[AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off topic...heating

charlie hill chill8 at cox.net
Thu Jul 28 15:29:23 PDT 2005 

Sure George.  Like I said, I'm trying to soak up information.
Who manufactured your system or is it homebuilt?  Who designed it?

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Willer" <gwill at toast.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off 
topic...heating


> Charlie,
>
> We switched over to building nearly all total electric homes in 1966, and 
> only built a couple with fossil fueled heating systems since.  Our own 
> home with gas fired hot water heat was one of the last gas homes we 
> built... and it was a total loss in a fire in 1972 when it was 7 years 
> old, possibly from a gas leak.  The replacement using some of the original 
> foundation and of the same total square footage (about 2000) was heated by 
> electric radiant ceilings... much more economical than the gas had been.
>
> Our present home was built in 1991and is nearly twice as large, (3800 
> Sq.Ft.) with an unusual heat pump.  It is ground source with a twist... it 
> has the freon running directly through 20 100' coils buried in a large 
> pit. Our water is heated by the heat pump too... directly or with waste 
> heat during the cooling cycle.  The huge advantage to this system is the 
> elimination of any heat exchanger or pumping losses on the ground source 
> side.  Another advantage that would be difficult to measure but has to be 
> there... the ground in the pit is a huge heat sink.  Some of the waste 
> heat from the cooling cycle is still there for recovery during the heating 
> cycle. Except for inflation this home is even less expensive to heat and 
> cool than the last, much smaller one was.
>
> Are you ready for a lecture on heating efficiency?  C.O.P. of heat pumps 
> compared to performance of fuel fired furnaces?
>
> George Willer
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "charlie hill" <chill8 at cox.net>
> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" 
> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:46 AM
> Subject: Re: [AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off topic
>
>
>> Roger,  do you recall how much more it cost (percentage wise) than a 
>> normal air to air heat pump would have been for your house.  We are 
>> thinking about building a place and I'm trying to absorb every little bit 
>> of information I can.
>>
>> Charlie
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Roger Welsch" <captneb at micrord.com>
>> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" 
>> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:12 AM
>> Subject: Re: [AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off 
>> topic
>>
>>
>>> One of the few really smart things we did when we moved out here was to
>>> install a geothermal heat pump for both heating and cooling.  We have a 
>>> lot
>>> of subsurface water...we are on sand and about 1000 yards from the Loup
>>> River...so water is not a problem.  It's one thing to cool with hundred
>>> degree air in the summer and heat with -20 degree air in the winter, but
>>> it's quite another, we find, to use 60 degree water for both.  A closed
>>> coolant subsurface loop does the same thing without pulling up the water 
>>> but
>>> we find we use very little water in both heating and cooling our huge 
>>> old
>>> house even pumping and dumping (we use it to water the lawn and trees, 
>>> so it
>>> gets another use before making a very small wet spot below the yard.  I
>>> highly recommend the system.
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: "Larry D. Goss" <rlgoss at evansville.net>
>>> To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'"
>>> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>>> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 9:44 AM
>>> Subject: RE: [AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off 
>>> topic
>>>
>>>
>>>> You're on the right track to eliminate all natural gas in your house,
>>>> Farmer.  When we moved into this house 16 years ago, I was not looking
>>>> forward to the utility bills, but I was mildly shocked to find that the
>>>> all-electric solution for heating, cooling, and cooking saved us money.
>>>> This house is over twice the size of the one we moved out of, but the
>>>> utility bills are lower.  The big difference -- no gas.  Since we moved
>>>> in, we've taken steps to make the use of energy more efficient than it
>>>> already was.  All windows and doors have been replaced.  The heat pump
>>>> is now a high-efficiency model.  The water heater is high efficiency.
>>>> We're replacing all the toilets with pressure flush models, etc.
>>>>
>>>> One of the big helps is the windows.  We had double glazed windows with
>>>> the standard unsealed storms, but now all windows and door lights are
>>>> triple glazed.  My Dad did triple glazing on the farm house where I was
>>>> born in northern Indiana.  Before he did it, he did the calculations on
>>>> the energy savings.  It turned out that the utility bill savings in a
>>>> single heating season was greater than the total added cost of the
>>>> triple glazing at all the windows.  Bottom line, IMHO you can't afford
>>>> not to do it.  One of my colleagues at the university decided he needed
>>>> to do the same thing to his house, so he's changing out his windows at 
>>>> a
>>>> rate of one per year.  He's doing it that way because of the limits on
>>>> energy credits on income taxes.  If he does one window per year, he
>>>> stays under $1000 per year and can get credits for the whole 
>>>> conversion.
>>>> I suspect that he's being a bit short-sighted on that deal.  He 
>>>> probably
