my current home. If they ran lines under the basement floor,even better.
Drawback is that a new hydronic "furnace" I believe is double what a comparable forced air would run. Also many older homes with hydro heat don't have central A/C,too expensive for most people to run ducting just for the luxury of A/C.

The only time I have had hot water heat when I was stationed in Germany in the mid 80s.We had the old style radiators and mine you could not shut off completely.I had to open the windows when I was in there!

Is it expensive?I would not think it would be very efficent?

The house does have central air.I was thinking of converting to gas forced air in a couple of years using the central air ducting.

Great heating system, over the years I had it in two houses, one natural gas fired and one oil fired (Long Island). Great even heat, in my opinion much better than forced air, BUT, no ducts for central air.

cast iron baseboard hot water is the best. radiators stay hot when furnace is off for a long time. i had two houses with it & i loved it.

I will snap a couple pics of unit tomorrow,they are inspecting the house then.

Hot water baseboard heat
 

I have hot water baseboard heat in my shore house.
It's wonderful when we go there in the winter
Turn it up to 70, and 20 minutes later the house is toasty! ;)
There is no sudden burst of warmth follower by a slow cooling off period like a forced hot air furnace, just a steady, warm heat.
I can't compare the cost of one to the other, but if I had to choose, it would be hot water baseboard heat any day.
Ron

Hot water baseboard speaks quality. Most houses have forced air because it's cheaper to install and is also compatible with AC. Hot water baseboard is a more even heat. You will like it.

I'm happy to get the great responses,it just puzzles me why it is not more popular?

Does it cost more to use hot water BB vs forced air?

I have a boiler with 2 exchange units (radiators in a housing with fans and filters) (one in basement and one in attic). The boiler warms the water and circulates thru the radiators. Then a fan blows the warm air through insulated duct work. This is a great system because you alos install central air.

Initial expense,and it can be more expensive to fix.
The BB SHOULD be a little more efficient to run.

Baseboard water heat
 

Blue 66 you have stumbled upon one of the most efficient systems on the market (by coincidence). 1) you have forced air A/C with duct work. You can install an A coil in the air plenum that circulates hotwater for the damp/cool days when you don't want the baseboard rads coming up to tempearture. These are designed for the cool spring/fall mornings and nights where you only want supplemental heat until the sun comes up and the ambient temperature of the outside air is greater than the inside air temperature. 2) You can install a gas/oilfired (computer controlled) water boiler that supplies both your domestic and your heating water for your baseboards. The gas units hang on the wall and are about the size of a 24 of beer. The way they work is if you turn on your kitchen hot water tap then the computer diverts the water to your faucet. The minute you shut off the tap the computer diverts the water back to the baseboards until the thermostat shuts the boiler off. You never run out of hotwater. I would suspect this might already be the case as the contractor wouldn't have all these features you describe and not know what he was doing. It would be like walking into someones garage and there is a set of ram air 1V heads laying on the floor, matching block etc and the owner telling you the previous owner removed them up at a salvage yard but didn't know if they were worth anything. Ed

Baseboard hot water is great for heat. The cost to add AC is not. Space pac units are expensive to install and maintain.

Thank you Ed for the explanation.I will get some pics in a couple hours so you can see what I have.The heating unit looks small and there is a small tank near the ceiling that is a little larger diameter than a 2 liter bottle and it goes into the wall.

Thank you everyone who has posted

Ok here is a couple pics.The inspector thought the unit was pretty old.

Baseboard water heat
 

The unit looks to be from the 80's, they were a good brand name. You can easily upgrade to a high efficiency unit and go from there. Boiler unit and circuit board wholesale costs around 2200.00 Cdn. I would have to see the baseboard units to tell you the efficiency of those. Too bad you're so far away I have a line on 50-60 units that were removed from a brand new condo unit. Could give you a real deal on them. I sold over 80 units last year for 150.00/each. They retailed for about 1000.00/each.

installed many wiel mclain boilers, mostly oil heat. good boiler older one but not bad, more efficient these days

Baseboard heat has the second best heating curve out there. The first one is in floor heating. Those old weil mclains are not as effcient as the new ones but they are very reliable. Not to much to break on them. If maintained good you'll probably get another 10 years or so out of it.

The current owners cranked up the heat for the inspection and it was great even warmth.It took a little time to get the temp up from the 48 degrees they keep it at but no big deal.

