US & English/European heating systems.
 

Most houses & apartments I've been in in England, Germany & Spain were heated by hot water radiators run off a gas boiler. In American houses & apartments they were all warm air heating. Anyone know why the difference?... P.S. Every house I've been in in Scotland without exception was heated by electric night storage heaters, no idea why!

I'm in Canada. But can still answer.

First off, lots of houses in North America have hot water heating (new ones with in-floor heating, or old ones that predate forced air being popular), but the main reason for forced air heat is both capital and maintenance costs... it's substantially cheaper to install a forced air furnace, and all ductwork. No boiler to maintain, no water to leak, no water to top up... no issues with corrosion. No radiators taking up space, And you can replace your whole heating system by installing a new $3000 furnace.

Apartments and large buildings are another story... usually larger buildings and apartments use a hot water based heating system to avoid moving air between different apartments - and the duct size or air velocity would start to become impractical trying to transfer huge amounts of heat over long distances. Not to mention hot water heat offers better zone control.

I guess it's a case of pick your poison...

Poison? Our 137 year old house runs hot water quite well thank you! A little seasonal maintenance goes a long way. No electric blowers, no noise and no air filter to replace!

Most homes in the Chicago area that last had their entire heating system replaced prior to ~1930 were hot water radiator heated (most of those buildings later got window AC units when they became affordable). Most I've seen mid 1940's or later were forced air.....Heck the house I grew up in until the mid-90's had it's original force air heater with 60's-80's AC system add on....The replacement for just the heater was 1/3 the size.

...and no duct cleaning, no mold issues, no duct expansion/contraction noise, no heat exchanger to rust, yadda, yadda, yadda. I sure wish I could replace the system in my house. It's a forced air system, upgraded to include air conditioning, but poorly, and a humongous, loud gaspack outside of the master bedroom window. I ran a gas ventless heater all last winter to avoid some issues, and saved a couple hundred in heating bills.

My gaspack has a bad heat exchanger, rust due to a condensation pan back-up and is on it's third blower cutout. I'm looking now to replace it with a ductless split unit, probably a 24000 BTU unit with three indoor units. We have one of the split unit setups at our church, and with the exception of the condensate drainage, I like them.

I have oil-fired hot water baseboard heat; extremely popular for a long time in parts of the US and you can still do it today, but it costs more in the short term. Homebuilders push hot air because it's cheaper and can be easily integrated with air conditioning. Heat pumps often take the place of a furnace; often times that's a bad idea.

Before world war 2, gravity hot air systems were very popular in the US. Needed HUGE pipes, furnace looked like an octopus and took up half the basement. Hot water was also popular but cost more, so was used mostly in bigger houses. In the 1800s steam heat was also used a lot. When i was a little kid we lived in a 1920 house with gravity hot air, and huge asbestos insulated round ducts all over the basement that my dad was always hitting his head on. My house now was built in the 30s, with hot water radiators that are recessed into the walls. Originally a coal fired boiler, long since replaced by a gas boiler and a pump. Originally the water flow was by gravity. Theres still a coal fired water heater and tank sitting in the basement, that was used for domestic hot water in the summer when they didnt want to run the main boiler, which would have had a water heating coil in the firebox.

About 2 years ago a friend of mine installed a modern forced air furnace in a house that had gravity hot air, using a coal furnace that had been converted to gas. (probably the most inefficient way to heat a house ever). I was there they day he flipped on the thermostat to fire up the new furnace. The ducts were full of a 90 year accumulaton of dust that had settled out of the airflow. Which shot out of all the registers and you couldnt see 2feet. He ended up sleeping at my place that night, when we came back in the morning there was close to an inch of dust on every horizontal surface in the whole house! We buried the old asbestos insulated furnace in a low spot in his yard to get rid of it, some future owner is going to get a suprise someday if they do any digging.

I've seen some 70's homes and apartments that used electric baseboard heat.

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: If he had any tube radios he could have created the kind of decades old dust layer that I've had to remove from some sets.....With my allergies I'd probably have had to move after something like that....It never occurred to him to clean the ducts before running it?

My moms house is all electric, built in 1959. Baseboard heaters in every room, and 17 thermostats connected to a bank of mercury relays in the basement. One whole wall of the laundry room is covered in electrical panels. not many houses back then had 200 amp service, and 24o volt outlets in the kitchen. With a brass plaque next to the front door touting it as a 'medallion all electric house" i found an old ad where that was being touted by Ronald reagan. The house had all stainless apppliances made by westinghouse, and lots of built in flourescent lighting. He living room flourescents were even dimmable, with a large variac built into the wall and special ballasts. There were also built in Nutone kitchen units, and an intercom system.

Never occured to him, went though more than a dozen vacuum cleaner bags cleaning it up:)

Here on Long Island, in the late 60s/early 1970s, LILCO offered discounts to people who built their houses with electric baseboard heating. That didn't last long, and people that had it found out how very expensive it is to have electric heat!!

Nottingham city council built a few houses with gas fired warm air heating in the late 70's, they're now replacing them with with gas hot water radiator systems. The residents are complaining as they like their warm air systems. The council say they're worn out & need replacing & warm air is no longer approved..

I myself have a gas hot water radiator system that was converted from coal before I bought the house. We also have a coal effect electric fire & electric fan heater that we use when we need instant heat as the radiators can take ages to warm up..

House I grew up in & the one I owned 25 yrs were hot air.
DUSTY !! Never have it again. Got FHW now. Cost up
to 4K a year in oil. Got a pellet stove & now save 2K ++
a year. Only heating water & a little heat when temp gets
well below 0 F. Also use it when we have a blackout ( once
for 13 days). Easier than relighting every time I start
the generator, only use it 6 hrs a day when no power.
The one good thing abt hot air is the house warms up much
faster after a blackout.

73 Zeno:smoke:

I don't know, I'm not sold on hot water as having a lower cost of ownership... one broken pipe and you've got loads of mold issues to deal with. And radiators take up lots of space, and aren`t too attractive to look at... under floor is nice but lots of money to install and good luck if you get a leak!

Plus it's nosy, with the restriction imposed by zone valves making noises. Also, I like how forced air gives a place some air circulation. I run my furnace fan all summer to mix the cool basement air with the warm upstairs air and keep the temperature of the house down.

I can see the advantage of hot water in a large house or building, but I think it`s over complicating things for an average sized house.