>>>> would save more money by getting the whole house converted so his
>>>> utility bills would be lower immediately.
>>>>
>>>> Before the flames begin, you obviously can't have the house sealed as
>>>> well as it ends up being with triple glazed windows if you're using
>>>> natural or LP gas for anything inside unless you provide for combustion
>>>> air.  That's even taken care of in this house.  It has combustion air
>>>> for the fireplace ducted to the hearth and the fireplace liner provides
>>>> heat to the house through separate ducting.
>>>>
>>>> Larry
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
>>>> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Indiana
>>>> Robinson
>>>> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 8:52 AM
>>>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
>>>> Subject: Re: [AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off
>>>> topic
>>>>
>>>> On 28 Jul 2005 at 8:00, George Willer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > What!!!  Turn the compressor off???  You've got to be kidding, Dean.
>>>> I
>>>> > leave my system on 24/7/358, and have for many years.  I do switch it
>>>> off
>>>> > when we go to Portland for the week.  Having air instantly available
>>>> at any
>>>> > of the 8 outlets is just too handy to mess with turning it off
>>>> anywhere.
>>>> >
>>>> > For Portland week only I also turn the power off to the water system.
>>>> Do
>>>> > you turn your water off when you aren't using it also?
>>>> >
>>>> > George Willer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I also leave mine on 24-7 but I have to shut it off in cold
>>>> weather since my shop is
>>>> cold. It has trouble starting in cold weather. When we leave for more
>>>> than a day trip I
>>>> do shut the water (and water heater) off at the breaker box.
>>>>
>>>> In a similar vein, 2 years ago my mother had a small leak
>>>> develop in an unused natural
>>>> gas wall furnace. it apparently started at the beginning of the billing
>>>> cycle and when
>>>> the bill came it was $1800 high for the month. With the help of an old
>>>> school friend (I
>>>> say "old" because he is a year older than I am) with the gas company I
>>>> traced it to a
>>>> constant small leak to that extra furnace and shut down that line. This
>>>> was not in the
>>>> heating season. The next bill had another $400 in "leak" cost on it.
>>>> Since it was on our
>>>> side of the meter they would forgive none of it. I never bothered to
>>>> look for the actual
>>>> leak but since all of that line was in the basement and a closed crawl
>>>> space I am
>>>> assuming that it was leaking at the furnace electric control valve and
>>>> venting to the
>>>> outside up on the roof. Otherwise we would have smelled it (or blown
>>>> up). I plan to
>>>> remove that area furnace and replace it with an electric baseboard
>>>> heater. It was an
>>>> expensive Warm Morning wall unit installed to heat 2 added rooms but it
>>>> is quite noisy by
>>>> design. It sounds like a wind tunnel.  I might even convert the whole
>>>> house to all
>>>> electric. One less bill each month. My present house is all electric
>>>> (except my pellet
>>>> stove heat {was wood}) and has been since we put it up 29 years ago 
>>>> this
>>>> month. I have
>>>> been satisfied with the all electric. At times we thought about other
>>>> fuels when electric
>>>> got a bit high but then the other fuels would jump up and down, mostly
>>>> up   ;-)  in
>>>> price. My electric heat has a thermostat in each room and is completely
>>>> quiet. I have
>>>> been in houses where the furnace fan was so loud that you could hardly
>>>> hear a TV above it
>>>> when it kicked on. My pellet stove is a tiny bit louder than I like
>>>> since it sits in a
>>>> nook very near my lazyboy but at least it is constant. When I move to
>>>> the other house,
>>>> probably next summer, I plan to put a large capacity corn / pellet 
>>>> stove
>>>> in the basement
>>>> to provide most of the heat for the house and the regular basement
>>>> furnace (with a quiet
>>>> blower system) will be used to distribute the heat to the main floor.
>>>> The furnace burner
>>>> will come on only in very cold weather if I use it at all. I might even
>>>> install electric
>>>> baseboard heat in the rest of the house to take up any possible slack 
>>>> in
>>>> very cold
>>>> weather or I may use radiant hot water heat under the floors heated by
>>>> the corn stove. I
>>>> would still like to get the gas out of the house altogether. Every
>>>> couple of years there
>>>> is a house destroyed by a gas explosion around here... House go boom,
>>>> fall down...  :-)
>>>> There are 5 gas lines in that house. One for the furnace, one
>>>> for the second furnace,
>>>> one for the water heater, one for the dryer and another for an unused
>>>> gas heater that was
>>>> installed in the basement when the house was built on to years ago.
>>>> There is a large line
>>>> to the shop and another to the old milk house. Most of those lines are
>>>> about 40 years old
>>>> now and the potential for leaks is getting higher. It does not take 
>>>> many
>>>> $2200 leaks to
>>>> eat up any possible savings...   :-)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> "farmer", Esquire
>>>> At Hewick Midwest
>>>>       Wealth beyond belief, just no money...
>>>>
>>>> Paternal Robinson's here by way of Norway (Clan Gunn), Scottish
>>>> Highlands,
>>>> Cleasby Yorkshire England, Virginia, Kentucky then Indiana. In America
>>>> 100
>>>> years
>>>> before the revolution.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Francis Robinson
>>>> Central Indiana USA
>>>> robinson at svs.net
>>>>
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