Heating and Cooling

longisland60 · 06-27-2007, 12:09 PM

I built an addition to our permanent (as opposed to lake) home about 6 years ago and we installed radiant heat in a new master bathroom and hi-velocity A/C in the addition as well as the existing structure.

The radiant heating in the bathroom is installed under a tile floor and is real nice on cold nights. The rest of the addition space is heated with the existing forced hot water baseboard system. In hindsight, I wish that I had used the radiant in more rooms.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is if the home is a part-time lake house. Radiant heating takes longer to warm the room than traditional baseboard or forced hot air system. If you are like us, we keep the lake home temperature way down in the winter and boost the temperature just before we leave for the lake house (Aube thermostats with phone interface let you change temp remotely, very nice...). If you only have radiant heating, it will likely take a long time to warm things up.

As for the hi-velocity A/C system, our home is a cape style. Retrofitting A/C to this home would have been a nightmare without the high velocity system. That was the major reason why I went with that type of system. We have been very pleased with the system. The system is very quiet and the ports are barely noticeable. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to install multiple zones; we went with a single 5 ton unit. And I wish I had gone with multiple smaller units so I could better control the cooling in the house.

The system itself is a Unico, with a Trane condenser. The nice thing about the Unico exchanger is that it comes in sections, allowing it to get into the attic through the existing scuttle opening.

Good luck.

Ken (longisland60)

06-27-2007, 12:09 PM	#6
longisland60 Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 27 Thanks: 1 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	some experience with radiant and hi-velocity A/C I built an addition to our permanent (as opposed to lake) home about 6 years ago and we installed radiant heat in a new master bathroom and hi-velocity A/C in the addition as well as the existing structure. The radiant heating in the bathroom is installed under a tile floor and is real nice on cold nights. The rest of the addition space is heated with the existing forced hot water baseboard system. In hindsight, I wish that I had used the radiant in more rooms. One thing to keep in mind, however, is if the home is a part-time lake house. Radiant heating takes longer to warm the room than traditional baseboard or forced hot air system. If you are like us, we keep the lake home temperature way down in the winter and boost the temperature just before we leave for the lake house (Aube thermostats with phone interface let you change temp remotely, very nice...). If you only have radiant heating, it will likely take a long time to warm things up. As for the hi-velocity A/C system, our home is a cape style. Retrofitting A/C to this home would have been a nightmare without the high velocity system. That was the major reason why I went with that type of system. We have been very pleased with the system. The system is very quiet and the ports are barely noticeable. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to install multiple zones; we went with a single 5 ton unit. And I wish I had gone with multiple smaller units so I could better control the cooling in the house. The system itself is a Unico, with a Trane condenser. The nice thing about the Unico exchanger is that it comes in sections, allowing it to get into the attic through the existing scuttle opening. Good luck. Ken (longisland60)