Installing a heating system from scratch (old farm house)

[Verticaltrx]

My wife and I bought a 2400sq. ft. farmhouse last year with no central heat of any kind. It was built in the 20's and used multiple coal and wood burning stoves throughout the house. In more recent years they used a couple oil stoves. Still have the tanks and about 250gal of oil.

I'm looking for input on what would be the most cost effective system to install and run. I want to still use wood for 75% of the heating, but need something to keep the house warm when we aren't around. We don't need AC and my wife and I both hate heat pumps. There is no duct work in the house whatsoever, but two internal chimneys that are in decent shape. With that in mind here are a few setups I've thought about:

1. Radiant floor heat. Would primarily be run with an outdoor wood boiler, but it would also have a dedicated water heater/boiler (gas or oil). Would not tie it in to the residential hot water.

2. Same as above, but find some vintage radiators to put in each room instead of radiant floor heat.

3. Gas or oil furnace in the basement with add-on wood furnace.

All three have their pros and cons, would probably do most of the install ourselves (I have some HVAC experience, but no duct working tools). Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

 

[MikeInEburg]

Hot water heating is a nice way to go. You can use two-pipe radiators or baseboard. Easier to install compared to duct and virtually silent when it runs. Compatible with wood-fired boiler. Can use oil-fired as backup.
Good luck

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Hot water heat is pretty simple to run if you use pex pipe, you can fish it through the walls. If you run a pair of pipes to each room you can mix and match heat sources for whatever works best for that room -- old cast iron radiators, new slimline radiators, baseboards, radiant floor heat, or convectors.

Radiant floor heat is nice for rooms you spend time in barefoot (bathrooms) but generally requires ripping out the floor and rebuilding it.

For your boiler, you can mix and match wood and oil, but you might find the cost of two boilers gives you pause.

Check out the cost of propane where you live, a lot of people near me are converting from oil to propane. Fracking has made the price of natural gas plummet, which affects the price of propane, while oil just keeps getting more expensive.

I don't know why you're ruling out tying into domestic hot water, it's pretty simple to run a heating coil for hot water and you save a lot of money compared to electric.

Probably the most difficult part is sizing the boiler and the radiators, you may need the help of a pro for that.

Most houses are "under-radiated" -- the radiators are smaller than they really should be. It's tempting to avoid big ugly radiators by going a size smaller. You actually get better comfort if you are over-radiated, with radiators bigger than they need to be.

 

[NC4AB]

1st recommendation would be to make sure the house is tight, no air leaking around windows & doors, install insulation every place that you can, etc. etc. It will pay off every year in less energy used to heat the house.

As far as a heating souce you have mentioned using an Outside Wood Boiler (has its pros and cons but it is what I use) and can provide with your domestic hot water for essentially nothing, but it does need a back up method of heating (Natural Gas, propane, fuel oil or electric, your choice).

How to distribute the heat comes down to hydronic (water) or forced air, each has pros and cons.

Your situtation sounds like my father in law's house, he went with an outside qood boiler as primary heat source, forced air distribution to the first floor only via an air handler installed in the hand dug basement / crawlspace with a propane furnace back up. (He added an air conditioner coil into the air handler since it gets pretty warm here in the summer). The air return was installed in the area below the stairs going to the second floor (unused space anyway) and the supply distribution was done with the flexible ductwork, and it is a little ugly under the house with all the flex duct running around but has worked for 20+ years. One thermostat was installed for the Outside Wood Boiler and one for the propane furnace / AC, it allows him to determine which unit is running. Pretty straightforward install, an as said above has worked well for many years.

My personal preference for our house was an Outside Wood Boiler + forced air (needed the A/C in the summer) and the wife likes the feel of warm air flowing on her feet during the winter. I haven't priced hydronic radiators but by the time you buy multiple radiators, pex, pump(s), distribution manifolds, balancing valves, etc. the forced air unit may come out cheaper.

 

[Verticaltrx]

Thanks for everyone's quick responses.

Let me give a little more info about our home/situation.

There is a basement under half the house and a crawlspace under the other. The crawlspace is about 54" tall, so access is easy. The basement is dirt floor, but there is a 13x15 room with a concrete floor down there (this room also has a chimney and is where the water heater, well pressure tank, etc reside) Currently there is no insulation under the floor, so access is wide open for duct work, piping, whatever.

Like I said, we have a pair of 250 gal oil tanks, one which is full, but if propane would be cheaper in the long run I'm sure I could sell that setup.

The idea of a simple furnace heating only the downstairs is what I have been leaning towards, but I wasn't sure what kind of efficiency it would be running on the wood boiler (since it would have to have some sort of heat exchanger, etc.)

Thanks for all the good info, keep it coming. :thumbsup:

 

[tcartwri]

Boiler with radiators would be my choice.

Heating with wood.... is a non starter for a an older 2400 sqft house. We had a wood electric furnace in our first home and it got ripped out after the second winter.

There will be lots of opinions on this, but as someone who has tried it, there are so many other things I would rather do with my time for the sake of saving a few dollars.

 

[nybirdman]

My father retrofitted a 1860's farm house.Hot water heat is the way to go for sure.I would go with choice NO.1 but why not use your wood source for domestic water?Free hot water when your boiler is running.Right now propane is cheaper than fuel oil.If you go with propane,buy your own tank and shop suppliers(every year if needed).

 

[JamesHW]

We have a similiar project with our 1870's brick farmhouse which has been maintained as a three season house for many years with nothing but a gas space heater (formerly kerosene) in the central ground floor kitchen room. Our plan has distilled down to a high efficiency gas furnace (gas was run to the house in the 70's) in the basement and baseboard cast iron baseboard radiators on both the ground and second floor. As much as I love big old radiators (our 1920's bungalow where we live most of the year has them), the old farmhouse simply doesn't have the layout for them. The old farmhouse also has a 900 sf addition built in the teens which we are planning to heat with wood, at least initially (we have 80 acres of timber after all). Probably a soapstone stove of some sort.

Due to easy availability of wood I originally was thinking some sort of wood boiler, but considering my wife may live there for some years after I am gone, I wanted something sustainable for her if she is alone (as much as I enjoy bucking logs).

 

[riptides]

Congratulations!

I second the notion on insulation, “tightness”. Maybe get a professional to see what you are looking at with all the fireplaces in the house?
We also have one of those IR temp devices. That helped in the winter, give me a better picture of where the heat was going.

We too have an old farmhouse, recent “remodel”. More like a controlled demolition.

We used basic HVAC systems. Two units. One in the attic, on one the first floor. This eliminated duct work through the walls.

Of course on the insides of the original farmhouse that was left standing, all the walls (inside) were gutted. We also sealed, basically removed all existing fireplaces.
A new roof (scratch built) was added to top off the new and old structure.

Sorry to say, but my old farmhouse did NOT have the insulation qualities of today’s standards.

 

[KennyG]

Hot water heat is a very comfortable heating system, but the cost is probably going to be higher than a hot air system just supplying the first floor. A lot of old two story farm houses had no heat on the second floor but had adjustable vents through the ceiling that allow heat to rise and it worked very well.