When two apartments share the same heat source and only have one thermometer, someone is always unhappy. If the thermostat is upstairs, the downstairs people are too cold, and if the thermostat is downstairs, the upsatirs people have to open the windows, to keep from getting cooked although thos...
Radiant Heating and Convection Heating are the two primary types of ways we heat our houses. FORCED AIR HEATINGConvection heating means moving hot air -- what we usually call a forced air heating system simply heats air and moves it around the house through a system of fans and ducts. Forced air...
So what is a barometric damper? That is the strange swinging plate you find somewhere between your oil furnace or boiler and the chimney. Its function is to allow just the right amount of air into the flue pipe as the gasses go by to let the chimney perform its best.What goes wrong with a barom...
Elise from Montreal wrote: We bought a small warehouse that we converted into living space. Three years ago we changed all the piping for the hot water radiators. Now it is time to get rid of the very old and costly oil boiler. We are thinking of switching to an Electric boiler. Is this ...
It is harder to down-size an old gas furnace than an oil furnace, but it can be made to operate more efficiently.-- Increase the fan speed to draw more heat out of the furnace.-- Increase the "fan-on" time before and after operation to draw more heat out of the furnace.-- Install an electronic pi...
Open fireplaces are not heating systems. They have traditionally been built on an outer wall, creating sealing problems for air barriers and wasting lots of heat through the back of the chimney. Fireplaces should always be built on the inside walls -- if you build one at all. The problem w...
A combustion furnace or boiler (gas, oil, coal or wood) requires air to burn and air to maintain a proper draft in the chimney. In a leaky old house with the furnace in an open basement this is never al problem. As the house becomes better sealed, several problems can arise:-- An automatic v...
Many years ago, because of the prairie enforcement of the gas code provision that you had to supply fresh air to a furnace, an inventor in Alberta began marketing the Hoyme damper. This is a motorized damper that closes off that combustion air duct from the outdoors that dumps cold air into ...
As winter approaches people are asking how to get more heat out of those very old hot water radiators. A few tips.
Bleed the air out anytime they don't feel hot enough. This will usually be only one or two that have problems while the rest are hot. If they all are cold you may need to check the ...
The field of energy efficient heating systems is advancing rapidly and constantly and I cannot evaluate all the new products here. Remember that it usually takes a company a couple of years to work the bugs out of new products. And some companies try so hard just for novelty that... for example i...
