Baseboard Heat: What Is It?
I have heard about baseborad heat and hot water base heat. What do these things mean? How effective are they in warming a home and is this something that should be avoided?
I am about to buy a property that was built in 1995 but it has hot water baseboard heat. Is there any reason why I should be worried about this? What should I look out for?
Thanks.
JS
Hot water base board heating is the same concept as radiant heating, except that it looks like an electric base board heating and you usually find one in a room unless it’s a large room.
There is no need to worry about either of them IMHO, which one is best depends on whether electricity is cheaper in your area or gas.
However the hot water base board heating can cause some trouble depending on what types of pipes have been used, how efficient your expansion tank is (a big tank be the side of the boiler) and the general components for the boiler, you should check these out.
The biggest issue with hot water base board heating is if the pipes burst, I am not trying to scare you but if this happens, and depending on where it happened, fixing it can be expensive.
Find out how many zones are there for the house, this is determined by the number of controls in the house, the larger the house the more heat controls. Generally more controls is better coz you can isolate where the trouble is (if there is one) and only heat select areas if desired.
The electric heat is pretty straight forward, its like an electric heater that you buy in the stores, but this, generall, should have a control for each room
A benefit of these two types of heating is that its quiet when heating unlike forced air heating.
Hope this helps good luck
I am doing a rehab on a 500K house. I put in Forced air upstairs and base board (hydronics) in the basement.
Hydronic heating is a plus in our market over forced air which is much cheaper to install and is less efficient.
On our house we used the hydronic heating to heat the entire floor of the master suite.
If it was built in 95 and looks good I would say leave it, it is definately an upgrade from forced air and way better than electric baseboard heating.
I have almost never seen any pipes break using this type of system and yours is almost new (in heating parlance
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Quote:
On 2007-03-08 11:46, rmdane2000 wrote:
The bathroom exhaust fans are direct vented into the attic and a flue vent is not connected in the attic also.
These should always be vented outside.
thanks a million.
my HVAC guy says he can take care of the issue...we will see.
I wonder if what we are seeing in the article is incredible opportunity?
I would guess you would have to look at the direction of the city and the industry that is there.
If Detroit became known as the place to get 500K homes for 100K there might be an influx as people look for value when so many markets are far more expensive..
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