4 ms·

Our house (in Northern New England) has heat pumps (which we added in the last two years), a wood stove, and hydronic baseboards powered by an oil-fired boiler

Our house (in Northern New England) has heat pumps (which we added in the last two years), a wood stove, and hydronic baseboards powered by an oil-fired boiler (which we now use as backup). The heat pumps so far are able to heat just fine, and are great for maintaining temperature while we aren’t at home. However, we much prefer the comfort provided by radiant heat: wood stove and baseboards. Once the boiler needs replacing, we will likely switch to a wood pellet boiler so that we can use the radiant heat more when it starts to get colder/before the wood stove had heated up in the morning/when we get home in the evenings.

amluto 4y ago
You can get air-to-water heat pumps (e.g. Chiltrix), and some manufacturers have refrigerant-to-water accessories for conventional systems. So you could have a heat pump heat your floors.
- avidphantasm 4y ago
  Thanks for the pointer. I’ll look into Chiltrix. However, based on my state’s tracking of heating fuel prices, wood pellet is by far the cheapest [1] and is a local/regional resource. [1] https://www.energy.nh.gov/energy-information/nh-fuel-prices https://www.energy.nh.gov/energy-information/nh-fuel-prices
DFHippie 4y ago
We're in Vermont in a house built in 1926. We blew insulation into the walls, insulated the attic well, and replaced the ground floor windows (some day we'll do the rest of the windows; in the meantime we use plastic film in the winter). We heat with pellets primarily, but when the pellet stove starts to struggle we turn on the heat pump we installed a few years ago. It warms up the house in no time.
Tor3 4y ago
I actually prefer the heat pump over radiant heat. My heat pump is placed low on the wall, about a meter or a bit less above the floor, in one side of the living room. Due to the air it's pumping out I get an even nice temperature everywhere, while if I use the wood stove with the heat pump switched off it gets very hot near the stove while it's cold in the other section (around the corner) of the living room, not to mention the kitchen. In practice I end up pouring in wood fuel and let the thing burn to maybe 10kW just to get the warm air seeping into the kitchen, eventually, and then it's too hot elsewhere. I realize I could set up fans etc, but really - it's so much nicer to use the heat pump and get a uniform heat distribution.
- avidphantasm 4y ago
  We tend to leave the mini-splits on but turned down to their minimum temperature when the wood stove is on. The fans of the mini-split stay on and circulate the heat around nicely.

amluto 4y ago

You can get air-to-water heat pumps (e.g. Chiltrix), and some manufacturers have refrigerant-to-water accessories for conventional systems. So you could have a heat pump heat your floors.

avidphantasm 4y ago
Thanks for the pointer. I’ll look into Chiltrix. However, based on my state’s tracking of heating fuel prices, wood pellet is by far the cheapest [1] and is a local/regional resource. [1] https://www.energy.nh.gov/energy-information/nh-fuel-prices https://www.energy.nh.gov/energy-information/nh-fuel-prices

DFHippie 4y ago

We're in Vermont in a house built in 1926. We blew insulation into the walls, insulated the attic well, and replaced the ground floor windows (some day we'll do the rest of the windows; in the meantime we use plastic film in the winter). We heat with pellets primarily, but when the pellet stove starts to struggle we turn on the heat pump we installed a few years ago. It warms up the house in no time.

Tor3 4y ago

I actually prefer the heat pump over radiant heat. My heat pump is placed low on the wall, about a meter or a bit less above the floor, in one side of the living room. Due to the air it's pumping out I get an even nice temperature everywhere, while if I use the wood stove with the heat pump switched off it gets very hot near the stove while it's cold in the other section (around the corner) of the living room, not to mention the kitchen. In practice I end up pouring in wood fuel and let the thing burn to maybe 10kW just to get the warm air seeping into the kitchen, eventually, and then it's too hot elsewhere. I realize I could set up fans etc, but really - it's so much nicer to use the heat pump and get a uniform heat distribution.

avidphantasm 4y ago
We tend to leave the mini-splits on but turned down to their minimum temperature when the wood stove is on. The fans of the mini-split stay on and circulate the heat around nicely.