[Closed] Houses heated by gas central air...

Just remember to take out a second mortgage to pay for the gas bill.

Our last house had warm air central heating, we have recently moved to a house with normal radiators and miss the warm air heating.

The warm air heating system is more efficient than radiators I think. It seems to be very common in America but didn't seem to catch on in the uk.

We're having ours replaced with a radiator set-up. Don't know if it's any good or not, because the boiler is ancient and the engineers that came to look at it were all a bit scared of it. We were guided by the fact that all of the neighbours have replaced their warm air systems. I think it's a bit of a personal preference thing, plus depends on how well-designed the system is. As far as I've seen, people who like them really like them.

Wooobob, how much is it costing roughly to have it replaced with rads throughout?

We replaced our warm air heater with a new one. Personally, I can't understand why they aren't more popular, unless it's to do with installation costs.

You get almost instant heat. No warming up water to warm up metal to warm up air and then rely on convection. That means you don't have the system on for as long. Other than the central heater, it's just some metal ducts so not much in the way of maintenance either. No radiators taking up wall space - the vents are at the windows.

Of course, you do need the leccy for the fan, but that's not on full time as it only cuts in when the thermostat requires and the heater comes on.

What about drying towels in the bathroom? 🙂

[quote=chojin ]What about drying towels in the bathroom?

There is at least one vent in every room. That gives you plenty of scope for drying clothes under/over a vent.

I grew up in a house with it - bloody lovely to lie in front of in the buff when you're supposed to be getting ready for school 😳

Wooobob, how much is it costing roughly to have it replaced with rads throughout?

Ha, good question. I'd looked around online to get a ballpark figure, came back an average £3.5-4k. After 7 quotes we've finally got somewhere near that. Having said that, we were working on the assumption that replacing the warm air boiler alone would not be much cheaper, and we would be left with a system which we may or may not get on with.

In many ways I agree with druidh above - they make sense. BUT after reading about the problems with older systems (like the one fitted in our house) - noise, circulating kitchen smells and moist air from bathroom, plus the fact that the vents aren't very spread out, we decided against.

if you are really interested in the house might be worth finding out age of system and ask to see it running

we had a flat with one and ending up replacing with rad's just because it was useless and very old and scarey looking electrics

living in a rented house at moment that has it - pretty fast warm up and thermostat works fine - one blocked duct in a bedroom though

[quote=wooobob ]
In many ways I agree with druidh above - they make sense. BUT after reading about the problems with older systems (like the one fitted in our house) - noise, circulating kitchen smells and moist air from bathroom, plus the fact that the vents aren't very spread out, we decided against.

Noise: the fan on the old system was quite noisy. The current one is un-noticeable.
Kitchen smells/Moist air: Our air intake is in the hall, so we've never had either of those issues.

I've seen some systems with very few outlet vents - that would be pants. Better to have one in each room and shut them off when not required.

As an aside - we have a large "duct" running the height of the house, from under the floorboards to the loft. It's great for running network cables/tv aerials and suchlike 🙂

Ours used to have it but was removed many years ago.. (70s Barratt type semi) still have some ducts in place but we now have a couple of units and a large american fridge freezer in the kitchen in the space that the thing occupied.
As far as I know all the houses on our estate, bar one or two mental, cat loving old lady-owned houses have got rid of it !

I like our warm air heating, made by Johnson and Starley over 30 years ago but spare parts are still available..

Disadvantages are the fan noise as it cuts in and out, not all the rooms are heated. The room temp does tend to rise and fall as the fan kicks in.

Advantages, heats up very quickly, clothes drying is nice and easy, just put a clothes horse in front of the vents a whole load dry in hours..

An the gas bills aren't that bad..

But saying all that I think it will be soon taken out and replaced with a wet system, unless I can convince 'er indoors to update the warm air to a more modern one.

I had it in my first house and hated it. Was hot when on but as soon as it went off the house got cold really quickly as there is nothing that holds the heat. Also rubbish for drying clothes etc. My house had a central vent which did not reach the bathroom or third bedroom which was also rubbish, plus needed a second boiler to heat the water. From my experience I would not recommend it, but don't discount the house if you can afford to install radiator system.

I live in the US, and forced air heating systems are very common here. Natural gas fired is probably the most common, LP or heating oil where gas service is not available. Some can be very efficient, with 95%+ of the energy in the gas burned being used to heat the house and not wasted up the chimney. One big advantage is that the same ducts can be used for air conditioning. Another plus is that various types of air cleaners or humidifiers can easily be added. Air source heat pumps can also be part of the system. And programmable thermostats let you change the temperature so that you can save energy when no one is home.

Most older homes around me used radiators, and its not uncommon to have them replaced as it can be difficult or impossible to install the duct work needed for a forced air system in a house that wasn't designed for it. I'd say that the vast majority of new construction uses forced air.

But if they're uncommon in your area, some other type of heating system might be a better option.

