|
I live in an older home (1891) here in the PNW and am tired of paying $3k/yr for electricity/baseboard heat. Due to the construction style, insulating the walls is out of the question, at least for now. There's also no room for a central air system/unit and related ducting. With that in mind, I have been looking at ductless mini split systems. The ability to provide heating/cooling from one discrete wall mounted unit makes them ideal for my situation, not to mention the relative ease of install. Does anyone have a recommendation for a site/vendor/technical resource? I would like to purchase/install the system myself if possible. For sizing, I have 6 rooms: (4) with under 200sqft, (1) with 350sq ft, and (1) with 500sqft. The house has 8ft ceilings and a ton of large windows, most with storm windows on the outside (thankfully). The two larger rooms have Vermont wood stoves. I originally looked at doing a (4) head (9-9-9-9) single compressor system for the small rooms (bedrooms/study). But now I'm thinking (2) 3 head systems, with a larger head and two smaller heads (7-7-18) I would be able to cover the larger/smaller rooms. We have a flat roof that we could easily hide the compressors on (which is important for the "look"), the downside being they would be right outside two bedrooms. The attic space is also easily accessible for cabling/tubing. Is this too little/too much? Comedy heating option: Put radiators in the bed rooms, coil behind the stove, and a pump to circulate coolant on a thermostat.
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2016 22:50
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 14:51 |
|
|
Zhentar posted:People always want to put a head in every room. It blows up your equipment cost and the install labor, and you end up way oversized in every room, so you get a ton of cycling and kill your efficiency. 6 heads for <1600sqft is ridiculous. In a completely uninsulated home, you are likely to end up with a relatively large temperature differential in rooms without a head, at least without powered ventilation, but your money & effort would be better spent air sealing and insulating to address that. I understand your point and agree that the heads are oversized, but let me explain a few things. First of all, there is already a large temperature differential in the rooms. We leave the heat on at it's minimum setting (50f) and end up going from a ~70f degree room (wood stove) to a 48f room. Second, every one of these rooms is isolated from the next via doors. The house originally had a small stove or fireplace in every room. Third. We can't reasonably add insulation to the walls. Well, rather I'm not willing to deconstruct the house to do so. (For now...) All the buildings on the property were constructed backwards- instead of going |Siding-Sheathing-Studs-Drywall| ours was built |Siding-Studs-Boards-Drywall|. If the outside of the house can not breath, water is trapped, mold forms, wood rots, ect. This eliminates pretty much all in-wall insulation. Removing the siding, installing insulation and sheathing would resolve this, but it's just not cost effective. The siding was custom milled and is $4.50 a BF to reproduce. Due to historical accuracy, we can't change it. I am planning on replacing all of the attic insulation (it's old, compacted, etc) and I bought a Flir IR camera for helping with air sealing. If there's a better option out there, I'm all ears. I'm just looking for a better way to heat the house VS paying out the rear end every winter for baseboards.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2016 23:47
|
|