Insulated Concrete Form Home and Radiant Floor Heating

Using radiant floor heating in a concrete home is the way to go!

Solar Heating for Hot Water and Space Heating

Use of solar panels on this house will provide both domestic hot water and warm water for floor heating / warming.

Radiant Floor Heating

If you have ever jumped in a car on a blustery day that has been sitting in the sun - then you have had the radiant experience. Imagine living in a space that feels that way during the winter. When you open the door to the space from the outside and have that experience everyday.

This project also has a stairwell that is being converted to a radiating center column to combat the cold that the large glass wall produces when the sun goes down.

Heat Pump Installation - Existing Home

This house was built around 1955 with an addition added later with flat roof design, which yielded no place for duct work.  The solution was to use mini-split units in 4 bedrooms for 4 adults (all having different comfort requirements) in the flat room portion of the house and install a 14 SEER variable speed blower heat pump system in the original part of the house.

E-mail from Client: 

We feel as if we are living in a different world.  I sit at my desk and feel this cool coming down from the register and what a difference it makes.  It was so hot and stuffy in here, but now it’s delightful.  I can’t tell you how much we are enjoying this.  Gene is sleeping up to eight hours now—unheard of.  We go from room to room and it’s comfortable everywhere.  Yesterday was a very hot day—96 degrees but I couldn’t tell it inside the house. This is after  55 years of living in this house!!   Thank you, thank you, thank you, dear friend. 

 

   For the last two nights I have put my conditioner on “sleep”, put the ceiling fan on low, and had a good night.  Debbie puts her on the “sleep” mode also.  I put my room on 76 during the day, and 80 in the front of the house at night.  Jim seems to be happy with his, and Gene is very happy. 

Oil Boiler Replacement with Condensing Gas Fired Boiler

Replacing an oil boiler with a gas boiler is not always the best option, but in this scenario, it made the best choice.

• The oil boiler worked fine and  was actually in very good shape. 
• The chimney needed to be relined
• The oil tank needed to be replaced
• Gas was already installed at the house with an adequate gas line and meter size
• Oil fired boiler used a direct coil for domestic hot water. 
• Oil fired boiler was much larger than needed for heat loss (Manual J)     
• The cost to replace the chimney and the tank was more than the cost of a new boiler.  The best efficiency on oil boilers is in the 86% range. Tax rebates require 90% efficient equipment for $1500 tax credit.  Instead, the choice...

• Installed a new 95% efficient gas boiler with load rating to match Manual J, the old boiler found a new home (recycled).
• Existing stack used to route new plastic PVC pipe stack and sealed at top to stop further water damage. 
• Oil tank removed and used
• Indirect fired domestic hot water heater with thermostatic mixing valve
• Clean operation of gas with less maintenance issues than oil fired equipment.

Gas Boiler Upgrade

The client had a gas fired boiler (and this was originally a oil boiler with a gas conversion kit). The boiler was twice as large as a heat loss (Manual J) required it be, and was operating at around 72% efficiency. It was located in a garage with jacket losses to unused space (the losses from the boiler added no heat to the living space) adjacent to the domestic gas hot water heater (over 10 years old - usually when they start to fail signaled by the debris clogging the drain cock). 

The solution was to replace this boiler and gas hot water heater with a condensing 95% efficient low mass boiler with an indirect hot water tank and thermostatic mixing valve. The boiler works off an outdoor reset control which allows low water temperatures to heat the house on cool days that require heating (45 - 60 F). The boiler was also right sized for the house at 80,000 BTU's. The boiler step fires on load, so if the house only needs 20,000 BTU's, it can produce just that amount of heat - saving energy. This system qualifies for the $1500 energy tax credit.

Getting Started with a PCS Blog

Starting a blog to share news on PCS - Premier Comfort Systems. Thanks for Following!

A Blog for Projects

I am excited to start sharing what we have been doing at PCS. At this blog we will provide news, information, and projects and updates on projects. Thanks for following!