Lost in a sea of HVAC
Hi everyone,
On one hand, I'm very lucky: last year my partner and I purchased our first house! It feels great to hop off the renter hamster wheel.
On the other hand, we had to make some compromises when we bought the house: I wanted to limit our search to houses that already had central air (heating and cooling), because we both work from home and I really want our house to be comfortable year-round. Unfortunately, in Northern New England, that eliminates around 90% of houses. So we compromised and bought a place that has a furnace with ductwork, hoping to eventually add cooling using the same ductwork. Last year, I reached out to a couple of contractors to get a vague sense of how possible that might be. Consensus? Potentially expensive, but feasible.
My situation:
- our house is small, ~1100 square feet in the finished upstairs
- half of the upstairs has shit insulation, other half is decent after renovation
- we currently have a 100k BTU oil furnace that absolutely keeps up. In fact, as far as I can tell, it's massively oversized -- even on the coldest nights (around -20 or so most winters, including this one), it only kicks on ~50% of the time
- we used around 500 gallons of heating oil from September-May (the heating season)
- our furnace is awkwardly tucked between the outlet chimney and three walls, which makes accessing it a pain (and complicates installing a coil on top; I'm not sure if there's enough room).
- thanks to a nearby massive hydroelectric dam, our electric rates are about half the average New England electric price (and come from a pretty environmentally-friendly source!). So the more heating and cooling I can do with electric, the better IMO. I'd rather pay a bit extra to heat with clean electric than save on propane/oil if fossil prices come down (big if).
With the warm season upon us, I'm feeling the heat during my work-from-home days and trying to get cooling installed before the temperature really starts cooking. And, despite having a furnace with existing ductwork that covers every room in the house (90% of which is directly accessible through unfinished basement ceilings), every. goddamn. contractor. has. recommended. minisplits.
But I don't want minisplits. I know it's easier for them. I know it's cheaper. I know most contractors in the area have installed hundreds of minisplits but very few central systems (let alone a combined heating/cooling setup where you have to worry about balancing summer dehumidifying with extreme cold efficiency). I know I'll have to clean out and insulate my ducts. Minisplits would surely work OK, but I really don't want to install one in each of our three bedrooms, plus one (or more) in our open-layout kitchen/living/dining space, and then still deal with no direct cooling in the bathrooms. Aesthetically, my partner and I both find minisplits ugly, and our house is small enough that most minisplit designs would make the tiny bedrooms feel even more cramped.
Ideally, I'd rip out our existing furnace (and oil tank!), install a cold weather heat pump in its place, insulate the ducts, and call it a day. But every contractor also advises that I "keep the old furnace around" in case the heat pump breaks (seriously?) or in case the heat pump can't keep up on the coldest days (fair enough). And then we take a look at the existing furnace, conclude it would be hard to add cooling on top of it, and they tell me to think about minisplits again.
So I guess after all of this, I'd really appreciate some advice from tilderinos with more home improvement experience than myself. Should I think about this differently? How on earth do I find a contractor who knows what they're doing with central heat pumps who doesn't push me aggressively towards minisplits or keeping my dirty, noisy, expensive furnace around? Should I just roll over, give up on my central cooling dreams, and install some minisplits?
I don't have any professional experience here, but I've had four HVAC systems installed over the years, and I regret the times that I have let contractors talk me into systems/features that I didn't truly want. You are correct in that they are pushing them because it is easier or they are more comfortable installing them. I personally feel that minisplits only make sense in cases of added rooms that cannot get proper ducts installed on or in cases where you have distinct heating/cooling needs that differ from the rest of the home.
The thing about OPs furnace is that its reliable.
Like idk what part of the state they’re in but it probably gets you-risk-death-if-that-shit-breaks level of cold and the technicians are probably way-too-nicely trying to tell that to OP without admitting that a heat pump is absolutely going to break when OP needs it the most cause they cant straight up ADMIT the product is not great, but they can steer the client in a direction.
Op doesn’t need a minisplit in every room in such a small house, I think is the thing they’re not considering. They obviously live just fine without one at all, why not just install one in the main area rated for 1100 sq ft and call it a day?
