Advice on what to install

[ryandayon]

I am having a brand new house built and will be done by mid to end of December. Its a ranch 1512 sq ft with a full daylight basement. Will have radiant heat throughout. I live in Maine.
I had my mind set on a pellet boiler, either Windhager or Kedel. I talked to a solid fuels guy today and he said I should stay away as pellets are going to be going up a LOT in the next year or two and that i should think about a heat pump or condensing unit instead.. Any advice??? Thanks everyone!

 

[brenndatomu]

Heat pump for the A/C and spring/fall heating, wood fired boiler for the cold weather?

 

[nctacoma]

If you are building new then this is your best opportunity to get as much insulation and air sealing done. It is actually possible to heat your entire house in a northern climate with just a small heat pump and an air to air heat exchanger. I know folks in Vermont whose entire utility bills are under $1000 a year, all electricity and gas included. Attention to proper amounts and proper installation of sufficient insulation will pay off for the lifetime of the house.

 

[BoilerBob]

pellet boiler, either Windhager or Kedel

I vote for pellet boiler.
No direct experience, but read a lot of good reviews.

 

[ryandayon]

I am having the house done with spray foam so it should be extremely tight in that regard. I am just concerned about anything electric as Maine electric prices are getting out of control. And they just allowed CMP to raise prices again up to 30% from what I understand. I have heard good things about the heat pumps though as far as being really efficient.

 

[maple1]

What did he mean by 'heat pump'? Is he talking ductless mini-split heat pump? If not, the only way (I think) to use your radiant with a heat pump is to go geothermal - which is pretty darn expensive to install.

I think I would still go ahead with a Biowin or the like. Mini-splits can always be installed later if you decide to go that route, or decide you'd like some a/c. IMO redundancy is a good thing, and these days being able to use more than one fuel type can be advantageous. That doesn't mean you need to get to that all at once. Oil prices are dropping - who knew? Basing a decision on what might be in a couple years might lead to some tail chasing - who knows exactly how tech is going to evolve and what all the curve balls will be with fuel supplies & pricing in the coming years.

Is wood in your picture at all? Something wood burning could also be added later too.

 

[Fred61]

There are several air to water heat pumps in Europe and the UK and I predict they will be her sooner or later. Daikin is already offering one here in the US.
http://www.daikin.com/products/ac/lineup/heat_pump/index.html
Fujitsu and Mitsubishi shouldn't be far behind. Google "air to water heat pumps".

 

[ryandayon]

I think he means the hot water heat pumps like the AirTrap brand ones. Revision heat sells them. I had my heart set on the pellet boiler but i dont really want to spend 12 grand and not have it save me any money due to rising pellet costs which after my research seems inevitable due to exporting to Europe and demand...

The wife is dead set on radiant and I think its a great setup as well, and the one drawback is that from what i understand its bad to have another heat source due to it dropping in temps and then having to heat the floors back up when it kicks back on and therefor cuts down on efficiency..
Too many options!! Lol.

Wood is not out of the question, but I wish i would have thought about it more before as I sold off 90% of my hardwood when i cut the land for the house...

 

[ryandayon]

Airtrap is the model i guess... The brand is Air Generate here is the link.
http://airgenerate.com/

 

[maple1]

Airtrap is the model i guess... The brand is Air Generate here is the link.
http://airgenerate.com/

That's for heating domestic hot water - not your house.

Is it really 12g's to get into a pellet boiler? Hadn't priced one, but thought they were less than that. What's the pellet supply like there now, availability & price?

No gas there I guess?

Only so many ways to heat water, and wood is the only one we can get any personal control of. I don't like oil, but a small cold start direct vent might be worth considering too - the way oil prices are going right now.

 

[flyingcow]

A 1500 sq/ft ranch w/spray foamed walls? I would think that would heat with a candle or two. And you want radiant floors, or I should say she wants radiant floors. Keep her feet happy and you're happy. Been there.

Seems you're cost to heat this with whatever will be low. Look at everything with a ROI, and simple to maintain.

 

[flyingcow]

Keep in mind banks like to see fossil fuel heat or electric as a main source of heat.

 

[heaterman]

This is a general ramble about heating fuels and different systems. Feel free to ignore if it doesn't apply but the situation described in the opening post touches a lot of variables. Some of these will touch all of us in one form or another.......

I don't anticipate anything but continued volatility in the traditional fuel markets. Electricity included.
Right now Saudi Arabia is basically fighting for it's life and trying to hang on to market share by cutting the price of crude. Many of the oil producing countries in the Mideast need oil well above $100/bbl to support their economies and crude selling for 20% less than that is killing them. I'll make a prediction that this will not end well if it continues......

(broken link removed to http://news.yahoo.com/global-energy-demand-soar-60-2040-says-opec-151409727.html)

In a super efficient home like you are describing you can easily see design heat loss come in under 10 / sq ft., even in Maine.
So in your case heating 1500 sq ft., it presents a special challenge for cord wood burning boilers. (A forced air wood furnace is nearly out of the question)
Given that the full heating load will likely be far below the output of any cord wood boiler, storage will be mandatory and this of course adds cost and complexity.
Can be done but the design and layout of the system need to be addressed correctly or you will buy yourself problems. A well insulated Garn Jr would probably have to be fired only 3-4 times per week in a home like that.......

