As it says in the title, my home does not have any ductwork. I am in North Carolina, and the builder of this home was from the northeast (Pittsburgh) so, when he built the home in 1951, he installed a hydronic boiler system for heat (nice heat, but very cosmetically obtrusive baseboard radiators). Also being from the northeast, he apparently did not see the need for central air.
Well, summers in NC are very hot so I am debating doing one of two things:
1) Having new ductwork installed in the attic (nothing up there currently as all plumbing and electrical is in the basement), and put in a forced air central heating and cooling dual source heat pump (electric and natural gas). I have several quotes on this already.
2) Skipping the ductwork altogether and going with a "whole house" mini-split system. In other words, one condenser unit which powers multi mini-split cassettes.
I want the new system to handle both heating and cooling so that I can remove redundancy and eliminate the boiler system along with the existing AC window units.
I am not an HVAC expert, but I'm sure you know, in the USA, mini-splits have traditionally used to heat and cool spaces that fall outside of the traditional conditioned space in a home. These are normally just used to heat/cool ONE space. For example, an addition that was added to the house years after the primary system was installed, a new garage apartment, a newly finished basement, etc.
My understanding though is that these systems have come along way, are very efficient, and can work well for whole house installs. I would likely not consider this if it meant having the big clunky wall unit cassettes that have been the traditional delivery mechanism of treated air in these systems, but more recently, I have discovered minimally obtrusive ceiling cassettes which just look like large bathroom exhaust fans.
The house is a single family ranch roughly 1600 square feet of finished space (with an unfinished basement). There are additional spaces where I may want to add cassettes in the future (garage which may be finished down the line, etc). This is another item that leads me to consider mini splits. I'm not staunchly opposed to anything, per-se, but in general I would rather have one system, or at least one type of system handling everything rather than having several different systems working to do the same job (i.e. traditional HVAC system over here, mini-splits over there).
Of the options above, and leaving money aside for the moment, which would you say is a BETTER way to heat and cool my house? Thank you
Well, summers in NC are very hot so I am debating doing one of two things:
1) Having new ductwork installed in the attic (nothing up there currently as all plumbing and electrical is in the basement), and put in a forced air central heating and cooling dual source heat pump (electric and natural gas). I have several quotes on this already.
2) Skipping the ductwork altogether and going with a "whole house" mini-split system. In other words, one condenser unit which powers multi mini-split cassettes.
I want the new system to handle both heating and cooling so that I can remove redundancy and eliminate the boiler system along with the existing AC window units.
I am not an HVAC expert, but I'm sure you know, in the USA, mini-splits have traditionally used to heat and cool spaces that fall outside of the traditional conditioned space in a home. These are normally just used to heat/cool ONE space. For example, an addition that was added to the house years after the primary system was installed, a new garage apartment, a newly finished basement, etc.
My understanding though is that these systems have come along way, are very efficient, and can work well for whole house installs. I would likely not consider this if it meant having the big clunky wall unit cassettes that have been the traditional delivery mechanism of treated air in these systems, but more recently, I have discovered minimally obtrusive ceiling cassettes which just look like large bathroom exhaust fans.
The house is a single family ranch roughly 1600 square feet of finished space (with an unfinished basement). There are additional spaces where I may want to add cassettes in the future (garage which may be finished down the line, etc). This is another item that leads me to consider mini splits. I'm not staunchly opposed to anything, per-se, but in general I would rather have one system, or at least one type of system handling everything rather than having several different systems working to do the same job (i.e. traditional HVAC system over here, mini-splits over there).
Of the options above, and leaving money aside for the moment, which would you say is a BETTER way to heat and cool my house? Thank you
source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?2225636-House-with-no-central-air-new-ductwork-or-whole-house-mini-split&goto=newpost
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