Your home may have one of several types of heating systems. They can range from blowing hot air through ductwork to piping hot water through your floor.
Whatever type of heating system you have, it will have advantages and disadvantages. So it’s worth a quick review of the most popular types of home heating systems, how they work, and their pros and cons.
Let’s review the following systems:
Forced Air Heating and Cooling System
This system is by far the most common type of home heating and cooling system.
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Radiant Heating System
This system is known to provide the most natural and comfortable heat in a home. It can come in a number of forms, from a pot belly stove to in-floor hot water tubing. It works through the process of radiation or direct transfer of heat from a hot to a cold surface.
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Fuel Sources
In-floor systems use hot water heated by a boiler
Hot Water Baseboard System
Similar to radiant heat, this system uses hot water heated by a boiler to heat a space by a combination of radiation and convection.
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Steam Radiant Heating System
Steam radiators are nostalgic and not often used today. They are characterized by cast iron upright radiators radiating heat with steam.
Steam systems come in two varieties, one-pipe and two-pipe systems. With one-pipe systems the water and steam travel in the same pipe but in opposite directions. In two-pipe systems steam flows in one pipe and water condensate returns in another set of pipes.
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Boilers
A boiler is the heating plant used to create hot water or steam for hydronic baseboard, radiant heat or steam radiator heating systems. Boilers can use a variety of fuels including natural gas, propane, oil or electricity.
Steam boilers are more complex than hot water boilers and have special gauge glass, pressure gauges, blow off valves and automatic feeds.
Hot water boilers can be small, compact, energy efficient and low maintenance.
Geothermal
The newest home heating (and cooling) technology is called a Geothermal Heat Pump (GHP). Heat pumps work like a refrigerator that can run in reverse. Heat is taken from one source and deposited in another location. With ground loop geothermal systems, heat is taken from or deposited to the earth by use of a ground loop pipe.
The EPA states that a Geothermal Heat Pump can save 30 to 70 percent on home heating and 20 to 50 percent on home cooling costs over conventional systems. But these systems are not cheap.