Anyone have experience of living with warm air central heating?

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nigpd

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I am considering a move to a house that has warm air central heating with ducts and vents and stuff.

I havent come across this type of heating before, so I'm hopeful that someone on TP has some experience of it.

Please can I have your thoughts and experiences, both positive and negative.

Thanks in advance
 
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I'm living with it now. It's my only experience of it but it seems to be pretty good. It gets the house hot quite quickly at least. One thing I noticed is that rooms further away from the heating are noticably cooler, but I suppose that would also depend on the size of the house.
 
I have not lived in one myself, but I had friend who did and I am also in the air conditioning industry.
The older systems used to feed air into each room through grilles at low level, which is logical as hot air rises, but they can cause a bit of a draught around the ankles. My friend wasn't happy with the limited control that they have so he put in a conventional radiator system.
Some of the systems going into newer houses that are highly insulated have air being fed in at high level through very small circular diffusers. I'm not sure how effective they are.

How old is the house?

How does the temperature get controlled in each room?
 
I moved into a new estate in the 70's that had a ducted air system and I personally did not like it, it did not take up the wall space that a conventional radiator system did though which was an advantage.

A point in favour is that mother in law still has the original ducted air boiler and has been trouble free in all those years unlike the complicated systems of today.

The old ducted air system however will not be running at the efficiency of a modern system.
 
Our last house had one of these systems. Although I understand it may be difficult to get replacement parts for these, and a lot of our neighbours had changed these to radiators, personally we really liked the system. The rooms heated quickly and on a cold night my wife found it difficult to prise herself away from the vents! Also cheaper to run compared with the back boiler we have now in our current house. One final benefit - our warm air system could also blow cold air out too - a kind of basic air-con system!

As with any central heating system, it's always better to get a heating engineer to check out the heating before you decide whether to buy!
 
Not had one myself but a friend did, he seemed to always have a bad chest in the winter. I remember him saying that his doctor had attributed the main reason to be his hot air heating as it dries the air out.
 
We had one years ago & my father ripped it out.

He said it was expensive to run & just moved dust round the house :D


* you could also hear what was going on in different rooms through the vents ;)
 
digitalfailure said:
Not had one myself but a friend did, he seemed to always have a bad chest in the winter. I remember him saying that his doctor had attributed the main reason to be his hot air heating as it dries the air out.
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mrgubby said:
you could also hear what was going on in different rooms through the vents ;)
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I think that sums up the best and worst of it really! My brother, who is reasonally fit and healthy always suffered with his breathing when he stayed at a friends house. His friend got told he had asthma from which he curiously recovered from within a week of leaving home :suspect: But saying that most people are okay with it.

As to the hearing, my best friends parents used to tap on the vent in the living room and tell her to go to bed. Doesn't matter what room you were in, you could always hear it. How cool is that for communication. Beats shouting anyday!

Anyway, back to this house. At the end of the day, it's your call. If the house is the right one for you, then it's the right one for you. Alternatively, get a quote to see how much it will cost to rip it out and put in rads and see if it's worth it.
 
I've had it in two places, a maisonette and a 3 bed semi.

Good points are how quickly the house warms up when it comes on - its a near instant effect. However, it does seem like it goes cold again as soon as it is swtiched off. I think that it more of a perception because you can't feel the warm air blowing on you! The cats loved it - they both used to glue themselves to a vent in winter until they were at the point of melting.

There were a couple of downsides for me, firstly because I have a mild case of asthma, it made the air dry which was absolutely no good for my chest. It also seemed to make the house more dusty. I'm sure it doesn't produce dust itself, but must disturb more than settles elsewhere. We had it all ripped out of the semi detached house and had a proper radiator system installed which was infinitely better all round. If it's a place you're planning to stay in long term, I'd seriously consider this as as option and get it priced up.
 
Thanks for your replies guys.

As usual with this type of thing, there are always positives and negatives. I will go round again this week and take a closer look at the system, its age, when last serviced, fault history etc and also take a look at how the system is controlled thermostatically.

If we buy the house, we intend to extend it quite a bit in a year or so and that may be the best time to put a normal radiator system in if we dont get on with the current warm air system.
 
These kind of systems are pretty standard here in Canada, but I prefer the good old combi boiler/radiator system I had in the UK.

*We have a thermostat in the living room, but no individual thermostats throughout the house, so it's the same temp throughout. Obviously upstairs is warmer as hot air rises.

*The air does get very dry

*It means having a seperate system for heating water

*If you put filters in the vents, it stops dirt and dust blowing through

*You can get vents which open & close to help control the heat flow

*I have never heard any noises in other rooms

Hope that helps :)
 
minimeeze said:
These kind of systems are pretty standard here in Canada, but I prefer the good old combi boiler/radiator system I had in the UK.

*We have a thermostat in the living room, but no individual thermostats throughout the house, so it's the same temp throughout. Obviously upstairs is warmer as hot air rises.

*The air does get very dry

*It means having a seperate system for heating water

*If you put filters in the vents, it stops dirt and dust blowing through

*You can get vents which open & close to help control the heat flow

*I have never heard any noises in other rooms

Hope that helps :)
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Thanks that's a great help. Am going back to the house again tonight to ask some searching questions about their system using your experiences :thumbs:
 
I would do the sound test.

We had it in a one bed house, and after some movment in the loft in the night, a Starling managed to get itself down the air intake and into the heater space. Fortunately, we were in the house, and the heating wasn't on. He was fine.
 
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