How to best heat a house with the bedrooms downstairs?

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eddieddieddie

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#210384 25-Mar-2017 09:27

I own a house in Wellington (century old wooden villa) built on steep hill side, with lounge-kitchen, bathroom and one bed room are upstairs, and two further bedrooms are downstairs. The downstairs bedrooms tend to get pretty chilly during the winter and stay that way (not helped by being hemmed in by steep hills to the north which block a lot of the winter sun) – the lounge upstairs has a wood stove in it (and insulation in the roof) which will get upstairs nice and warm but of course heat doesn’t sink: so the downstairs bedrooms just get heavy cold air sinking down to them all winter.

Underfloor is insulated and I intend to get the downstairs bedrooms carpeted (with a decent underlining). However it would be nice to be able to get a bit of heat into these rooms in an energy efficient way during the winter to: Heat the cold air hanging around downstairs, warm up the bedrooms a bit in the evening, and of course the heat will rise and heat the upstairs a bit too.

Currently heating the downstairs rooms is via electric column heaters (of the type you might from The Warehouse for not very much) which doesn’t seem very efficient. Installing a heat pump seems like the wrong tool for the job as they seem designed to ‘blast’ a lot of hot air into a room – I would prefer a more gentle method of radiating heat into the downstairs rooms. I’m soon to get some quotes for installing gas and radiators – but I suspect that might be very expensive. Other there any other options out there I might have over looked?

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#1747418 25-Mar-2017 09:46

Ask about rubber underlay rather than foam. It might last longer. Foam might be better for insulation. Something to consider anyway.

Heat pumps are very efficient. All other electric heating is equally efficient. Gas and radiators would give you a nice heat, and gas might be cheaper than power (not sure). You can have heat pump powered radiators, efficient and no noise / breeze that the heat pumps do by themselves.

kiwifidget

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#1747419 25-Mar-2017 09:47

eddieddieddie:

I would prefer a more genital method of radiating heat into the downstairs rooms.

But what if you have guests over?

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Dynamic

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#1747425 25-Mar-2017 09:58

Perhaps think about options for conducting the warm air upstairs down. Perhaps something like a heat transfer unit which takes air from near the upstairs ceiling and down through a pantry/closet, through a hole in the floor, to the ceiling of one of the rooms below.

Heat pumps are the most efficient form of electric heating currently available - easily twice as efficient and typically three times as efficient as an oil column heater or similar heater that relies of a heating element, but they do come at a higher up front cost. If you don't want a heat pump 'blasting' then turn down the fan.

Perhaps the heat pump could be in the hallway so the bedroom doors can be open or closed as required.

Ideally there would be a door or at least a heavy curtain to prevent the heat going straight up the stairs.

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#1747430 25-Mar-2017 10:04

Guests bring their own genitals. There are tables that show how much heat people introduce into their surroundings. The OP would have to pick from choices such as dancing, fast walking, heavy work or sitting depending on age or enthusiasm of the participants.

timmmay

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#1747471 25-Mar-2017 11:29

Dynamic:

Perhaps the heat pump could be in the hallway so the bedroom doors can be open or closed as required.

That obviously slows the heating of the room. Without being blown in it's a lot slower than the heat source being in the room.

We have a big heat pump heating the lounge, babies room, and our bedroom. To get to our bedroom it has to go out the lounge to the hallway (huge opening half the wall), blown along the hallway a bit, then through a standard door into our room. It does do it, but it takes hours to really heat up. The lounge is warm in 10 minutes from when the heat pump goes on.

We considered heat transfer, and may do it some time. There's apparently a lot of heat loss when your source is maybe 22 and the destination room 15. When you have a fireplace and air that's 80 degrees it works better.

jamesrobert

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#1747606 25-Mar-2017 15:45

Fan heaters + Electric Kiwi + free hour of power.

Avoid un-flued gas in already damp rooms!

antoniosk

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#1747645 25-Mar-2017 17:55

1. you need to prioritise sealing leaks around the windows, architraves and skirtings. Window seals from bunnings are ok, but tackle the leaks first

2. Replace the glass in the windows and get them re-puttied and painted. 3mm glass is notorious for leaking, 4mm is better. Again another source of leak. As an alternative you could try the heat shrink plastic from 3M over the frame to create a barrier between the glass, but it looks naff and not clear if it genuinely works

3. Insulation in the walls if you can. Big ask I know, but goes without saying if you can do it, you should

4. Insulation in ceiling cavity, again if you can

5. Underfloor insulation/barrier, to stop the wellington breezes blowing up through the gaps in the floorboards. If you have a welly villa... you have 'natural' ventilation...

6. Carpet. Don't be tempted to get the thickest wool you can - we recently got a less thicker wool blend pile installed and it performs amazingly, in the upstairs. Really keeps the heat

7. Invest in some quality thermal drapes with floor to frame cover. They should just touch the carpet, and at the top create a barrier with the top of the window. Get them made - can recommend some great folks in Welly - and it will be $1500 well spent.

