air conditioning with hot water baseboards

[princess barbara]

I'm looking for advice. We live in New England and my husband hates hot and humid weather. We also have several people with environmental allergies in the house. We have oil fired circulating hot water baseboard heat. We've been using up to 5 window air conditioners a summer on the 3 different floors in our home but now 3 of the units no longer work. It's loud as well as a pain installing and storing these units each year. What are my options short of replacing our entire heating system with central heat and air? I've read online about ductless split air conditioning systems and was wondering if anyone has one. How much? Do you like it? Thanks for any help.

 

[shoney]

You don't have to replace your heating system.

You would need to install duct work for the central air.

We have radiators for heat (house was built in 1960).

The duct work and a/c were installed about 10 years ago.

 

[scbelleatheart]

We had hot water heat and had air installed. They ran ductwork and just installed the unit next to the boiler in the basement and two condensers outside.. It ran around $3000-$3500. Our freinds with hot water heat did the same. We both lived in split level houses, 4 floors. Installation was very quick. less than a day.

 

[princess barbara]

Thanks for the responses. But what I'm confused about is where does the duct work go? Is it on the outside of your home? Do you need more than 1 condenser in the basement next to your boiler if you have a home with multiple levels? Thanks.

 

[shoney]

Thanks for the responses. But what I'm confused about is where does the duct work go? Is it on the outside of your home? Do you need more than 1 condenser in the basement next to your boiler if you have a home with multiple levels? Thanks.

The condenser is outside. The blower is inside. Ours is in the attic. the duct work is behind the walls. they sometimes use closet space if needed.

We have 2 stories and 1 zone.

 

[Dsnyfireman]

Hi. I am a master certified refrigeration and A/C tech in Maine. (As well as a firefighter as my user name states) I have seen the ductless systems and they do work great. Depending on what style home you have ducted systems are better in my opinion as they are generally quieter in the house. But the ductless have better temp zone controll. I would recommend the Mitsubishi brand for ductless or train brand for central ducted. Both are a little more pricey but you get what you pay for . Have a quality HVAC company do an evaluation on you home and get several quotes. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[Snoozan]

We have a ductless mini-split that we just installed in our ranch home here in Western Mass. BEST THING EVER!!! It is basically a unit outside, that both cools and heats our home. We have a ceiling unit in the kitchen and a unit on the wall in our bedroom. I would have died of the heat last summer(can anyone say hot flashes?!?)without the unit in the bedroom and we have been using the unit in the kitchen to basically heat the living space this winter. Our electric bill has been about $135/month for the past 3 months and that's keeping the heat at a comfortable 68-70. Here is the website for the unit we have:

http://www.fujitsugeneral.com/hfi.htm

My DBIL is an oil burner tech guy and was able to order the unit thru his company. He and my DH were able to get it installed in a day.

We have had our oil tank filled only once this winter for 150 gals so are saving $100's in oil costs. We have baseboard hot water for heat generally.

 

[Brer Shay]

We're in PA and have three floors with baseboard hot water heat. We looked at installing AC and it was going to be 10K minimum. Instead we installed a Fujitsu minisplit only for AC. It has been a dream! It cools 75% of the house beautifully and we install one small window unit in an upstairs bedroom. So much easier, quieter, and effective than the four window units we used to use. We installed off-season (in March) and because they were so slow for work at the time it was only $1800. Would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

[Chaoster]

another vote for mini-split. I have mitsubishi. Less mess and very quiet.