I live in the US, and forced air heating systems are very common here

Likewise--natural gas rates here (at least in New Mexico) are low now, so pretty cost-effective. As JoeG said, the newer gas furnaces are really effecient and quiet as well.
Don't know anything about gas rates there in the UK, so that could be a factor.

We have it and we've lived here for 12 years.

Gas engineers are rarely qualified for warm air and are absolutely sh*t scared of the system when they're called out. They often advise replacement with a wet system through ignorance.

The early systems were not good at controlling the temperature throughout the day, however the Johnson and Starley heaters use a thermister as a room-stat, and there's a control system that maintains the heat very well.

Ours has a filter on it which means the house air gets cleaned each time it passes through the heater. Each week we pop it out and hoover it, once a year we replace the filter mat.

I'd really recommend the system, but it would be worth reading up on how it works, as I didn't and ended up trying to 'fix it' when it wasn't broken.

This is all good stuff, so most people with it generally like it it seems. Call me old fashioned, but you just know what you're getting with a wet system! :/

I grew up in a council house with it. Stinks when it comes on, especially after a long spell. Air is very dry. It's noisy. The council "extended" the system to reach each bedroom, with farty little vents in the ceiling, that made no difference at all. Poor thermostatic control (its not like you can put a stat on each vent to open/close is it...).
There's a reason 99.99999% of homes have wet systems...
I'll wager a modern condensing boiler & decent modern rads is more efficient by a good way.

OP - So for a boiler and radiator system, would you still be using natural gas as the fuel? If so, I'd find it hard to believe that the operating cost could be a whole lot different for forced air since you would be heating the same house to the same temperature either way.

The difference is only how the heat is transferred. A boiler heats water, which circulates through pipes to radiators to heat the air in the house. A forced air furnace heats air which circulates through ducts to heat the air in the house. And since the forced air systems can be 95%+ efficient, I can't believe that a boiler could be much less costly to operate.

That is unless you'd use another, cheaper fuel in the boiler. If you can get free firewood and are willing to do the work, your heating costs could obviously be miniscule.

Rented a house with warm air heating several years ago - I think the house was built in the 70's around the time of the copper shortage, so ducting would have been cheaper than traditional wet pipes.

As other have already said, heats up very quickly, but again the temperature drops very quickly as soon as the thermostat cuts off, as there isn't much in the way of storage.

We had a couple of additional problems - the heat exchanger was cracked, and the gas burner needed to be serviced. It was therefore producing a large amount of carbon monoxide, and instead of this going up the flue, was being pumped all around the house. My house-mate was working from home at the time and was getting very bad headaches. Called a service technician who condemned it on the spot and said suggested that my mate wouldn't have survived more than another month had he not done so 😯

Landlord had the whole thing replaced with a traditional wet system asap.

So, pros and cons, but potentially a major safety issue if not serviced regularly.

Cheers, Rich

I've never had one, but I would be concerned about heat control. When you are in your car for a long journey, you can normally find a sweet spot on the heater to be comfortable (air set to footwells to avoid being directly heated) I can't really see being able to manage the heat that finely when you have four or five rooms to heat. As soon as you park your car up, it gets cold almost immediately, at least with a wet radiator system you have a nice big heatsink sitting there that will take a few hours to cool down, and just needs a quick and unnoticeable top up every 15 minutes or so.

They are fine, heat control is better than radiators and they'll heat the house quickly. Not sure why there aren't more in this country but there's noting wrong with them, there is a fairly limited choice of boiler manufacturers but that's the only downside. They will cost a bit more to run than a modern condensing boiler, but no more than an old fashioned boiler. I too grew up with one and loved sitting next to it watching telly at 6am on weekend mornings

I can't really see being able to manage the heat that finely when you have four or five rooms to heat.

almost the entire continental USA heats their homes this way, so it must work to some degree!

I do want to try and compare the efficiencies of blown air with other methods - just started looking but not found anything worthy of hanging my hat on yet.

As other have already said, heats up very quickly, but again the temperature drops very quickly as soon as the thermostat cuts off, as there isn't much in the way of storage.

We have one in a 70s town-house - We knocked a chunk off the asking price when we bought the place with the intention of replacing it but several years later we have not got round to it.

The only reason we might change is that the small bedroom / office on the ground floor does not heat up much as the hot air would have to go sideways and down to heat the room. Also the boiler does take up a huge amount of room compared to a wall mounted "normal" boiler.

The other reason I think that the systems are popular in the US is more homes have basements where the boiler can go which isolates the sound of the fan and makes the distribution of air to the ground floor much easier.

We were getting quotes for £8k+ to replace which would be bad enough but the thought of ripping up all of the floorboards to install the radiators puts us off more.

N

[quote=spooky_b329 ]at least with a wet radiator system you have a nice big heatsink sitting there that will take a few hours to cool down, and just needs a quick and unnoticeable top up every 15 minutes or so.
And how do you get the heat into that heat sink? You have to burn gas, to heat water, to heat the radiators, that then warms the air. So, for all the benefit of staying warm after the heater is off, you take the hit of putting it on before you get any benefit from it 🙂