A tough one

[jansenrpi]

(ALSO POSTED TO OIL/GAS HEATING...APOLOGIES TO THOSE WHO READ BOTH BUT IT KIND OF IS A BOTH ISSUE AND I SUSPECT NOT EVERYONE DOES READ BOTH)

Thats what 2 contractors I have called out have said.
I live in upstate NY on a tall hill thus -10 with 40MPH winds happen more often than I would like. It is a 16 year old house, with a 12 year old ground water heat pump with electric auxialliary heat and a 120 gallon electric water heater. Prev. owners feb Electric bill was about $1000.
It seems the heat pump is woefully undersized (I think it is a 5 ton unit for a 4000 sq ft house with almost 900 sq ft of double pane glass circa 1988).

I suspect that if the aux heat was not electric I could much more efficiently heat my house. I don't have natural gas and lp gas is pretty expensive around here (about 1.5 times more than oil per btu) so I am trying to find a way to get oil to provide the aux. heat and hopefully hot water too.

What makes life tough is that there is no chimney access in the basement utility room and the outside walls are about 20 ft. away through a crawl space that is only about 3.5 ft high. One contractor was suggesting an Weil Mclain Ultra "boiler" that could be pvc ducted out to the side but this is lp and well that is 1.5x operating costs. I have not found any oil boilers than can be ducted that far and am wondering if there are any that are short enough to sit in the crawl space over near one of the walls so that it can be direct vented. To complete the idea, I want to use this boiler water to run through a heat exchanger that sits in the duct on top of my heat pump to provide my auxialliary heat (hopefully I can get the signal from the thermostat that is currently going to the electric aux (WHICH I WANT UNPLUGGED) to control the boiler).

Of course if I can get hot water out the beast (either from "tankless" mode or from an indirect ) it would allow me to retire the other beast that only an electric utility company could love. I have installed a water softener and so I should not have a scale problem anymore (I hope).

I am open to advice/experiences of the web and hopeful that someone can point me to warmer days (and nights).

[scottg]

Good luck

I think that you are tring too many different fuels.

I assume that this is on a closed loop system.
What I would try to do is split the central system up and have two or three heatpump systems. Then tie them into the loop.

[redjed]

If Problem with ways to ventilate ,,,,,a good choice is to go with nonvented propane with simple wall mount system,,,, works well also with a good cieling fan

[Ed Imeduc]

Go to http://www.warmair.net and compare fuel cost for where you are. I dont see why you cant get a low boiler in the crawl space with oil burner if thats the way you want to go. You said on a hill so I take it its dry under there. So you could dig it out some if you had to.Put it by the outside wall and the pumps will put the hot water where you want. Have one home 4600sqft with 6 tons of heat pump air to air works just fine,lots of glass. But you would have to run a heatloss and AC load on yours to be sure. You could also check that water heater 120 gal thats for off the heatpump does the elements come on any on it???? Dont think they should. Or think DXGeo and get away from that ground water type heatpump.

ED ;)

[mattison]

Stay as far from a non-vented heating syatem as you can. Besides I believe they are not allowed in New York by code.

[David Haynes]

:thinker:

What about an adjacent add on "boiler room" with hot water/steam piped into your home ?

It would solve your ventilation problems, plus make it safer to operate away from the main structure inside concrete walls.

With an external boiler you could use wood, oil, natural gas, or other fuels.

:dogrun: