Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hello. I am moving to a home built in the 30's in a suburb of Philadelphia. I would like to remove radiators and install central air. Does anyone have any experience with the Unico High Velocity system? Thanks.
I have some quite a lot of research on them and other options. Our house is ducted for high velocity air, but we have not had the funds to put the machine in. The only system I know about is Spacepack . I am not sure whether there are other high velocity systems, but i assume there probably are.
A few notes:
If you remove radiated heat, you will likely regret it. Radiated heat is healthier, more efficient, more even, more comfortable and simply works better. Among other things, when you open a door, you do not loose your heat. Higher end houses usually have radiated heat. The reason most houses have forced air today it that it is considerably cheaper to install and becasue you need ducting for AC anyway, so you may as well put heat in that way too rather than paying again for a heating system. However you already have the superior radiated heat, so there is no reason to remove it. Just put in Spacepack for ac.
Some day cooling may be radiated as well, but probably not in our lifetimes.
Our plan is to keep radiators for heat and then add AC through the high velocity system. Since an electric heating coil for Spacepack ac units costs next to nothing, we intend to put one in as a back up in case something happens to the boiler, or if natural gas becomes unavailable or more expensive than electricity.
It is expensive. the compressor and airhandler unit for our house is over $6,000. That is just for AC and does not include ducting, zoning, controls, etc. However, other than ducting and returns, all of those tings are pretty cheap.
high velocity will put a positive load inside your house. That means you have more flexible options for return locations. It also means when you open a door, the cold air pushes out more than hot air rushes in. High velocity also allows you to put AC vents int he floor rather than only in the ceiling or tops of walls. The high velocity pushes the cool air up and also helps mix ari around sort of like a ceiling fan.
They are noisy. IT has improved considerably since the early versions, but still more noise than large during.
It is easy to hide Spacepack outlets if you have a historic home and do not want to ruin the look/charm. We hide outlets on the first floor under our radiators. IN the second floor we had to put them in the ceiling, but they are not all that noticeable. People rarely look up anyway except to lok at some o the cool antique light fixtures.
With any Ac it is best to have zones. That way you cna cool upstairs more and let the downstairs be cooled by the cold air coming down the stairway. Likewise, in winter, you heat more downstairs. Upstairs wiil catch the rising heat.
I worked on a restoration project that had installed a Unico system. It was for A/C only- they kept the radiators for heat- both because of the reasons mentioned previously and to keep the authenticity of the home. The boiler was natural gas- so there wasn't a lot of maintenance or reliability issues.
The boiler was natural gas- so there wasn't a lot of maintenance or reliability issues.
So is ours, but we stupidly went for a super high tech, high efficiency Lochnivar Knight boiler. As a result, we spent many weeks getting acquainted with Kerosun heaters and testing the viability of heating with fireplaces. Once they got the computer issues worked out on the boiler, it has been really good for the past five or so years. However there was a time when electric heating was cheaper than using gas. It was only a few months. Natural gas spiked for some reason and electric remained low (despite the fact most of it is made with natural gas, in our area it is mostly nuclear and coal).
THey are expensive and are not very efficient. You are forced to use all their fittings and registers. The jobs I have done had generally 10 registers per ton running on 2" flex duct each.
The high pressure aspect makes them inefficient as far as the airflow goes and inefficient in cooling. When used for heating you do get back some of the heat generated by the fan.
They do tend to get noisy over time due to the velocity and things getting lose or wearing out.
They are for if you have no other space available for the install. Expect to pay 2 or more times what a standard system will cost you.
Thanks so much. I am losing so much wall space and square footage due to the radiators. Everyone says they are great for heat but I really dislike the whole radiator look. I appreciate all your input and will meet with contractors who do both
Thanks so much. I am losing so much wall space and square footage due to the radiators. Everyone says they are great for heat but I really dislike the whole radiator look. I appreciate all your input and will meet with contractors who do both
IF you have the money, you can have the pipes run under the floors and your floors become radiators. It is expensive as all get out, but really wonderful. Will not work if you are on a slab.
Used cast iron radiators sell for about $10/section in my area. Since you're removing yours, consider donating or selling rather than scrapping.
The only ones that sell for $10 per fin are the fancy ones with some sort of pattern on them, or the Micky mouse ear ones. Plain ones generally sell for $20 - $50 per unit although it depends on the size.
Of course that is what stores price them at. I tried to sell some of ours to a store and they offered my less than scrap value. I put 9 of them on craigslist or E-bay (forget which) and I was offered 50 cents for them. Ours were plain, and many were one pipe steam radiators. I ended up scrapping them.
We had to buy replace the steam ones with hot water radiators and buy some different sized radiators. We paid about $200 for 9 or 10 of them. We got plain ones. The embossed or Mickey eared ones were crazy expensive. (about $15 per fin and we had over 100 fins to buy)
BTW, they almost always have lead paint on them.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
