High Velocity Central Heat-thoughts?


  #1  
Old 08-05-09, 06:21 PM
J
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Canada
Posts: 1
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
High Velocity Central Heat-thoughts?

I received a quote to replace electric Baseboard heaters with High Velocity Central heat. The system proposed uses a Navian Tankless hot water tank and a high efficiency fan to force air through the ductwork). No furnace required. This seems to be very new technology as I cannot find any information on the web.
 
  #2  
Old 08-05-09, 09:51 PM
F
Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Wet side of Washington state.
Posts: 16,321
Received 38 Upvotes on 30 Posts
The only thing new in your proposal is the Navian water heater. Using a boiler to produce hot water and then a fancoil unit (blower housing with a hot water coil) to force heated air through ductwork is common in commercial work but a bit less so in residential. Using a high velocity system is much more common for cooling but would certainly work for heating.

Understand that unless carefully engineered and installed high velocity systems tend to be noisy. This noise is rarely a problem in commercial (offices) installations but in residential it can be quite annoying. High velocity systems are also slow in responding which means you cannot use temperature offset for energy savings as much as you can with low velocity systems. Drafts and uneven temperatures are common problems with high velocity systems unless they are carefully engineered and installed and they also are subject to furniture placement to a greater degree than are low velocity systems.

The Navian water heater is a relatively new design and I would be cautious about using it as the source in such a system. The touted energy efficiency is tempting but there is little "real world" data to back up any claims that its high efficiency will translate to a less expensive to operate heating system. The efficiency of the heat source is but one single item in the entire heating system.

Unless someone else was footing the bill for this installation and for the operating costs for the first five years I personally would run from this application.
 
 

Thread Tools
Search this Thread
 
Ask a Question
Question Title:
Description:
Your question will be posted in: