old house no ductwork

kenl69

how do you go about adding hvac ductwork to an old house wich had boiler/radiator heat? this house is on a slight crawl space but is very difficult to access crawl space, plus it has multiple peaks so no continous access to attic. any help would be great.

yuri

Where do you live? Is your electricity reasonable in cost? how much per Kwh. How big is the house. There are minisplit heatpumps and other heating options for heating and cooling rather than forced air.

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beenthere

Your question is hard to answer without seeing the house.
Depends on how big the crawlspace is. And how easy access to it is, or isn't.

Milk man

My daughter has 10 foot ceilings. I ran exposed spiral. I had seen it done on one of my calls and thought it looked cool.

It takes some getting used to, I guess. It is a conversation piece.

Marty S.

Might want to look into a unico system.

Leah Frances

Also consider mini-splits. These are commonly used in 'old house' applications. We considered the Unico and are going to do the mini-splits instead.

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kenl69

this is a 150 year old 2 story house with 4.5 bedrooms upstairs and a full bath and laundry room, and eat-in kitchen and livivg room and office/5 bedroom downstairs. the crawl space varies in depth from 2 ft. to nothing in spots. the upstairs has been added to twice so the attics are not accessable without major cutting and re-stucturing. this all used to be plaster and lat, but has been re-done downstairs. what are mini-splits? electricity has just doybled in price in ohio, so would prefer to avoid elec. if possible

yuri

Google air to air heat pumps for more info. Minisplit is a type of A/C and can be bought as a heat pump combo also:http://www.fujitsugeneral.com/wallmounted9-12RL.htm

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Affordable7

A system I've installed which works well in your application is to install the furnace/coil in the basement below an unused closet/ and or space on the first floor where a plenum can come up through the floor (corner area of large room?) , then shoot off one large (or opposite directions depending on layout) rectangular ductwork along the inside wall to feed all of the upstairs rooms and catch the downstairs at the ceiling levels. Once the rectangular is framed in and drywalled (headered)...you can just cut out the duct openings for the downstairs and install the register boots. Depending on where the rooms are upstairs...it can pose a challenge to running ducts to those rooms. A lot of times though...the rooms at the farthest end of the rectangular ductwork(s) can be installed with round duct running along the front wall and headed off also.

If you don't have any basement, or it's in an inconvenient location...about the only way this application can work is in an unused closet, then you can use the walls on both sides of the closet as returns to the furnace. The upstairs would obv need a separate return air ran.