goeduck
Super Member
I have a rental house with an old oil furnace and hot water baseboard heaters that needs upgrading. Has anyone done an air to water heat pump or geo to water heat pump and then pumped the water to hot water baseboards?
Heat Pump to Hot Water Baseboards.
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gary49
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I don't think a heat pump will heat the water to a high enough temperature to operate baseboard heaters. Plus there's no way to take advantage of the reverse cycle of a heat pump for cooling using baseboard heaters because they would be dripping condensate if you ran cold water through them. If you want heat pump technology, look into minisplits.
LouNY
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If you want to keep the baseboard heat you might want to check out a heat pump water heater.
I have considered one for domestic hot water but I have some concerns about where the heat is going to be coming from.
Unless the air the heat pump is using is coming from outside the heated area they sound counter productive to me.
I have a couple of mini-splits which do a very good job of heating and cooling, heating down to about 15 F outside temperature.
Any conventional water heater can produce heated water for baseboard heat sometimes more economically then a dedicated boiler.
I have considered one for domestic hot water but I have some concerns about where the heat is going to be coming from.
Unless the air the heat pump is using is coming from outside the heated area they sound counter productive to me.
I have a couple of mini-splits which do a very good job of heating and cooling, heating down to about 15 F outside temperature.
Any conventional water heater can produce heated water for baseboard heat sometimes more economically then a dedicated boiler.
RNeumann
Elite Member
I did several houses that were using an atypical setup like you describe. Unfortunately it wasn’t and still isn’t the ticket. You can get hydronic heaters that run on propane or nat gas that are about the size of a demand water heater- that’s the best setup for a rental. If you are dead set on an extremely efficient setup for these renters I’d look into forced heat pumps. If the rental doesn’t have duct work then the wall mount models are the way to go.
OP
goeduck
Super Member
I do not need cooling. The house is in Western Washington fairly close to the Pacific Ocean so the climate is mostly cool/cold maritime. In the winter it rarely gets into the 20s, mostly the 20s and 40s. The house has a wood stove for the colder days.
OP
goeduck
Super Member
Were yours not able to keep up with the colder temperatures? North Idaho is considerably cooler than Western Washington where we have a very mild climate. I have read that there are models of heat pump water heaters that can heat the water to 150 degrees. I am basically looking for this type of setup:
RNeumann
Elite Member
Nothing to do with keeping up. The ones I did were on the central coast of CA. They were just overly complex- it wasn’t worth the extra cost, parts, complexity and in some cases the noise. Spend a dollar to save a dime type situation.
OP
goeduck
Super Member
Interesting. The baseboards in this house are existing, pump, etc. I would have thought it would be simpler, no ugly through the wall units and no expensive ductwork to install.
MikeInEburg
Veteran Member
I'd get a small propane - fired boiler and be good for another twenty years.
Chris616
Silver Member
The short answer to your question is "yes, it is possible to use radiators with a heat pump".
The long answer is that it would be unwise to just plug different components into a heating system and expect them to work together. It really needs to be designed as a whole to ensure that it's going to work properly.
We installed an air-to-water heat pump system that produces 40C (104F) water for underfloor heating, or produces 50C (122F) water to heat the domestic hot water tank. Once a week it will heat the hot water tank up to 80C (176F) for a disinfection function. So our unit has the ability to produce temperatures in the range of what you're describing, but one of the things to consider is that the efficiency of a heat pump decreases as the output temperature increases, so our system is less efficient when producing 80C water than when producing 40C water. That's one of the reasons that underfloor heating is popular with these systems. There is a large surface area to release the heat from lower temperature water, the opposite of radiators. Some calculations and thinking would really need to be done to determine if buying an expensive heat pump and running it at low efficiency to produce the hot water needed for the existing radiators would be a good tradeoff against an less expensive "boiler" heating the water with fossil fuels or electricity.
Chris
The long answer is that it would be unwise to just plug different components into a heating system and expect them to work together. It really needs to be designed as a whole to ensure that it's going to work properly.
We installed an air-to-water heat pump system that produces 40C (104F) water for underfloor heating, or produces 50C (122F) water to heat the domestic hot water tank. Once a week it will heat the hot water tank up to 80C (176F) for a disinfection function. So our unit has the ability to produce temperatures in the range of what you're describing, but one of the things to consider is that the efficiency of a heat pump decreases as the output temperature increases, so our system is less efficient when producing 80C water than when producing 40C water. That's one of the reasons that underfloor heating is popular with these systems. There is a large surface area to release the heat from lower temperature water, the opposite of radiators. Some calculations and thinking would really need to be done to determine if buying an expensive heat pump and running it at low efficiency to produce the hot water needed for the existing radiators would be a good tradeoff against an less expensive "boiler" heating the water with fossil fuels or electricity.
Chris
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