After this... then any heating you put in will benefit from all the sealing you've done, meaning your ongoing heating will be cheaper and the comfort of the room will be nicer

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Kickinbac

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#1747720 25-Mar-2017 21:21

Check out Daikin Nexura floor mounted heat pumps if you are after quiet and efficient heating. They work as a radiator by heating the front aluminium panel so can be silent. They also have a fan for heating and cooling, distributing the air. You get the heat pump energy efficiency and floor mounts are good for heating as hot air rises as they put the heat in low. The main problem with floor mounts is having a suitable location to install them.

timmmay

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#1747830 26-Mar-2017 06:23

Kickinbac: Check out Daikin Nexura floor mounted heat pumps if you are after quiet and efficient heating. They work as a radiator by heating the front aluminium panel so can be silent. They also have a fan for heating and cooling, distributing the air. You get the heat pump energy efficiency and floor mounts are good for heating as hot air rises as they put the heat in low. The main problem with floor mounts is having a suitable location to install them.

That's a pretty interesting product. Any idea what they cost in NZ?

Looks like max 5.8kw though, which isn't huge, my Fujitsu Nocria (which is very loud) is 9 or 10kw.

mdf

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#1747877 26-Mar-2017 08:56

Are you already on reticulated gas for hot water or cooking? Typically you pay a relatively high fixed daily charge, but then a low per unit price, for gas. The economics typically stack up best when you either have everything you can on gas (heating, cooking, hot water etc) or everything electric. You will pay a lot if you have, say, gas hot water but then use electricity for all your heating.

Heat pumps, radiators (you will need gas for radiators) and central heating might all provide good long term options. They will likely be expensive however particularly to get downstairs just for two rooms. Particularly if those two rooms are bedrooms, where you're probably more looking to take the chill off than make toasty warm.

You might be better off looking at insulation options, especially for windows. Double glazing is obviously one, but we've also added a roller blind behind one of my kids curtains. This was intended to make her room darker, but also seems to have had a surprisingly good positive effect on insulation too.

Oil column heaters are 100% efficient (I.e. 1 kW of electricity is turned I to 1 kW of heat). Even though we've got gas heating (and despite what I said above about it being an expensive way of doing it) we still use oil columns in the kids' rooms at night. You can control each room individually (hard to do with a central heating option) and they're silent with no fans. We use heatermates (plenty of other threads on here about those) to replace the cr@ptacular internal thermostats and set to a relatively low level (17 in one room and 18 in the other I think).

Kickinbac

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#1748824 27-Mar-2017 17:08

timmmay:

Kickinbac: Check out Daikin Nexura floor mounted heat pumps if you are after quiet and efficient heating. They work as a radiator by heating the front aluminium panel so can be silent. They also have a fan for heating and cooling, distributing the air. You get the heat pump energy efficiency and floor mounts are good for heating as hot air rises as they put the heat in low. The main problem with floor mounts is having a suitable location to install them.

That's a pretty interesting product. Any idea what they cost in NZ?

Looks like max 5.8kw though, which isn't huge, my Fujitsu Nocria (which is very loud) is 9 or 10kw.

Without the specific requirements of the house I can only generalise, the FVXG50K (4.8 kw cooling / 5.8 kw heating) would be about $3660.00 incl GST installed based on a 3 meter pipe run, no electrical. The general rule for floor mounts is that they cost $800 - $1000 more than a hi-wall of equivalent capacity. The main reason for the price difference is production volumes. I reckon hi-walls outsell floor mounts by 30 to 1.

timmmay

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#1748825 27-Mar-2017 17:10

Interesting thanks Kickinbac. Shame they're a medium sized heat pump, I suspect people might like the radiator to keep the room warm silently after it's bought up to heat by the main heat pump.

We have all high wall, floor space is limited. If I was building a house, or even retrofitting from scratch now, I'd probably go with radiators.

mattwnz

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#1748835 27-Mar-2017 17:15

timmmay:

Ask about rubber underlay rather than foam. It might last longer. Foam might be better for insulation. Something to consider anyway.

Heat pumps are very efficient. All other electric heating is equally efficient. Gas and radiators would give you a nice heat, and gas might be cheaper than power (not sure). You can have heat pump powered radiators, efficient and no noise / breeze that the heat pumps do by themselves.

They don't tend to do rubber underlay anymore I was told by a carpet store. It all seems to be this urethane foam. Although Cavalier Brenworth do a recycled underlay called something like flashback, which is a fibre type product.

kindagot

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#1750438 29-Mar-2017 23:29

We went with a Rinnai flued gas heater a few years ago and it was the best decision. I did loads of research and it it 5kw and heats the whole house (108m2) albeit in Auckland. It brings fresh air in and we have had zero mould in the house since installation. It is really cheap to run and the heat just finds its way everywhere. I would definitely recommend it, friends that have heat pumps just don't seem to get very much out of their 5kw, they find it hard to keep the heat moving. The Americans seem to love them and the video for their market explains the heat transfer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmNTpijYQ84

timmmay

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#1750463 30-Mar-2017 07:16

Gas burning produces carbon dioxide and water. Flued I guess takes some of that away, but it doesn't seem like a good thing to burn inside your house. Burn it outside and bring the heat in.

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