There are pellet boilers that are designed for houses with very small heating loads (common in Europe) and they can also modulate between 30-100% output. In the case of a Windhager 10KW Bio Win, you would have actual output capability between 10,000 to about 30,000 btu. This would give you a boiler that needs very little thermal storage and would still have enough ooomph to do domestic hot water production if given priority. Another way to accomplish thermal storage and virtually instant hot water production is through the use of an indirect hot water heater. The volume of the tank is used as thermal storage, maybe 40-64 gallon capacity and the domestic hot water is piped through the coil in the indirect before going into a normal hot water heater and directly to faucets. It goes without saying that a tempering valve has to be used on the outlet of the tank to prevent scalding.
There are some interesting pellet products on the market and more coming. Look at some of the models on Marc Caluwe's website for instance. Heat for the house, domestic hot water production + the ability to have a nice fire to watch in your living room. All in one unit.

Heat pumps: Two types, air to air and water to air. ..... I have heard mixed reviews on the air to air types especially after last winters temperatures. Claims by manufacturers of good heat output near 0* outdoor temps were shown to be rather "optimistic" from what I heard and observed. Even if they did heat the space, the COP became so low at those outdoor conditions that the owners may as well have run regular resistance type heating. I was told, but haven't personally confirmed, that the largest Mitsubishi distributor in our state dumped the product line because actual performance was far less than advertised and Mits would not stand behind their advertising.
If you have the right soil type a vertical loop water to air or water to water ground source heat pump can be very efficient. In a well designed and installed water to air type system you can get around 4 watts of energy out for every watt of input making the system in effect 400% efficient. This would be with a vertical loop system pulling heat from 100' down. For any ground source heat pump, you will find if it is used in water to water situations the COP will drop significantly. Many times real performance will be in the 2-2.5 range rather than 4+ like a water to air. This becomes even more pronounced as you try to drive water temperatures produced by the unit much above 115*. Heat transfer efficiency really falls off after about 110*. You will also have to have an electric or other type backup for DHW as the heat pump will not supply 100% of your needs in most cases.

In a high efficiency house there is much to be said for the ultimate simplicity of a wood burning stove if you can deal with the mess and multiple loadings per day. This too would have to sized pretty tight in order to avoid creosote formation..... I don't care how dry the wood is, it will make creosote if idling constantly. The downside is no hot water production, poor room temperature control, temperature variation throughout the house. But the initial cost is very low compared to a wood or pellet boiler.

All that being said...........you are on the right track designing your house to be as energy efficient as possible. All forms of energy will only index upward in price as the world demands more and more of any type you can imagine.
As far as pellet supply is concerned I wouldn't be too concerned. As demand increases the supply will also. One of the local mills here just added a complete second line to keep up with demand and the more popular and accepted pellets become, the more comfortable the mills are in making additional investments in equipment.

Soap box is now open......

 

[flyingcow]

I'm assuming part of opec's plan is to depress oil prices enough to slow down the U.S. and Canada's domestic production.

I'm off the soap box....

My only thoughts about what heating system to install is that it will take a long time to recoup an expensive system? Because of low heat load needed.

 

[maple1]

So, you can heat the water with an electric boiler, a propane one, an oil one, a pellet one, or a wood one.

(Assuming NG is not available).

You'd need time to work up a wood supply right now, so count that one out - for now at leat. I would likely also count out the electric boiler, unless you have time of day metering - do you? If you do, you might also consider an ETS system - incorporates its own storage, and heats that at night when electricty costs are less.

Have you priced the install cost of each of them?

 

[salecker]

I am having the house done with spray foam so it should be extremely tight in that regard.

Hi
Spray foam is only as good as the guy applying it.I have seen and heard some horror stories of bad foam jobs in houses here.Unless you have staggered studs for outside walls,every doubled stud becomes a possible air leak and void without insulation.Corners are a problem area as well.
Get some references for the spray foam company.Contact them.It is really hard to repair deficiency's you can't see in spray foam.
Thomas

 

[Deering]

I'm doubtful that pellet exports are going to be a major factor in driving domestic prices.

First, export prices are really low. The export market is cutthroat. If a mill can sell domestically, odds are really good that they can do so at a much higher margin.

Second, most pellet mills are not set up for export. Export mills generally need ready access to ports. They need to be really large producers (probably well over 100K tons per year). And the big suppliers are in the southeast U.S. with plantation trees, where they harvest them on short rotations and do whole-tree pellet production at huge bulk quantities specifically targeting the export market. No 40-lbs bags for this crowd.

Third, as heaterman said, supply is ramping up to meet demand. Don't fret.

