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We have a room that doesn't heat well in the winter and I'm wondering how one of these would work to fix that. Not many watts but perhaps that would be fine. At least it is cool enough to not have to worry about starting a fire........ And it it were to give a boost of a few degrees on the really cold times.

We have forced air heating so another thought would be to have one in the bed room and let the rest of the house cool a bit more at night.

http://www.eheat.com/envi-high-efficien ... r-hh1012t/

Ed

Saw a system on this Old House. It was dampers that replaced each air register in each room. The were connected to a master unit by blue tooth and controlled the rempature in each room. Cold rooms became comfy and hot rooms cooled off. Each room had it's own thermostat that tied to the master which was tied to the air handler.

They said besides making the house much more comfortable the unit saved a ton of money. Price was not that awful high. Each unit replaces the existing air register and they do not require any wiring. Cool rooms the damper opens, warm room the dampers close. Want to drop temp in house at night just set temp in those rooms lower. The.your furnace just heats the room your are in. Think about you can keep the house cooler and just have the rooms you are in heated.

Ya got something against an electric blanket?

Electric mattress pad.

Yes I saw that, and got really excited with the idea. But if you listen to what they said you still have to provide enough air flow to keep the heating/cooling unit happy. They didn't get into that too much but what it amounts to is you can't just heat/cool a room or two unless you have enough air flow, in our house we don't have it. In fact we would have to heat/cool just about what we do now.

30+ year old design not looking good for just the simple installation.
You have much less control on an old system like mine. We have a single speed fan and it runs the same speed in both winter and summer, no control over that even. No air flow circulation runs either, well yes I can set it to fan on all the time but that would be a waste.

Newer system would cost me big bucks but if it were installed an upgraded system I would think about this smart system, it would be better then having to have all the ducting redone with junction boxes. Just too much money for this house, its simply not worth it.

I did like the idea but when I looked into it things didn't work out quite like they were portraying. Too bad. If someone has a newer system it might work for them.

Ed

Ed in Tampa wrote:Saw a system on this Old House. It was dampers that replaced each air register in each room. The were connected to a master unit by blue tooth and controlled the rempature in each room. Cold rooms became comfy and hot rooms cooled off. Each room had it's own thermostat that tied to the master which was tied to the air handler.

They said besides making the house much more comfortable the unit saved a ton of money. Price was not that awful high. Each unit replaces the existing air register and they do not require any wiring. Cool rooms the damper opens, warm room the dampers close. Want to drop temp in house at night just set temp in those rooms lower. The.your furnace just heats the room your are in. Think about you can keep the house cooler and just have the rooms you are in heated.

JPG wrote:Ya got something against an electric blanket?

I don't but the wife does. She likes piling the blankets on where I like the least I can get away with. Since my thyroid operation I find my body doesn't operate like it use to. I get cold easy and fast where before that was not the case. I'm find it hard to adjust.

Besides that is the bedroom issue and wouldn't help in the cold room unless I hang them on the walls and put them on the floor, or was that the idea you had in mind???

Ed

Do a Google image search on:
duct booster fan

Some are very inexpensive. Some fit in the duct and some actually replace the room register grill. Some are quite expensive too.
They can be wired to the furnace blower or perhaps better to a thermostat in the hard to heat room or to both. Both is best.

This type would be my personal choice for a cooler running motor and ease of service if need be later. There are reasons they use squirrel cage blowers on most furnaces.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tjernlund-DB-2- ... 1575529356


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Yes that sounded like a good idea to us but when we did it we found out it did next to nothing. Actually we had two of them, one in each of the far bedrooms, if I recall we had used them for maybe two years but it really didn't improve the situation. The ones we had were locally controlled and would detect when there was air flow, either hot or cold and turn on. Much higher noise level then we expected as well. Again in some places these things might work but we ended up parting with them.

We have tried a lot of things and so far its like nothing really works like if it had been designed right in the first place. The heating/cooling design of the house was just not right. The main trunk runs out to just one side for a distance then turns and gets to pretty much the middle of the house then turns back in the direction it came from and runs most of the way down the house were it ends maybe 2/3's of the way. Two pipes run off that to the last two bedrooms from the end of the trunk. Both pipes are undersized and run too far.

When we had some work done maybe 15/16 years ago we talked about what it would take to make it "right" and the quote was unreal. Short of it was we decided to just live with it but lately I've been thinking about perhaps some form of added heat down here might work. A couple of hundred more if it worked would be worth it.

One of my brothers got one of these box heaters that they use in their living room when they watch tv. It's really quiet and they have a place where it can set out of the way. I'd say it pretty much a square 15"x15"x15". I'd get one of those but I don't really have a place to put it in this room.

Ed

robinson46176 wrote:Do a Google image search on:
duct booster fan

Some are very inexpensive. Some fit in the duct and some actually replace the room register grill. Some are quite expensive too.
They can be wired to the furnace blower or perhaps better to a thermostat in the hard to heat room or to both. Both is best.

This type would be my personal choice for a cooler running motor and ease of service if need be later. There are reasons they use squirrel cage blowers on most furnaces.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tjernlund-DB-2- ... 1575529356


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Not knowing the room itself, if you can add some blown in insulation on the ceiling, and reduce air intrusion by sealing exterior openings, you may can make it more comfortable. We heated a room with a 60 watt light bulb in a 1 foot section of stove pipe with 90 degree elbows to block the light at the ranch once we added insulation and sealed our air leaks.

It worked really well.

If you have a thermometer you can place on the vents, compare the temperature coming out of several. The air should be about the same temp when circulating. If not, a section of duct may have a leak in the attic in the supply line, or the insulation around it has come loose, or completely off.

Also, sometimes closing a door to keep the heat from flowing out the top of the door opening can help, if there is sufficient gap at the base of the door to allow full air return from the room. The cold air at the floor needs to exit at the floor, not the heated air through the door opening. If not enough gap exists, and the door is closed, the room will pressurize somewhat and restrict air exchanges.

Insulating the walls etc. is outside your budget if they arent already insulated, but air intrusion if stopped can make a big difference, even if around the electrical outlets on exterior walls.

Hopefully something that is a low cost fix will manifest itself and maybe I have given you a couple of ideas that can help.

Everett

Rambling...
I'm just not a big fan of anything of much wattage (like most heaters) that plugs in. I have a 3' baseboard heater (wall mounted thermostat) mounted below a big bow window in the kitchen and a wall mounted fan forced heater mounted in a bathroom wall. Both are hard-wired 220 Volt. I can sleep with those running. We do temporarily use a couple of free-standing heaters but we always shut them off over night or when we leave.
I have a full set of new 220 volt hard-wired baseboard heaters of proper size for our needs for the house but I have not installed them yet pending my current (no pun intended) project of switching (not a pun) the existing "fuse" box for a larger and far better organized breaker box (long story).
We use the electric in mild weather. I learned long ago that it takes "X" amount of wood to maintain a good fire in most stoves and furnaces whether it is 50 degrees out or 25 degrees. When it is 50 degrees out the house tends to get too warm. I do not like to burn a low smoldering fire for long periods, that is where creosote problems come from. Using electric heat in mild weather also saves a good bit of wood consumption and in mild weather the electric cost is minimal.
We also need to be preparing for the time when we will become unable to keep burning wood, or just do not want to. The full electric heat capability will also allow us better freedom to be gone for a few days either for vacation or medical events. With the exception of a couple of smallish easily managed this summer spots this house is well insulated. It is very large but as needed in the future we can easily manage just how much of it we bother to heat to full normal temps. That is one nice feature of the baseboard electric heat with each room having its own thermostat.


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