* Forced air: This is the cheapest way to install a heating system with the poorest way of heating the objects in the house. With some manual and electrical parts running the system.  When the furnace fan turns on it blows cold air for a couple of minutes until the ductwork gets warm. Then it delivers the needed warm air for warming the ambient air in the room. Once the room temperature is reached, the air passively warms the items in the room. Starting with the ceiling and upper walls of the room working its way down to the floor.
* When it comes to cooling the forced air system works the best. I takes a powerful fan to drive the cold heavy air to the top floor allowing it to cascade downward cooling the item’s it come in contact with. This means the floor will be the first large surface to be cooled than slowly it works it’s way up to the level of the thermostat. You will still have a lot of hot and humid air at the ceiling if the heating contract did not install a high wall return air duct.
*  It’s also the best and I think the only way to really clean the air, removing air born allergens out of the air. You can use secondary air filtration units but the biggest one I’ve seen only does 1 room at a time trapping a person with allergies in 1 room or in 1 area of a house. Using a high quality air filter on your furnace (they can be Paper) about 5” thick do a great job of cleaning all the air for the entire house.

* Hot water heat: Is a good way to heat a house. With a boiler you convert fuel into hot water. With this type of system you can do multi-tasking of different types of jobs at the same time.
* Such as using radiators to heat the air, in-floor heat to heat floor surfaces such as front & back entry floors to melt the snow and evaporate the water or heat the bathroom floor and even heat the sidewalls of your shower to make your shower a better experience for you.
* With in-floor heat you can heat the basement floor that is the hardest surface to heat, while using hot air blows above the floor it will never actually heat the concrete floor. But having the pipe in the floor, the floor becomes a large radiator heating the room, making the enjoyable, instead of saying well we have a basement. Whats so nice about in-floor heat you have no moving air or cold drafts moving across the floor.
* The next area to heat with the hot water is the garage floor your car will love it the snow and ice melt off of it quickly taking with it the salt. Using a forced air blower in a garage is nice but the floor all ways stay cold and if you in your garage a lot you differ projects on till the warmer months of the year.
* And finally you can heat your driveway and sidewalks, think about you newer have to lift a shovel again.

Adding more insulation on the exterior of the wall if done right will save you a boatload of money. On the exterior of a building you best results are going to be from a rigid insulation board. There are at least 2 types 1st is just an insulation board and the 2nd has aluminam foil on both sides you must choose according to the siding you want to install as to what insulation board is best. For example; horizontal cedar lap siding does not like aluminum for behind it. Before installing any type of rigid insulation on to an exterior wall surface you must make a way for the water vapor to escape to the outside air.

I recommend 1 product “mortairvent” Made by Benjamin Obdyke, it’s only 1/4” thick installed over the tarpaper, than you install you insulation board next and finally your siding. It’s made of woven plastic with enough rigidity to keep 1/4 inch air gap to allow the water vapor to escape either by going down the wall to be vented at the foundation line or vented at the soffit line of the house.

Rules for hiring a contractor:

General Information
1. Does the contractor have a state license to do the type of work needing to be done?
2. Does the contractor have liability insurance? If something goes wrong who will cover your loss.
3.  Does the contractor have worker compensation insurance?
If a person falls or get hurt in any way while on your property (grass, sidewalk, inside your house, etc.) you’re at fault. Unless the contractor has workers comp. insurance.

4. Make Sure All Subcontractors and/or Any Person Coming Onto Your Property Has Legal Workers Compensation and Liability Insurance.
5. Does this person have the brains to pull off this type of job?  Watch out there a lot of cons out there calling them contractors only wanting to separate you from your money.
6. Can he/she prove what is being said in writing; a contract that protects you the Homeowner?
7. A lot of people have go good intentions but no knowledge or life experience to draw from.
8. There are 3 classifications of quality of work
A.  Poor and well below sub standard workmanship
B.  Just Average on workmanship
C.   Excellent work- any worker just above average ends up excelling to excellent static because of the person himself, I’ve seen this time and time again.

