[67drake]

Originally Posted by Blue '66

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?

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

[Ed Fitzgerald]

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

[Judge273]

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

[Blue '66]

Originally Posted by Ed Fitzgerald

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

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

[Blue '66]

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

[Ed Fitzgerald]

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.