Thanks for the advise/comments!!

If you buy this house,I bet you'll love this set up.
Like I said I wish my current house had it.

Ive got the heated floor in my garage and its wonderful. The heat source needs to be changed as its using a 30 gal electric water tank. But the warmth is awesome. I can open the garage door to pull the car in or out and then shut the door and it still feels warm. If I ever build a house ill have heated floors in it. Of course Ill probably never build my own house.

We have not bought it yet but everything is the progressing along.

Something also great about baseboard heat. Very little dusting tables ,tv's etc.My wife wishes we had in our new house . You don't miss it till you don't have it.
George

I grew up with forced hot air and dont miss it one bit. No waking up with dried out sinuses and itchy eyes. 2nd best thing to radiant floor heat. You will like the hot water baseboard.

baseboard heat is better then central air any day. But radiant floor heat Just rocks. Spent this last fall converting my house to radiant floor heat.It is just awsome. warm floors.even heat thruout. Dont have to worry about blocking the radiators. Definitly the way to go if you can. Then for the summer time we installed a pair of ductless A/c units upstairs. (live in a bi level) they cool the house down nicly.

Only drawback as you saw with baseboard is its slow. wel-Mclain is excellent quality.
keep the burner tuned and youll be all set

New questions?
 

Will the baseboard heat work in a power outage?(Since there is no blower)


We are supposed to close on the house tuesday!It has taken longer than we thought.

5000 watt generator
 

Buy yourself a 5000 watt generator and have it ready for extended power outages. Have it wired into the panel. You will need to power the boiler and pumps anyway or you won't get any heat anyways. Boiler and pumps won't take much draw and you should be able to run the fans and a few lights.

I didn't think about the pump!

update
 

My boiler went out,great timing!We are going to have some of the coldest temps so far:(
We had a fireplace insert installed for backup heat.
The heating guy tells me our furnace was about 70% effecent,I want to get one at least 90% to replace it.Now I have to wait to see how much $$ and how long it will take to get the boiler.......

Interesting thread. I don't have anything to contribute but sounds like some good information in it.

Our previous house had radiator heat. Yep, it's even, not a blast of warm air like forced air.

Downside is adding A/C and humidity during the heating season.

George

not a fan of electric heat or base board heat. you cannot have central air in a house with base board heat, and temperature regualtion is not precise--either volcano heat or ice cold. get a new high efficiency forced air furnace, and central air and youll be good to go.

Lucky for us they did add A/C.The humidity level now is alot higher than the last house we rented with forced air.

I know nothing of electric heat.Baseboard is not ice cold or volcano hot.maybe with a system that has never been maintained,zoned improperly,filthy radiators..or a t-stat on an uninsulated wall?If my next house has forced air it will be removed and a boiler installed.wife can go 2months without dusting alone,and its a constant warmth.and yes you can have A/C with a space pak system.

Boilers
 

Blue, I wish you were closer to me or better still right next door I could cure your heating problem with my outdoor wood boiler. I put about a wheel barrow load of wood in it once a day and forget about it. My shop is 26x40 with 16 ft ceilings- 2 14'x14' overhead doors and a man door. It also has 5- 4'x4' fixed unit thermo pane windows. It has been about 5* below zero F for the last few days and supposed to stay that way for the next week or two. I have infloor heat and the building is ICF. I turned the mixing unit back again today as the wall thermometer is reading 80* F. I want it around 60* F as I have some work to do in the next few days. Right now I'm off to flood the out door rink I built my 13 yr old.Ed

Heat is working fine here too
shorts and t shirt all day outside

with forced air you can have almost instant heat/cold..and it circulates the air and you can add a humidifier to it. i have had base board heat in my apt for 14yrs...takes a lot longer to warm up and you cant regulate the temp very well with just a valve on the inlet pipe...maybe some systems operate better than in my bldg, but mine leaves a lot to be desired....

My parents had one of those when I was growing up.I cut and split ALOT of wood with dad back in the day,there is nothing better wood heat!Dad built his own wood splitter and it would go thru just about anything.
I don't have good access to cut wood and no splitter,I am too old to do it by hand.