9. 2nd Classifications of motives.
A. Money is a good motivator
B. The lack of money is a poor motivation
C. Lack of time for said job or out of on contracts personal bills
D. The only job available this one, actually scores just above average
E. Actually caring for his work and the client.

Now is the contractor your hiring going to hire subcontractor with substandard work or money problems? Remember this your project is to be a work of art not a novel of science fiction.

Now with insulated flex pipes the air moves swiftly through the pipes with little to no hindrance the pipe walls are made of a spiraling piece of wire in beaded in the poly tubes pipe wall than covered with insulation and a 2nd poly to keep the cavity air space that the pipe is passing through. Sorry to say the inexperienced installers use this ductwork a lot and in places that it was not intended to be used. Granted this pipe is very flexible but bending the pipe in a hard 90° or even 180° and/or squeezing it down to fit a 3.5 inch space cavity. When the inside pipe measures 6” and the out side measures 8 1/2. A 6” round duct has 28.26 Cubic inch of open area when you crush it down to 3 1/2” on the exterior; the interior only has 5 cubic inches of open area. The bad thing about this ductwork is if too much air pressure and vacuum is used in the pipe run and the connections come apart and contracts to the vacuum side of the cleaning.

When you need this type of ductwork cleaned, many things can go wrong 1 the joints can come apart. The compressor hose can puncture the inner poly wall of the pipe, or if there is a restriction in the pipe and there is debris in the pipe it could clog. Remember these entire ducts are running in concealed spaces between your ceiling and 2nd floor or your basement ceiling and your main floor. If they disconnect there is no way to re attach them with out remove 1 of your finished surfaces.

Using an exhaust fan below 300 Cubic feet per minute, most houses have areas that leak this much air into these houses. Newer homes leak about 150 cfm around windows and doors.
If an exhaust fan is turned on blowing out 300 cfm, your short 150 cfm and it will draw it from a bad source. One of the easiest places for the air to come into the house is by sucking the air out of the chimney either the fireplace or the furnace chimney.

We remodeled a house along with the kitchen; we installed a 1280 CFM exhaust fan. We told the homeowner that he need makeup air he refused Than came thanksgiving, the family was there the owner has a 5’ wide and 4 tall open wood fireplace the fire was going for about an hour when the wife turned on the kitchen fan. Instantly the fireplace chimney reversed bringing the smoke into the house the fire in the fireplace was still burning but the flames were blowing horizontally into the room. He wanted a quick fix so he had a 12” fresh air intake installed into the cold air return on his furnace. This did fix 1 problem the fireplace now works properly while the kitchen fan runs on full speed.

If the furnace is running it was not sided to handle super cold air coming into the heat exchanger. With this much cold air coming into the furnace, the furnace cannot heat the house because now it has to heat the incoming cold fresh air. The other problem is that the heat exchanger is being stressed with 400 ° on the burner side and -10° on the other side this shortens the life of the heat exchanger by years.
If the house is warm because of the fireplace the furnace won’t turn on. With the fresh air dumping in to the return air plenum, the super cold air is now coming out all the vents cooling down your floors making a draft along the floor to the fireplace and the kitchen stove.
The proper way is to bring fresh air into the house and run it through a furnace designed to temper the makeup air.

Awning; With this type of window the operating devices are located at the bottom of the window that makes it easy to operate. These windows are hinged at the top and swing outward. The problem is that the kitchen countertop is 36” tall than the window is about 24-36” tall. IE the top of the window is between 5’to 6’ off the floor so when you are looking out the window at the sink all your eyes are looking at the top of the window jamb, you must duck to look out the window.

Glider; With this type of window the operating devices are located half way up the window that makes this window hard to operate when you lean over the sink and faucet.

Casement; This is a great type of window the operating devices are located at the bottom of the window that makes it easy to operate, also if the wind is coming from the left and you want to bring the air in open the right window and it will hook the wind and bring it into the kitchen.

Double Hung; This is a good looking window but it has a draw back you must on unlock the window, the lock is half way up the center of the window opening it from the bottom is adequate again the sink and faucet is the way.

Hopper; A hopper window is a cool design of a window but it swings and tilts into the room in the swing mode the window can not open the faucet is in the way.

Transom; Having a transom window over the regular kitchen window is great unless you have a ceiling under 9’ again the bottom of the transom and the top of the regular is in your line of sight.

Having it warmer also helps your vehicles start faster as well as better engine oil viscosity, because the engine block is starting warm.

Using a compact ceiling gas heater works great. We have installed several of these units. You can bolt them to the roof framing members and or floor joist system. You can mount them up tight or drop them down to a lower height if you have a 9’- 14’ high garage ceiling. By installing the unit at the back of the garage and blow air cross the garage to the far front corner this will get the greatest way to stabilize the temperature in the garage. This will also dry your car off and the floor. By keeping your garage temperature at or above 38° you should never have the garage floor flaking or popping of concrete from the winter weather.

This furnace also can be vented both out the wall and/or through the roof of the garage. Giving is a way to really maximize your opportunity for the best installation.

2 types of Solar thermo panels

Home made solar collectors have a couple of problems: They are not sealed and filled with inert gas (argon gas) there by missing a key way of collecting solar heat. Improper way of winding the tubing inside the panel is another problem.

Flat panels commercially made are a great way to collect heat. You can set the collectors on most any type of roofing system. They also can be joined together for a greater Btu output. The maximum output will yield you any where between 50-70% of your domestic hot water. Having extra cash to go green is great but if you need this to be your main heating unit for hot water or limited location for hot water storage, this is not the system for you at this time I’ll check these systems out every couple of years for better results.

heat loss calculation we can look at the different types of fuels vs. the costs of a geothermal system.
But before we can start we must enter some of the basics:
#1 the location of the house for the average winter low temperature.
#2 the location of the house for the average summer high temperature.
#3 what do you keep your thermostat at in the wintertime.
#4 what do you keep your thermostat for A.C. in the summer time.
#5 The Calculation is written for 67° ambient temperature.
#6 in your area how many heating degree-days are there in Mpls. there are 8000.0
Duluth 9818.0
#7 in your area how many Cooling degree-days are there in Mpls. there are 743.0
Duluth 180.0

#8 what is the efficiency of your furnace
#9 what is the Seer rating of your Air Conditioner.
Now with these parameters plugged in the numbers than tell a story
In the
There are 3 heat loss charts for 1988, 1998, 2008 the first line down is the cost of the fuel the 2nd line is the if your furnace is running at 100% Eff. The 3rd row down is per year to heat the house. The 4rth row is the cost savings per month if you have Geo thermal heating installed instead of the fuel you have. But notice the 5th row down this one is important, this tell you if you are a wise steward of you money. If the pay back in years is 10 years or less you could save a lot of money. In 1988 if you had an Electric furnace and changed it in 88 by 1997 the system would have been paid off and today you would have $37,015.00 more in your pocket. This price is based on the electric price in 1988 and we all know that the price has risen for electric energy. In the 2008 Chart look at the pay back on all 4 types of fuel. The price of LP gas is 4.03 dollars per gallon now, and is going up – I heard it could reach 8.00 per gallon by spring. If it only goes up only an additional $2.00 it will cost you 1500.00 per month on a budget, can you afford it.

Cleaning cycle for the burners at least every 2 years
Fuel – Natural Gas, Propane
When gas is burnt it’s by product is water and Carbon Dioxide add this to a steel heat exchanger this creates rust. When rust flacks off the exchanger it falls on to the burners below creating bad combustion an lose of efficiency.

Oil #2 a Oil burners are a unique creation they blow fuel oil out at 100 PSI This oil is ignited by 2 electrodes at 10,000 volts. If/or when the electrodes burn back, and /or twist it will soot up the heat exchanger and flue again loosing efficiency.

Heat exchangers over time loss there integrity from the heating 350° 72 times in one cold winter day. When the exchanger breaks, cracks- carbon monoxide is now being pushed in to the house.

