Types of Residential Heating Systems

There are many types of heating systems available that you can choose from, each type of system has its benefits and drawbacks. Some heating systems work by blowing warm air into the duct work, while others work by piping hot water through your floor. Of course all of these options have benefits and disadvantages though so its worth while to get to know each option before you choose one. Below we will be going over the most popular options, how they work, what they do, advantages as well as disadvantages. Most of the heating systems used in homes have one thing in common, they can get their energy from different sources, some common heating sources popular today are natural gas and oil; if your house using oil heating it is important that you maintain your oil tank and are aware of oil tank safety for above ground and under ground oil tanks.

Forced Air

Forced Air is the most common form of heating and cooling. It works by air heated in a furnace and that air once heated is distributed through the furnace up to the duct work and into rooms via vents or registers. This type of heating and cooling can use quite a few different fuel sources, but the most popular are natural gas, propane, electricity and of course oil. The benefits include the fact that the air can be filtered, humidified and dehumidified, as well as inexpensive depending on the fuel source you choose, however the disadvantages are; that you have to have duct work for it to work – and this can take a lot of space in the walls, the fan of the furnace can also be quite loud if you aren’t used to it, and if you or your family has allergies, this can actually make their allergies worse because it moves the allergens around and distributes them into your room.

Radiant Heat

Radiant Heat is the best option if you want to provide natural and comfortable heat

inside your house. The “options” come in all types of forms such as a pot bell stove to other options that are considered a little more modern like in floor water tubing. This works, by how the name says it does; it transfers heat from a hot to a cold surface. Easy enough! The distribution works by including tubing in the floor and then that hot water is distributed throughout. However, you can also use radiant heating in ceilings as well by using panels or using heating stoves. Some of the fuel sources for Radiant heat include electricity, oil, gas and propane, to be honest its really going to depend on what you want and how much you want to pay since these fuel sources are all quite different in terms of prices. Advantages of this type of heat are that its very comfortable and can give you an even amount of heat, but also that boilers can be incredibly energy efficient. However, the negatives are that the overall installation is quite expensive, it has a pretty slow heat cycle and the AC for this unit would require different duct work installation which will cost you even more money!

Hydronic (Hot Water Baseboard)

Hydronic heating is similar to Radiant Heat, it uses hot water that is being heated by a boiler to heat a specific space by using radiation and convection. Hydronic heating uses baseboards. The baseboards have fine piping under them and they tend to be mounted along the walls as well as the floor. This makes this option much more efficient in terms

of heating. A boiler may be added and it could add things like propane, oil, natural gas or electricity to heat the water up. Hydronic heating is very energy efficient, it’s incredibly quiet – you will almost never hear it go on or running and lastly the temperature control is almost always spot on. However, since these are baseboard constructed you will have to use convection units that are left unobstructed which means you cant put furniture or draperies on or by them – this can cause issues in room design. Also, like the radiation option above, you will need to add new and different duct work to this type of heating for the air conditioning because

they will need to be separated because they essentially work differently.

Steam Radiant Heating Systems

Steam Radiant Heating Systems are rarely used today although still commonly used in older buildings and apartments/lofts. These are cast iron upright heaters (radiators) that have both hot air and steam that come out of them. A steam boiler can use anything from propane to oil or gas and electricity. Advantages are that its comfortable heat that tends to be evenly distributed into one room plus it tends to heat a room quite quickly. However, and this is probably the reason that they are not common in homes as much as, there are a lot of negatives. First and foremost they are ugly! These iron cast units can be really unsightly, even if you find a casing for them, the casing is probably going to be

pretty ugly too. They are pretty darn bulky – you cannot put anything by these in terms of furniture and draperies so if you do have one, you will not only need to design the room around the boxy shapes, but you also need to make sure nothing is by it that can catch on fire. Also, these can get incredibly hot, from the radiators themselves to the piping that goes down to the floor or up to the ceiling, so having pets or kids and having this unit is probably not the best thing to do in the world.