I'm sure most will find it hard to believe but I do miss cutting/splitting wood.Really hard work but it was something we did together.:)

Wood boiler
 

Filled the boiler up with wood today and checked the temp inside the shop 70* F. I turned it back on the mixing valve yesterday and the outside temp here is -25* C or about 10* below zero F. The radiant floor heat is great heat but if you work in it too long it dehydrates you something fierce. It seems you have to hydrate yourself as if you were working in 70* F in the sun. Ed

My boiler FINALLY made it today!The shipper was supposed to send it yesterday afternoon(it was in the truck she said)I guess having no heat doesn't make it a priority?:mad:

If you lose power, you should have check valves in the system which you can open manually to circulate the hot water in the boiler, manually. You seem to have a pretty large storage tank and that should keep you warm for a while. The water circulates naturally when the valves are lifted..

I'm sure you've noted the pluses and minuses of the system, by now.

I love the system, the zones give different comfort levels and that's nice. Our house is over a century old and I converted the steam boiler to hot water many years ago. We did an addition in '98 and all we had to do was add zones. The house is 2700 sq. ft., the new sections are very well insulated, the old ones not as well.

It's a great system to install in an old house. I installed slightly less radiation than I calculated we needed but we've had no problems when the temps have been lower than -15*F. The house actually feels warmer in sub-zero temps because the heat is on longer and the radiators stay warm, Usually the room heats up and the radiators cool off. Then you don't feel the heat from the radiators. My wife misses that cozy feeling from when they're hot. One thing to do is make certain that the the upstairs zones are set higher than the lower, otherwise you get hot air circulating up and cooler air coming down and it can feel drafty. At least that's the way it works for us.

They finished the boiler yesterday,it's great to have a warm house.The only problem we are having is the thermostat is very touchy,the slightest bump turns it on.So we need to replace it,it is probably 30+years old.

I've had all 3 kinds of heat I like the boiler / baseboard heat for overall use the best. It's very clean & the apt. that I lived in , in OHIO it worked great & kept us warm & steady very nice. Both of my houses I've had here in Michigan , I've had foced air heat & wood heat. Forced air (regular heating system) is noisey & costs a snot load now. Gas has gone up so much it has gotten out of control & the gas companys know they have you by the balls with it, so they think. My last house I had wood heat for 10 years in it & loved it. Yes you have to dust a little more but the cost is really low. I've been in this house now for 26 years now & went back to wood heat about 5 years now & I don't know why I didn't come back to wood heat sooner. My neighbors house is about the same size & his furnece is aboth the same size & age & his last 3 bills have been over $ 300.00 per month. I pay for wood & I pick up any free wood that falls during the summer when it storms & some times friend give me wood if they know of someone who has taken a tree down or they know where a tree is down, but that is only about I'd say 1/10 of my wood , so I buy most of my wood & when it's real cold like it's been for the last 2 weeks, or under normal cold weather it only costs me about $ 50.00 per month to heat my home & I like it warm. I have a good wood stove , it's made by a company that is no longer in business called , I think, It's called Blaze. I had the same stove in my last house & I had one in my garage when I was still working & in business & I like them a lot. For me because I'm cheep I prefere a wood stave to heat with but I do rather like baseboard heat if I were to build another house. It's not as expensive as forced air either. Because you have to remember that the forced air hits you twice with the gas bill & the electric bill & both are high for the forced air because that fan takes a lot of electricty to run. The little pump on the boiler doesn't take as much so it's going to be less expensive.

We have it, and it works good. Unfortunately, since I have switched to hard wood flooring on the first floor, the system has been maxed out when we have had those -10 degree nights. The cold from the basement radiates through the wood floor and 68 degrees is the warmest the downstairs will get. The system is clean and does not blow dust and other allergens throughout the home. At any other temp above -10, the system can and will roast you, and it is a good quality heat.

Sprayfoam insulation
 

Canam, do you have an older home with an unheated basement ie. limestone/poured foundation??? Have you looked into spray foam insulation. I have sprayed numerous basements for people over the years and while they were skeptical at first after the 1st winter they would have kissed my butt in the middle of town square they were so happy with it. It will cut down on the cold air infiltration in the winter and keeps alot of the moisture out in the summer. Just a thought, take it for what it's worth Ed

What do the baseboard vents look like? I can't remember running across baseboard heat... maybe in a tornado-attractor.

Yes. The 1925 house has a stone foundation, and no insulation on the floorboards. I'm sure that a quality spray insulation would do wonders for the heating during such cold weather conditions. Fortunately, it very rarely dips below 15 degrees all winter.