When you move air for heating and cooling you must clean or change your, also check to make sure your furnace fan blades are clean. If not use a screwdriver and clean each fin. Just have more air moving through the furnace will increase your heating and cooling efficiency.

Systems check –
Proper start up of burner -does it start with a bang or take a long time to light
Make sure the high limit control shoots down properly at the right temp.
Check for proper airflow out of the blower check the fins on the blower fan for lint buildup.
Cost of a new heating and cooling system with ductwork – $ 15,000.00
Cost of a new Geo system with ductwork – $ 24,000.00 with a well system
Cost of a new Geo system with ductwork – $ 18-20,000.00 with a in ground loop system
Cost of replacement of a furnace & AC system. $8,500.00
Cost of replacement of a Geo system $6,500.00

The picture you are looking at is not mold but instead it’s dirt. In this photo this house has hot water heat. There is no air filtration system in this house, as small dirt particles migrate into the wall mounted radiator (baseboard heat) heats the air as it passes by but the dirt is charged with static electricity than the particles are carried up the wall with the warm air. This is where the charged particle bond cooler parts of the wall. The framing of the house keeps the sheetrock cooler directly in front of the studs in the winter and warmer in the summer. This also happens with electric baseboard heat. Using an air purifier such as a Honeywell 17000 HEPA Quietcare Air Cleaner works great removing all the particulate in the air.

Another job site the homeowner had a new roof put on 6 months earlier and had the attic reinsulated. The first cold morning about –15 below 0 with a hot shower the ceiling fan started dripping water. So he called out the roofer to fix the problem, it was not the roofing but instead the exhaust fan piping again was not insulated. While the high humidity was being blown out and the metal piping was below 0 the humidity was condensing rapidly on the piping, then run back into the ceiling fan, through the vent louvers and end up dripping to the floor.
You have to insulate the entire exhaust vent to the exhaust point.

The answer will move to action. A person will breathe in and vent per breathe 1/2 liter in quiet breathing to 6 liters or 1.58 gallons per minute.

Each person takes between 4 and 10 million breaths per year. The max volume of air that we take in and breathe out is called vital capacity. It’s about 4800 ml or about 5,000,000 gallons of air.
Each day, a person takes between 11 thousand to 28 thousand breaths per day per person or in other words about 13,698.6 gallons.

Calculates to 1,831.23 cubic feet per person must come into the house per day.
With this understanding, by tightening up our houses we need to bring in fresh air or we are going to poison our selves with our own exhaust air (CO2).

Installing an air exchanger into a new home is not an extra item that the state is forcing on us to do, but instead it is for our protection.
Having the Air Exchanger running 1 minute per hour per person in the house plus running it to remove humidity in the bathrooms while showers or hot tubs are running help stabilize the humidity in the entire house.

Answer

I’m assuming that the house has a go air conditioner with the power to drop the house temp and to maintain it at 72°F when the outside air is 110°F . This problem occurs mostly when the inside temp is at 72° to 95°, if so than what is happening is to much humidity from the outside is coming into the house though Fresh air intakes(makeup air) for the appliances and or exhaust fans as well as an air exchanger. What is happening with the Air conditioner it sounds like it is to large of a unit. When the air conditioner runs constantly(45 minutes per hour) it has the ability to remove the water from the inside air. But if the AC unit only runs 15-25 minutes per hour and make up air coming into the house, this excess hot air coming in to the house brings with it a high concentration of water in a vapor form.

Now the hot air carrying humidity is in the house it rushes to the ceiling , while the AC unit is running dumping cold air into the house. ( A quick lesson in physics; Hot air is light and rises and cold air is heavy and drops to the floor) As the hot air looses its temperature it must loss volume of water its holding to do this it has to condensate on something cold. In a house it is the A- coil inside the furnace. but if the temp inside the house is already cool and the AC unit is not running the A-coil in the furnace is warm now the air has to find a cooler surface to condensate on. In this house it is the floor next to the exterior walls because gravity is holding the coldest air at the floor line. The exterior wall location is because the heating and cooling supply ducts have already dispensed the cold air there now making condensation.

