Re: Houses
 

No wonder you get so crabby...

Re: Houses
 

We have a lot of south facing windows, and quite often thats enough to keep the place warm in the daytime.The theromostats still ON, but the furnace isnt cutting in. Not when its minus 15 outside or at night mind.

Re: Houses
 

Minus 15 - Some people don't know the're born!

Re: Houses
 

True. On a sunny winter day in Winnipeg, you'll be able to shut the furnace down for up to five minutes at a time!

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Before we moved here, we were living in a typical 6-unit apartment building. In Montreal. In summer it was hot and stuffy. In the winter we didn't need the heat on. At least the winter I was there we didn't.

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I never knew our heating was archaic! some homes unless bought of course,only got central heating installed 10 yrs ago. Those houses and i lived in a few were cold i winter. Makes me think how they never installed it in all housing years ago. I couldnt imagine a house without it now.

Re: Houses
 

In the UK houses built before central heating became standard would normally have had a fireplace in each room even bedrooms. Central heating is just a more convenient method for delivering the heat.

Forced air systems were tried out on houses in the UK in the 70s but never really caught on. Its not that UK is "archaic" just that radiator system is system of choice in the UK.

I was told that separate ducts are needed for central A/C and heating anyway so it wouldnt be the case that there is the opportunity to combine the two particularly. (Heating vents are at low level and A/C vents at high level? Is that correct?

With forced air heating how would water be heated. A small electric heater or a small gas combination boiler?

Re: Houses
 

I expect that would be ideal but most systems have the airconditioner running inefficiently through the heat ducts. That's fine for the occupants of the air conditoned house, who will stay inside all summer, but a pain in the arse for their neighbours who have to listen to the airco compressor blasting away night and day. I'm afraid I think running domestic air conditioning is about as socially responsible as playing golf.

A gas, if available, or electric heating tank. These are either sold with the house or rented from the utility company.

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Not sure you know about forced heating etc. Just know all housing should have had it in the U.K. years ago.

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lol i am sorry i wound people up with my archaic comment. I had no idea forced air was tried out in then 70's, interesting i will have to ask my dad how widespread the try out was.

the system i had in canada used the most of same ducts and thermastat. I had central heating and central air. I set the temp and if the air needed cooling it did that if it needed heating it did that.

We used a hi-efficiancy gas furnace to heat our air (this was located in the house) and a the air conditioning unit was outside at the side of the house on a cement pad. We had a ranch style house and all of our ducts ran under the house. None at high level.

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That is exactly the reaosn why no one in their right mind builds pure brick walls. Cavity brick walls, plus insulation with smart materials is a standard in Austria for 99% of all homes and we get 30 Degree Celsius in the summer and -35 Degree celsisus in the winter. While not comparable to canada's extreme weather that is quite a temperature swing right there.

The U value (heat loss, the lower the better) is as little as 0.33 for a well built, brick based house, while it is hard for a blockhouse structure to get to that value on its own.

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With a modern efficient central air unit, you cant even hear ours is on from 20 feet away. It really is whisper quiet, and you cant hear it from the adjacent bedroom with the windows closed. Now, that wasnt true of the 20 year old unit the new one replaced. Id have to say that your impressions of AC units are out of date.


I saw something on mike holmes show that suggested that "best practice" might be to have separate AC and heating duct systems to take advantage of the cold air falling, but frankly I dont really think its worth the effort. The fan is creating a draft anyway. The majority of people with AC and forced air heat get by with the one set of ducts for discharge and return I suspect, its only modern builds that have the twin duct sets.

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With a water heater tank is the usual way. Often 240V electric, 120V electric is out there, but not a good choice. Oil is the second most common choice, especially where people have oil for heating, Gas heaters are less common, mainly as gas is not all that widely available. Oil heaters seem to be able to can create more hot water faster than the other ones.

Electric or Gas "Heat on demand" systems are becoming more common now that energy prices are rising, there are some (expensive) funky microwave ones on the market that are very efficient.

Electric heaters can be expensive to run, we converted to an oil one that is pretty good when we replaced our furnace, but obvioulsy as heating oil costs have increased 40% in the last couple of years, the more efficeint your heater, the better. Heat on demand is the way forward I think.

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I have the fire escape door open. The brand new units on the roof of the battered women's shelter next door, maybe 30' away, are loud enough that I have to close the door to make a phone call. It's nice that Canadians do something to promote global warming, Lord knows we have enough winter here, but it seems to me that there's a great deal of clattering and banging involved. The neighbours' machine in the Beach was newly installed while we were living there, prior to that we could sit on our deck and chat to them, afterwards they didn't come out and we moved to the front porch so we could speak in a normal voice. Good thing it wasn't suburban enough for people to run powered lawn mowers too, Ajax/Whitby/Pickering must be hell in summer.

Rather than installing airco, it'd be better if people just took their coats off indoors (while keeping their shoes on, of course).

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Those roof top units are hardly the same as domestic central air units. You probably are not comparing apples to apples.

Our dehumidifier makes more noise than our Central Air. Maybe its a question of choice, we chose the most efficient unit out budget would stretch too. All that noise is just inefficiency.

The last couple of summers have not been too taxing, but to pretend that July and August cant he a living hell of heat and humidity here is not doing the newbies any favours you know.