I still disagree with this for a few reasons. In a home with three bedrooms like the OP has, a central minisplit simply won't cut it. The bedrooms, bathrooms, and all the rest will be stiflingly hot and lowering the minisplit temperature will not meaningfully help. I have lived in a house like this and we ended up putting units in the bedrooms and suffering in the others where it wasn't viable to install them. The OP has ductwork and that is nearly always the reason to go for minisplits.
Secondly, I feel like this push back against heatpumps is a holder over from when heat pumps could not handle lower temperatures reliably. Modern units can, simple as that. The "you risk death if it breaks" is also applicable to their furnace and any other heating system. Also, I honestly don't see a reason that the furnace needs to come out necessarily. The only reasons I can think of are concerns about the aging oil/gas tank or simply to free up space, but the latter reason just doesn't seem worth it to my eyes.
Anecdotally, in my 25 years of home owning, I have never had either a heat pump or furnace fail. While A/C related parts (condensers usually, also coil leaks) tend to come up every few years, especially when you live in hotter regions (I've lived in both extremes).
Agreed that the pushback on heat pumps is a holdover from the dark ages of heat pump technology. A heat pump is almost always the right answer today, if you live in a place with four seasons. But a backup heat source is also not only wise but mandatory - when the outside temps get much below zero, heat pumps get less and less efficient, and eventually they just can't function. If the backup is not that oil furnace or gas then it will need to be electric resistive heat. Imo, OP should keep the relatively young furnace for the backup.
I've got a heat pump that's 15-20 years old now in the house I've owned for ten years, it's stopped working and required repair like 2-3 times on me. Last time the outside unit fan motor burned out. These are complex systems that run all the time, eventually they will all break down and need repairs.
If you live in very to extremely cold regions, then it is definitely wise to always have a backup heating system. I'd be tempted to have the backup be something that doesn't require electricity (something like a firewood stove in a central area) so that a power outage during extreme weather doesn't risk death.
I appreciate the input! Honestly, the furnace is only 10 years old, so I mostly just want to remove it for personal bias reasons
I am inclined to agree with you about bedrooms etc getting stuffy while overcooling the kitchen/living space. I could of course install a minisplit for each bedroom, but it feels ridiculous to do for tiny 100sqft rooms; that's literally why we invented ductwork!
That does sound pretty annoying regarding the tank placement. I wouldn't worry too much about the furnace preventing the heatpump installation unless you specifically get told that by installers, I have seen some guys work around what my layman eyes considered huge issues. I hadn't considered that the tank was sitting in a useful space.
Just consider, as many others have commented, that if you live in an area that gets some periods of extreme cold, that you do want some sort of backup. It doesn't have to be the oil furnace, that is simply the backup that you already own. If you do get it removed, consider getting some other sort of backup heat source if you have extreme winters.
I'm not ignoring your last point, it does actually resonate with me. It is just a personal reason that doesn't feel like something I have much to say on.
Why would you so strongly advocate for the backup? With heat pumps rated down to -32 now (and resistive strips that provide 100% efficiency no matter the temp) , it seems like I might as well just rely on it. But maybe I'm missing something? Right now we ONLY have the oil furnace, so it seems like our exposure would be no different (with potentially a longer wait for parts if something breaks in the heat pump, but in such a small house I can always buy a few space heaters in a black swan situation).
I would recommend a backup no matter what heating technology you use, I am in no way calling out heatpumps specifically. I was saying that IF you live in an area with extreme cold, that you should have some sort of backup. If you are good with your space heaters being that backup, that's fine. I've personally had extreme cold storms knock out power for over 24 hours and had to fall back to using a fireplace in the meantime, so my personal bias is to have a backup that doesn't need electricity, but that's my qualm.
We plan on putting in a wood stove insert later this year, it won't be in an ideal spot in the house but I think it'll do the trick in a power outage (though most have a blower these days, so you're never truly independent of electric). My first memories as a kid are of the 1998 Northeast Ice Storm, which knocked out power to my childhood home for over a week, so I certainly appreciate the ability to heat your home without electricity!