The solution
1. Run 1-3 dehumidifiers I now they are ugly and noisy
2. Down size your AC unit and install a 2nd AC unit in the Attic for 90° + days this will allow you to run your primary AC unit in your furnace longer and remove the excess humidity from the house.
3. If you have a air exchanger run the fresh air through a dehumidifier before bringing the air into the house. You can do this with any fresh air intake flex tubes.
4. Keep the house doors shut as much as possible A max. of 1 door opening per hour, 10 second open.

The siding is not the problem. the house wrap is not helping. In hot climates you must protect the house (wood structure) from excess humidity. That means you must seal wall sheathing surface with something that will not allow moisture to pass through even if the siding is nailed on. that means all nails and nail holes must be sealed. Than a layer of moisture control fabric must be installed that removes the excess humidity. tarpaper works best. The insulation with the paper on it is not good because it has the ability to hold the humidity in the stud cavity. In hot climate locations fiberglass, or mineral wool insulation is great because air can pass through the insulation allowing the stud cavity to dry out. Do not use poly on the inside walls in a hot climate because you will trap humidity in the stud cavities and will rot out your structural walls.

Touch on picture to enlarge

Supply pipe as follows to each area
30-48 SF 4” round pipe
50- 80SF 5” round pipe
81-150SF 6” round pipe
If you are more willing to use Flex pipe rather than steel round pipe up size the flex by 1” in diameter because of the resistance in the flex piping.
Using a lot of flex tubing for supply and returns only decreases the quantity of air trying to be moved.
Trunk lines (ductwork, metalwork, etc. has many names) are size according to the supply pipes they are feeding
On any square style duct allow 16” of air for resistance in the ductwork
4” pipe needs 10” of air
5” pipe needs 13” of air
6” pipe needs 16” of air
7” pipe needs 19” of air
If we have a 12”x 8” size duct this will supply 5-6” round pipes, 8-4”, 6-5” or a combination of sizes
If you try to install more pipes than what a trunk line can handle the longest round pipe runs will get little to no air movement.

Note:
If you have additional pumps on the circulating hot water line, get an electrician to have these circulation pumps wired together and install an electric timer that can shut these pumps off for a period of 10 minutes out of each hour at the same time.

If you have a single pump, which is often the case, the electrician can tie in a programmable timer for this single pump.

Future Benefit:
A water flow gauge gives the plumber servicing an immediate tool in determining if the circulating pump is working properly thus saving trouble shutting time.

There is no accurate way to tell if a circulating pump is moving enough or too much water short of a water flow indicator.

A secondary benefit that results, if you have a thermostatic mixing valve, you can now determine if that thermostatic mixing is working properly.

Final note:
These preventive maintenance steps will not eliminate hot water circulation line leak(s), however these timers will greatly reduce the erosion effect that is occurring in the copper pipes and thereby minimize the number of service calls required to fix these leaks.

Install an electric heat thermostat on the entry wall then install the electric heater in the floor joist under the entry and wire it into the electrical panel.

(Use a 220-volt heater) Set the thermostat about 5 degrees above the room temperature this will dry the floor out and dry the boots and shoes.

If you set the temp higher you only waist electricity.

So the heating contractor cut holes into the house for fresh air for the gas appliances as well as an Air exchanger system for removing exhaust air (contaminated). All of which are located just below the floor line of main floor if you have a basement. More…

In the wintertime you can see the carbine monoxide coming from your car and your neighbors, lingering in the air from 5′ and downward to the ground.

If your neighbors like to have bon fires, the heat rises but the fumes are heavier than air, and it is lingering at the ground, so does LP gas, all of these fumes can be sucked up by the fresh air intakes of your houses. Making your interior air problem worse instead of better.
# To solve this problem, this is easy just move the air intakes up to the soffit line (were the exterior wall stops and roof starts of the house).

The air up there is cleaner, dryer, less pollen, and air intake its self needs less cleaning.

Installing electric baseboard heat is the most economical way for installation but bad on the wallet for running it.