The U.S. has rapidly become the world's largest supplier of this renewable energy resource, more than doubling its exports just last year...and no one ever hears about it. America is leading the world in this renewable energy revolution and we're fracking oblivious to it. Still baffles me. Check out this article: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16391

 

[buggyspapa]

I agree with Heaterman and Deering concerning pellet supply/pricing, and the appropriateness of one type of heating system vs. another for type of house and radiation method. Something sounds fishy about the solid fuel guy warning you away from a pellet boiler. But a pellet boiler is going to be an investment for the long term, because they are going to seem costly relative to a gas or oil boiler. There is a rebate to help defray that cost through Efficiency Maine. $5000 is something to think about. The Air Tap is a nice water heater, but can't be used to heat a house legally.

Check out Windhauger with Marc Caluwe, the US distributor. He's on here often. I've seen them installed and working; they are really well put together and designed. I could probably get you a site tour if you're curious. PM me.

 

[Deering]

One thing to think about with air-source heat pumps - their coefficient of performance (efficiency) and heat output drop significantly as it colder. That's because they're trying to extract heat out of the air, so if there's less heat in the air to extract... Not so with combustion or electric resistance devices that provide the same output regardless of outside temps. In mild climates air-source heat pumps can be a good choice, but if you often drop into single digits, they might not be a good fit for you.

The way to avoid that is to put in a ground-source heat pump, where it extracts heat from the ground, but as maple1 says above, the installation costs for putting in the well field will raise the price substantially. And almost all of the systems I've seen are very complex units that a normal guy can't service or trouble-shoot, so consider carefully how many trained technicians in your area have the skills to support it.

Most air-source units don't heat your domestic water, and in fact don't heat water at all. They just blow warm air. The Daikin Altherma is currently the only air-to-water unit I'm aware of, but the installed cost around here is about double that of a high-end pellet boiler such as a Windhager or Okofen.

If you looked at pellet prices during the big oil price spike in 2007/8, they didn't increase any faster than background inflation. They seem to be independent of fossil fuel prices. Likewise, as America's pellet export volumes have grown at an amazing clip, domestic prices have remained rock steady. So has cordwood. I think you'll see electric prices increase at a much faster clip than pellets, especially when the inevitable carbon rules tighten down on, or tax, fossil burning for electric production in the coming decades.

 

[Gasifier]

I am having the house done with spray foam so it should be extremely tight in that regard. I am just concerned about anything electric as Maine electric prices are getting out of control. And they just allowed CMP to raise prices again up to 30% from what I understand. I have heard good things about the heat pumps though as far as being really efficient.

Can you tell us the thickness of the walls? And how thick are they going with the spray foam? How is the ceiling being insulated? And how much?

 

[alaskawild]

Well I guess I'll chime in then. I'll just list what I think are your preferred options. I agree with a lot of what's been stated thus far.
Banks are going to push you to put in some type of traditional heating system. By upfront install cost they are:
1.Hot air furnace (electric or fossil fuel) If you didn't use radiant. Personally I think it would be a mistake to not use radiant!
2.Air to Air Heat Pump (electric)
3.Boiler (electric or fossil fuel)
You will need to weigh the cost of operation.

I think your solid fuel guy is not giving you good info. I am a solid fuel fan but if you are going with some type of wood boiler (my preference hands down is a gasser with storage) you are going to spend a few bucks on storage which you really need. Pellets are the way to go in my opinion if you do not want to deal with the storage issue although I would still recommend about a 100 gallon buffer tank with any pellet boiler.
Heaterman is right on the mark with his comment about a simple wood stove. As a secondary source of heat they are hard to beat! They follow along the KISS principal. A lot can be said for that. I am very impressed with the Blaze King stoves for their long burn times!
Lastly a wood or pellet boiler is very attractive when it comes right down to pure comfort. If you have radiant floor heat this is my choice!
As for insulation. Yes this is your best spent money! We built a 2688 sq ft house here in Fairbanks. Our walls are 13" thick R42 and the roof is R80. There are numerous tricks you can use to incorporate thermal breaks in the envelope. This is what really helps with radiated heat loss. Air infiltration is the other thing to look at. You can make the house as tight as a tomb but don't forget a good HRV system. If you make it too tight without a HRV you will have moisture issues!
To give you an idea of what you can get from properly insulating your house consider this. Our house at 2688 sq ft designed for a -55 degree day is using just under 8 btu per sq ft. It's cold here! LOL! It's the best money you will spend.
By the way don't get to hung up on the spray foam hype. It has its place but the guys selling it also have a lot of hype. A great place to get some real info on construction is at cchrc.org. They are a wealth of knowledge!

 

[Deering]

If the banks (or some bureaucrat) are giving you a hard time about your 'nontraditional' heating system (like what could be more traditional than burning wood!), then you might consider adding an electric boiler as a backup. They are quite inexpensive (if you don't have to upgrade your electrical service), they take up very little room, and they're pretty much maintenance free.

Since it will only be a backup, the cost of electricity is largely immaterial, since you'll rarely (hopefully) be using it. Besides, it's always nice to have a redundant heat source, just in case.