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by Scoundreller
2584 days ago
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> They take FOREVER to warm up a house after a set back, so don't bother with a deep setback overnight This is incredibly true in intermittently occupied areas. Just heating the air is one thing. Heating everything around it just to get warm is another. If you're in a private/semi-private office 9-5, having your own heater or window A/C gives you a lot of control and is incredibly efficient since you can turn it on/off with your work hours. It will cycle a lot because the envelope doesn't change temperature much (eventually heating/cooling the air), but you reduce consumption a lot by not getting to the point of majorly heating/cooling the envelope, just the air (which is what matters unless a mattress is involved). |
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With radiant heat, if I want it to be 55 while I'm sleeping, and 70 when I leave my bed, my heat will come on 2 hours before I'm going to get up, and the temperature will slowly increase over that time, leading to it being far too warm about an hour before I intend to get up. The heater turns off as the house gets up to temp, but the radiators thermal mass is such that they are still quite hot when I leave for the day, in effect heating the house long after I've left.
Furthermore, it's basically impossible to have zone heat with one-pipe systems, and it's much more difficult with two pipe systems. (This is less of a problem with hot water though).
With forced air, you can install active vents fairly easily, and while you still can't cut off TOO many of the vents at once, lest you cause too much back-pressure in the system, it is fairly easy to heat one side of your house or one floor of your house.
On top of all that, steam doesn't handle short-cycling well, so you have to accept a wider swing in temp than you do with forced air.