How do you heat your house?

We have hot water baseboard heat. the previous owner had to replace the boiler before we moved in, so it's brand new and super efficient. the best part is that since most of our house is hardwood floors, and the pipes run just underneath the floors, in the basement, its like having radiant floor heat too! Our floors are never cold. Makes for getting out of bed in the middle of the night, alot easier.

 

I didn't realize there were fins on the water baseboards . They are similar to electric baseboard fins then I guess ? This system is not very common out here .


Bath fans , as well as kitchen range hoods will create a negative pressure situation .

 

Gas.

But, it's Phoenix, AZ. We don't really get cold weather down here. Blankets work best.

 

I would like to try a geothermal heatpump, but do not know anyone that has one for feedback. Around $20k, but with huge fed credits right now. Very invasive to your property due to deep trenches, but supposedly much easier to heat subsurface air versus air above ground, thus more efficient.

 

Most of my wood suply. It is all 2 rows deep tall section is 7' x 15'.


Room for anothr cord next to garage (1/2 full) and 1/4 cord in garage (full)

 

We just installed one for the house I am building , very impressed .

You can also consider a vertical loop system to limit your site disturbance .

 

Ditto. Our little wood stove has been worth every penny.

 

Interesting fence posts you got there. They steel or aluminum? Concreted into ground? Do they fill with water? I'm tired of replacing wood posts!

 

Looks like 3" galvanized pipe

 

I have never seen electric baseboards, but if you look inside the covers of the water ones, there is basically your copper pipe with very thin, razor sharp aluminum fins (acting as a heat sink). The noise you hear is most likely the fins expanding and contracting.

If you think the noise is more then the fins, try bleeding your system to get any air out. If your system keeps getting air in it, consider automatic air bleeders.

Good info on the fans. I never thought about it. I always thought that the house would equalize itself via the soffit and ridge vents.

 

My hot water baseboards have fins too, it helps to distribute the heat from the main pipe to the air, and do so evenly.

 

Agreed! These will last forever and make replacing a section of fence real easy!!

 

must be nice not to have to worry about carpenter ants or anything else getting at this. My neighborhood seems to be infested with these fuckers.

 

Yup .. some sections will not have fins though. This is called "dummy baseboard" and is simply hiding the water pipe. If your living room is 20' long but only 10' wide, you may need need the whole lenght of wall heated, so they may use 10' of dummy baseboard.

 

The intake / exhaust in the soffet to roof vents should be seperate from the living space of the house .

If you consider a bath fan is probably drawing 75-100 cfm and a range hood 200-400 cfm you can see how the house can easily be put into a negative pressure condition without any make up air .

 

Putting a wood stove in this weekend. Just a little potbelly type in the basement to help heat it and the floors of the main level. Otherwise we have a new furnace. I've heated with the ventless/ductless wall mount propane rigs before. It was in a tiny rental house my wife and I lived in and aside from cold spots in the outlying rooms it worked really well, never had a CO issue.

 

Carpenter ants only burrow in rotten wood

 

Forced Air Electric Heat pump here w/ emergency auxillary heat if it gets really cold. I wish I had natural gas but our builder didn't plumb our subdivision for natural gas.

Just about everything here in GA is forced air Natural Gas or LP Furnace or an electric heat pump.

Forced air AC in the summer.

 

LOL. Tell that to the ones that ate my neighbors wheelbarrow handles or my fathers pool cover (stored in the shed in the summer). These things are nasty.

You are totally right about the bathroom fans. The attic is separate from the house (except a pair of pull down stairs) and I never made that distinction. In my head I was pulling air from the bathrooms expecting the air in the attic to equalize it.

 

Sure they were carpenter ants and not termites ?