heating system; choices?

OK, here is the deal:
I own a so called Eichler home. Means century modern design, slab and no attic.
Huge glas doors and windows wall to wall, floor to ceilling.
The previous owner decided to replace the radiant with baseboard. Very efficiant. The thing is he installed the pipes through the house were the wooden beans run. Also I have the baseboards on almost every wall plus the windows. It ruins the whole design of the house.

The roof needs to be done and that's the chance to do it right. Because there is no AC, the idea would be to install forced air (I have gas) and use the ducts also for a central AC system. This way I could get rid of all pipes and gain the wall space back.

We are just very concerned about the airflow, mold in the ducts and also noice. We have the warm water boiler operated operated with gas and were told we could use it with a "heat exchanger (hope that's the right term)" to prevent the dry heat.

I'm wondering if there are more choices?
I like to stick to gas. I have room in the garage for whatever unit.

Thanks in advance for the answers!
CB

 

IMO forced hot air is a downgrade compared to hot water BB or radiant heat. Can you paint the base boards so they blend in to the rooms more ?

 

I agree with Joe C in that going from hot water to warm air would be a step backward from a comfort standpoint.
Warm air systems which come from the ceiling usually just don't work well. Putting returns low on the wall helps but having your heat source low works far better. A/C from overhead works great. The cool air wants to fall naturally but trying to pull heat down is tough. My suggestion: Stay with the baseboard for heat & put your A/C overhead. Heat with a heating system & cool with a cooling system. Do one thing & do it well.

 

Going from radiant to baseboard to forced air is going exactly backwards on the comfort and efficiency scale.

Is reviving the radiant a possibility? I'm assuming the tubing is in the slab, in which case there is probably some capped piping near the boiler, maybe a manifold was removed, or something. Point being that nobody physically removed the distribution system, just the stuff near the boiler.

If your radiant is not completely trashed (and I think it would be hard to trash it), you could probably get it going again at a cost competitive with a forced air install from scratch.

FWIW, I found a cool page at http://www.eichlernetwork.com/HDrad_heat3.html

If it was my house, I'd absolutely get a good radiant heat installer to look things over. I'm assuming your in a mild (central or southern Cal?) climate so the heat load is fairly light. A modern, efficient boiler, good controls and near-boiler piping might give you back the radiant heating comfort and aesthetic you desire. And the cost recovery from an efficient radiant system would be ongoing.

Another option would be to keep the baseboard piping, but change the heat emitters from baseboard to low-profile panel radiators. You would have to do or have done a good heat loss calculation to size these and position them correctly in the rooms, but it might work.

The only show-stopper on reviving the radiant would be if the tubing in the slab is leaking. Tracking down leaks can be a huge big deal.

You could potentially install a new radiant floor (an option described on the page linked above). Cost would be significant, but if you're living in a piece of art, maybe it's worth it.

 

They are already white, but they are everywhere.