Let’s look back 100 years ago the settlers used the room under the houses IE root cellars for a place to store their canned goods and vegetables like potato’s and squash etc.

The ground around the cellar was about 55° a little warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter.

The cellar was a poor man’s refrigerator. Now today’s life style we have to reverse the effects of this room (area).

Keep in mind that Warmth (heat rises because it is lighter than cold air, Cold air being heavier forces it’s way to the floor pushing the warm air up.)Touch on picture to enlarge

Exterior concrete walls have to be separated also, using 2″rigid foam is great if you are in a sandy lot and with a high water table is below the floor level.

Other wise use rigid sheets fiberglass insulation, ground water will drain through it.

Now we have to heat this area, a 2 fold system works best first install In-floor radiant heat with a boiler system and setting the thermostat at 68°.

Then install a forced air system for air handling, moving air for cleaning it, moistening it and mixing it.

By setting the thermostat at 65° degrees and having set the fan to the on position shall give you the best results.

To improve the performance add 3 1/2″ of Icynene insulation into the exterior walls.

Putting equipment above ground level often results in wasps and fowls finding a place to make their nests.

Putting equipment on roofs becomes a pill for the maintenance person and the equipment now has an opportunity to leaking into the home.

Putting the equipment at ground level opens up the opportunity for small animals to chew the wires and make their home in it.

Installing the equipment in the home or a mechanical room keeps the wildlife out of the equipment and makes the environment safe for the technician to maintain it.

Electricity has been the most costly in the past 30 years, but with energy costs jump on oil it may be the way to heat and cool the home.
• Gas

Next to electricity gas would be the easiest product to maintain.
More…
Simple concepts and the largest number of contractors work with this type of equipment.
Gas has long been the leader in affordable heat.
• Oil

Oil is a good option, the concepts are simple but there are very few contractors who really understand how to fix the equipment when it needs maintenance.
• Solar

Some solar systems are very easy with little to no maintenance.
However, the investment and size of the equipment is often large for the small return of investment.
• Wood

Wood, appears to be cheep, but requires vehicles, chain saws, a huge source of wood and teenagers.
• Hybrids

Dual fuel, Water source heat pumps, and much more are good options.
The concepts are simple but there are very few contractors who really understand how to fix the equipment when it needs maintenance.

With direct conditioning of the air, you will get the quickest response from the equipment onto the air that is possible.
I.E. Coming home to a cold house the air will cool down the faster because you are directly cooling the air.
You can moisten, clean and condition the air. More…
• Radiant Cooling

With radiant conditioning of the air, it will take forever to get the home cool in a desirable amount of time.
To my knowledge – no one makes this type of equipment.
The concept is the same as the earth losing heat at night into space.
I know of a couple of people who ran cold water in their radiant panels, only to find out that the humidity condensed on the panels and piping and ruined the non-stone construction of their homes.
• Convection Heat

See Radiant Cooling above.

With direct conditioning of the air, you will get the quickest response from the equipment onto the air that is possible.
I.E. Coming home to a cold house the air will warm up faster because you are directly heating the air. More…

However the furniture will feel cold for some time.

You can moisten, clean and condition the air.
• Radiant Heat

With radiant conditioning of the air, you will get the slowest response from the equipment
Onto the air that is possible.

I E. Coming home to a cold house the air will warm up slower because you are directly heating the objects that will in turn raise the air temperature.

However the surfaces facing the radiant heat warm before the air gets warm.

This type of heat comes in varieties of forms, standing radiators, in floor heating slabs and tubes, Radiant panels and tubes, and even the old European wood stove which is covered with ceramic tile.

There is no way to moisten, clean and condition the air
• Convection Heat

With convection conditioning of the air, you will get an intermediate response from the equipment onto the air that is possible.

I E. Coming home to a cold house the air will warm up somewhat faster than radiant heat because you are directly heating a medium that then needs to heat air.

The objects will in turn become warm because the air temperature is rising.

There is no way to moisten, clean and condition the air.