Ultimately I'll probably also look into solar panels and a whole house battery. But even that won't help if you have issues with your compressor. I was on edge for a lot of this last winter, since we only have the oil furnace right now; I consider us very lucky to have not experienced any issues with it in our first winter!
A wood stove is exactly what I would ideally go for and was envisoning.
As a tangent, I had solar installed at my previous house and it was great. The whole house battery situation turned out to not be viable for us at the time as it was legally required in our area to both be connected to the grid at all times and for solar to not be allowed to work in the event of a power outage. The reasoning was supposedly to protect line workers, but even systems that would not have any safety issues were not allowed. It was a rule added after heavy lobbying by the power companies, so I didn't really expect it to benefit anyone other than those companies.
Now days, you can get some LiPo batteries extremely cheap that can power quite a bit (but almost certainly not a central HVAC system). This is the route I went with the new house despite rooftop solar not being usable. I have portable 220W panels I can use for charging them in an emergency though.
Different guy than who had been on this chain, but I just wanted to chime in on:
I'm not sure where exactly you are in New England, but this still wouldn't be enough where I live (in the Midwest). We are all but guaranteed to get several nights every winter that get below -32.
It really depends on how hot it gets.
Like, in my house, absolutely not, it gets to be over 100 degrees for months straight here a mini-split in the main room only would never cut it.
But like, 80 for a month or so? Maybe.
Of course, it does all depend on the heat. At 80 for a month, I'd honestly be tempted to just use a couple of portable units that can be put away during the other 11 months. They aren't nearly as capable/efficient as a good minisplit, but for small bedrooms they are very well suited (in the hottest areas where I lived I used them WITH central air).
Right exactly and idk where OP is but I had a house in northern PA for a while and it didn’t have central air at all, just electric heating units in each room. No duct work.
We’d just open the windows at night and use fans during the day in aug-sept and that was totally fine about 5 years ago. It got hot but like, you acclimate a bit if you spend a lot of time outside and we were outside all the time.
I live in NC now and it gets sooo hot, we try to keep the house at 78 but some areas get to be like 80-82 in the afternoon and we cant open windows at night cause its hot and humid at night too. I miss being able to just open windows at night haha
You're probably right that a single heat pump in my main living space is the cheapest, fastest solution by far. Should provide some enough heat to be comfy in the shoulder seasons, and enough cooling to avoid overheating in the summer.
I mostly get annoyed at the idea that I won't have cooling (or shoulder season heating!) in the bedrooms, bathroom, or office when the doors are closed. Sounds very annoying when people visit, for instance. While the central heating is fine, it is by no means perfect -- it's noisy, generates a lot of dust, and oil carries a staggering cost these days. I certainly wouldn't mind losing it.
Based on the quotes I've seen, it looks like a single big minisplit would cost around $10k, vs $20-50k for a central solution. (labor really distorts the low and high ends these days, it seems). Just frustrating to learn that insulating ductwork drives up the cost of central so dramatically.
Yeah, I had an oil furnace for a while and that thing was basically just like having a fire going in the fireplace with the amount of dust it generated.
I still would try to save it though. Those things just work, all the time, and even if they don’t they’re easy to repair or at least mine was.
Ive installed a minisplit myself before a couple years ago by watching a youtube video and I think the unit itself was like 800 bucks rated for a 800 sqft. It took a whole weekend just because of running the lines, and that was only like 5ft through 1 wall. So you’re right about the labor costs, the minisplit lines were easy compared to actual ductwork.
Considering you already have ductwork, I don't know why any good HVAC company wouldn't be willing to install a full central air system.
My only advice is to keep pushing whomever you call towards that direction, and if they push back - get some reasons out of them. Maybe there's something you aren't seeing, or maybe they are just trying to keep and quick and easy on their side.
Edit - just for reference, I'm actively getting my furnace and AC replaced and it's going to cost me ~$14,000 for an 80k BTU furnace and 4 ton heat pump (Midwest US).
You will need to make sure you get a cold weather heat pump if you opt for a heat pump only system. They do lose heating capacity as outdoor temperature drops, and standard heat pumps would be basically useless at -20, so picking a unit that can handle your coldest days is very important.
