Input on New heating thoughts for large old brick farm house

[NWOhioChevyGuy]

We have been in our house for 7 years now and I'm looking at upgrading the heating system. Current system is an OLD forced air fuel oil furnace, living on borrowed time and I'm certain is not very efficient.

House is an 1886 brick farm house 3300 square feet with dual brick walls that have been studded out on interior with fiberglass insulation. Newer windows (1990's) attics are insulated very well (18" of blown cellulose over fiberglass bats)

Some rooms upstairs do not currently, or ever have heat vents &/or anywhere to run them.

Current thought process is to go to hot water heat.
Baseboards upstairs, running PEX up through 2x4 studding in existing walls from basement to each upstairs room.
First floor use underfloor radiant PEX with AL diffusion plates & insulation between the floor joist (in basement ceiling)

Current thought is to Install a high efficiency fuel oil boiler to heat house & future garage build.

Then maybe in the future install an outdoor boiler with corn or wood for fuel to save on fuel costs & heat shop and inground pool.

I travel for work so system would need to be set up that my wife can run it easily.

 

[Radix2]

I think it is a good plan if one of your main goals is to get to a multi-zoned system where you can control temps better on a room by room basis or even just to have even heat distribution for comfort. I would replace the furnace with a simple air handler with A/C so that you can control summer humidity and the little heat we have in the summer too.

 

[luvit]

i owned a solid brick home (17" thick red brick walls with horsehair plaster on interior walls)
i think i calculated an R-value of about 3.6
2 story (2nd story was a knee wall) built in 1880 and 1275 sq ft, new windows and doors, unknown insulation in knee wall and 2nd story ceiling.. probably no insulation.. slate roof.
during the first 2 years we burned wood and used forced air LP for supplement.

I, too traveled weekly and the hearth wood burner was too high of maintenance for my wife..

We installed this ventless LP "furnace" in our living room, in-place of the hearth wood burner.
We had no moisture issues, which people worry about with ventless LP.
Our floor plan allowed this to comfortably heat the whole house.. and sometimes make the 2nd story too hot, at setting the thermostat half way.
It was the best decision I've ever made for that house... it out performed our forced-air LP furnace, which we never used again.
It is also beautiful and complimented our architecture of the home.
We went from 2 propane fills per winter (as a supplement heat) to 1 fill per winter for our main heat.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_574324-51507-CRHQD250TA_0__?productId=50293027

if you need other areas of the home heated at the opposite end of the home, you could consider a tiny wall-mount.. all depends on your floor plan and tolerances.

 

[NWOhioChevyGuy]

Comfort is one of the main factors.

We had an estimate done on upgrading to an LP forced air system with AC, with the extra duct work required to make it heat/cool effectively the price tag was WAY to large.

We currently use a couple small window units for cooling in bedroom & media room. If it is too hot then we retreat to those rooms. Due to the large thermal mass of the house we don't get many spans during summer where the evening cooling does not keep the house cool enough during the heat of the day. 1-2 maybe 3 weeks a year, don't see spending the money for that short amount of time on AC.

Also, will plan on doing most of the grunt work myself. Hoping to find someone to help me design it locally.

 

[Radix2]

Comfort is one of the main factors.

We had an estimate done on upgrading to an LP forced air system with AC, with the extra duct work required to make it heat/cool effectively the price tag was WAY to large.

We currently use a couple small window units for cooling in bedroom & media room. If it is too hot then we retreat to those rooms. Due to the large thermal mass of the house we don't get many spans during summer where the evening cooling does not keep the house cool enough during the heat of the day. 1-2 maybe 3 weeks a year, don't see spending the money for that short amount of time on AC.

Also, will plan on doing most of the grunt work myself. Hoping to find someone to help me design it locally.

I agree with you on the amount of need for A/C - just sounded like you are doing a big project to update the place and thought that you might want to get away from the noise and work of the window units - my experience is that even a fairly "poor" system works well to dehumidify and get you most of the A/C advantages here, especially so with your massive house. The air handling you have can't be super horrible if it has been able to heat the house in the winter, probably plenty for AC IMO. Might be a consideration of the plan looks to cut out your primitive duct system for Pex runs.