Air Cleaning - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

angus242 · 03-12-2008, 04:13 PM

Hey all. I have a question about air cleaning/filtering. I have the opportunity to buy a house for myself and have any type of HVAC system I want installed. I was considering going with hydronic radiant heating. My question is, what do I do about filtering the air? Typically houses around here are forced air with a furnace filter. If I'm not using forced air in the winter, do I need some kind of whole-house filtering? I mean the particles that end up in a filter are in the house regardless if the blower is circulating them or not. So do I just dust and vacuum more often?

Thanks

AngusII · 03-12-2008, 08:38 PM

What about Air Conditioning? or do you not need it where you live?

cleveman · 03-12-2008, 09:21 PM

put in a furnace and central air as well. You'll use the furnace for early and late in the season for cold snaps. Before you want to heat up your house, there will be some cool days. If you heat up your house with the water, it will take a couple of days, then it will warm up again and you won't need it. Same in the spring.

Plus, this will only cost you another grand in addition to the central air. Put an electronic air cleaner on the system, as well as space and water/drain for a humidifier. I don't know how your humidity will be if you aren't heating exclusively with hot air, but at least leave the option to install one. I didn't run the water to the furnace where I am now, and I'm using a roll-around model with tanks which I have to fill up every morning and it barely keeps the house humidified.

With the electronic air cleaner, you won't need to dust near as much if at all.

Put in a central vac and exhaust it to the outdoors.

I trust you'll have tile or hardwood everywhere?

good luck

angus242 · 03-13-2008, 09:53 AM

I live just outside Chicago so yes, there would be a/c. For that I was considering something like the Unico system. I suppose since it's modular, I could add the water heating module, since I'll already have hot water for the radiant. And there is an option to add air filtering too. But there's still the good 3-4 month period of time when the radiant would be the predominant heat supply. What do you do for air filtering during those months?
As for humidity, I was considering steam. The way the house is laid out, it looks like I'd be able to place the unit in the basement and feed it up to a vent on the main floor that could be located very close to the stairs to also service the second floor.
And yes, there would be all tile/hardwood throughout the house.
Look, I'm no HVAC guy so I could be way off on this. I really like the idea of radiant heating because of how long it stays cold around here. Besides, one of the ways I'm talking the woman into no carpeting is by promising the warm floors!

AngusII · 03-13-2008, 11:29 AM

I am sure there is an option to run the fan on the unico system (not that familiar with the unico) without the cooling on so that could filter the air. Run it 24/7 or put it on a timer to run less.

cleveman · 03-13-2008, 11:59 AM

Colonel Angus,

You are a model citizen and you should give courses on husbandry also. Coming from a 100% hard surface guy, I really admire the way you sold this to your wife. I am a lesser man, therefore I had to sell the idea with a few nice area carpets.

I think Angus II is right on with his idea of running the blower to clean the air, but I would only do it on an intermittent basis because of the cost.

I think the humidifier will operate then as well, so your problems are solved.

angus242 · 03-13-2008, 04:30 PM

Thanks Cleveman, but I'm not sure she'd totally agree with you

.
Probably complain about me staying up too late, being too crabby in the morning and not spending enough "quality" time with the family. Oh yeah and 8 years later, still not married.

I appreciate the replies (another Angus out there....who woulda thunk it). I don't mean to rant here but I guess I'm a little sick of dino energy costing so much. This week it cost me $90 to fill my truck. My last heating bill was $180. I'm tired of it. It seems so f'ed up that at 11:00pm on any given night, if I want a hamburger, I have 6-10 choices of where to get one within a few miles. Yet, when I heat/cool my home I have 2 choices? (propane not allowed by me) And on top of that, there's no stopping the rising cost of either of them. I'm trying to be smart about the (potential) new place. Unfortunately, my pockets are not bottomless and I need to consider cost too. To be honest, I'd rather spend the money up front. I think the suppliers and contractors who are supplying new and more efficient means of HVAC deserve my money more than the big oil/coal companies. If I can pull this off, I'm looking at solar to help heat the radiant and household water. If there's anything else I can swing to help, I'll consider it. I have a rather large overall budget so I have room to lessen in other areas to get more of the mechanicals I want. I just need to use some of those husbandry skills!!!!!

BTW, you should have heard my convincing argument to get the tankless water heater!!!!

cleveman · 03-13-2008, 09:55 PM

Think small and well insulated.

I drive a conventional turbodiesel car which gets 46 mpg. I don't think people need hybrid cars, they just need this existing technology.

the same is true with homes. My last home was 1846 square feet, energy star. My monthly average gas bill was $60 and the electric was $55. This was just a conventional energy star in central iowa. Now I'm in a home which I remodeled, and the energy costs are 1.5x as much for less square footage, just because it's not as well built/insulated.

You don't have to pay income tax on the money you save.

You don't have to earn money which you don't need for expenses.

If you own your home and you have low costs, you have already earned about $2000/month just by waking up in the morning.

I say environmentally friendly means no mortgage, low energy costs=less money spent making money.