This is about what I paid for a heat pump and backup furnace (which very unluckily ran most the winter due to unusually and extremely cold temps) also in the Midwest.
I have to agree with being explicit about what you want and asking for the quotes for that, and maybe that will mean paying for a new backup furnace, or to relocate the old one. But if that's what you want @DynamoSunshirt, that's what you should ask for.
14k for both? Sounds downright cheap to me, I think the lowest quote I've managed is around 20k, and I suspect that's underestimating the cost of insulating the ducts.
CoL difference maybe? I'm also just replacing everything with like-for-like components, which I imagine saves on labor costs
When I started reading your comment, my first thought was, "you should probably consider mini splits" XD if aesthetics are the main concern, note that you can get them installed with concealed ductwork in closets (example) or as a minimal recessed ceiling cassette.
From a home performance perspective, one of the upshots to mini splits is that they're zoned by default: I'm guessing, by the fact that the home is 1100sqft, that this is an older building without an air sealing retrofit (and maybe without insulation)? Since that'll make it even harder for your HVAC system to keep the building consistently cool, the mini splits are probably also being specified because they can ramp up very effectively to keep up load. Central ductwork -- unless you also pay for some extra dampers, on top of a fantastic air sealing and insulation job, especially if they're running through unconditioned spaces where air leakage, moisture, and potential mold intrusion are a concern -- also have the side effect of having to freeze the entire house in order to make hot spots comfortable.
(do also note that additional dehumidification may be specified for your climate, on top of the heat pump air handler retrofit)
Right, so, how do you make it work anyways XD I'm not American nor do I live anywhere near you, but you might be able to get some recommendations for HVAC designers + installers from the manufacturers or local supply houses. Especially the former will be over the moon to tell you about people who can sell you a system. Also, the Home Performance YouTube channel (briefly: an HVAC consultant (not an engineer) discusses this stuff and also avoiding mold, improving air quality, etc.) has a voluntary list of contractors which might be a decent starting point.
Closing thoughts:
(edit) FYI I'm not an HVAC professional, but I'm building a house and am cutting every corner imaginable, which to do safely requires thoroughly understanding what is below the corner before lopping it off. I'm likely going with a split system (shocker, I know) due to my low loads and tightly built home, so I can only start to comment on potential issues with a central air system.
Hello fellow new homeowner in New England! My (now) wife and I purchased our first home in MA last year and we've been dealing with similar issues, especially this past week with the heat wave. Like you and most people in New England, we have an oil furnace and no AC (we do have window units). I plan to put a heat pump in, hopefully within the next few years, but we first tackled our own sub-par insulation issues (that was just finished a couple of weeks ago), and we're having our ancient single-pane windows replaced with ones that are more energy efficient.
While we'll probably go with mini-splits in our house (we have steam baseboard heating, no ducts), there are ducted heat pump systems that hook into your existing ductwork - this seems to be what you want? There's a section here that explains them: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/heating-cooling/how-to-upgrade-to-a-heat-pump-system
They're generally less efficient than mini-splits, but probably still more efficient than your furnace if you choose to use it as your primary heating source, plus it gives you the cooling in the warmer months.
You certainly don't have to remove your existing furnace to install heat pumps, but depending on where in NE you live, there might be incentives to doing it. AFAIK, here in MA there's a rebate you can qualify for if you do. Our furnace is also our hot water heater, so no-can-do for us, but my sister and brother-in-law just added a mini-split heat pump system and their contactor conveniently "uninstalled" their furnace by unplugging the electrical cord, and they qualified for the rebate. The contractor made sure to tell them that their furnace was disconnected and that they qualified and showed them how to reconnect it. You know, in case of an emergency ;-) for us, we plan to keep the furnace as an emergency backup, which is highly recommended.
Also, take a look and see if your state offers discounts on making your home more energy efficient! The MassSave program is pretty great - we had the insulation in our attic and knee-walls redone for just under $1k and we're definitely feeling the difference. They also offer 0% interest loans on heat pump installs. We're also taking advantage of a rebate for our new windows. I think the rebate is $75/window, so not a lot, but it'll be a couple grand for us.
If the ductwork is already in place would you be able to just go to the hardware store directly and see if they’ll send someone to do an appliance install? They usually contract it out to someone local, possibly the very contractors you’ve been speaking to. But since you will have already bought the HVAC unit they won’t be trying to steer you.
If the heat pump can’t keep up on the coldest days then space heaters for the rooms you care about would probably be more efficient I would think. I’m pretty much all in on electric for home appliances because, in addition to being more energy efficient and much easier to maintain, you’re eliminating a class of safety hazards and maintenance headaches. Don’t keep flames running in your house and it’s fewer chances of fire, no carbon monoxide risk, no risk of gas leaks. . .
That said, mini-splits do have some advantages. Forced air systems do introduce big long-term headaches with reliability and maintenance that can end up being quite expensive. They can also end up being mold traps in older houses with ductwork that wasn’t designed for cooling specifically. If you’re in a fairly dry climate where humidity isn’t a big problem in the summers then mini-splits might be preferable just to avoid those annoyances.
If you mount them on the ceiling or wall that can address the space problem. If they’re unsightly you can also try disguising them. LG used to make ones that had a literal frame on the front so you could put art in it. Or you could wallpaper it, put a cabinet around it with sort of a grille/mesh in front so it looks more like a vintage hi-fi speaker, or get a floor unit and put a radiator cover/console table on it. You can also just cut the drywall and install it into a recess.
I was experiencing a similar situation where I had asked for a central system conversion but they proposed mini split heat pumps. I ended up agreeing and ended up going mini split. I accepted the fact that aethestics should not have to trump performance, comfort, and control. And i was generally happy with the result. You kinda get used to it hanging on the wall.
I wasn't upgrading a house tho, just a condo.
Side note-
One reason why they avoid converting heating only duct systems into a cooling and heating duct systems is because the existing ductwork would be sized too small for the latter. You need more air to cool the house than to heat it (Primarily bc there's always people or equipment generating heat that you need to cool down vs. something generating cold to heat up).
So you would need to push more air in the ducts which will cause the fan to work harder and cause more noise than if the ducts were rightly sized.
Most of the other comments talk about the different options regarding systems, but I wanted to respond to your note that some of your upstairs insulation is shit. In Massachusetts you can get a home energy assessment every 2 years (I think), and if those folks determine that the insulation is insufficient, you can get the state to pay for 75% or so of the cost. For me (was quite a few years ago, admittedly), that was a huge help, as it turned out my attic was terribly insulated, and I got an extra 12" or so of blow-in over the entire second floor for around $500.
If you're willing to DIY it, MrCool DIY have been rock solid for me. Standard warning for DIY-ing electrical work, but the HVAC install part is pretty hard to mess up with those.
I have a central heat pump that we had installed last year after our 20 year old furnace broke and they couldn't get new parts for it. Upstate NY, the lake keeps it from getting ridiculously cold in the winter but single digits aren't uncommon. $13k before credits, 11 after, but that was directly replacing an electric furnace and existing AC compressor, so no new wiring runs at all (in fact we downsized a breaker). Ours will only run down to 5F after which it kicks on the 10kw electric resistive heat, but we live somewhere with cheap electricity so the old furnace was a 15kw resistive heater anyway. The backup is for emergencies and unusual weather, it's ok if it isn't the cheapest to run imo because under normal circumstances it won't ever. We had maybe a week where it would have done half of the heating work, but unfortunately there was a control board issue that knocked out the compressor for a month while I waited for the company to diagnose it and get parts, so I didn't get to see realistic usage during that time since we were on backup the entire time.
I had to still talk the company into downsizing the backup, but when the furnace went out the year before we were heating the whole house on 5kw of space heaters during some of the worst cold, and I knew the 15kw in the old unit was massively overkill because it barely ever ran. The 10kw is even more than we need, when it was in the negatives this year it didn't have to run that much. We had this house (1600 sq ft colonial) reinsulated and air sealed a few years ago so that was a massive help.
Long story short, why not a cold climate heat pump with electric backup? The backup is integrated into the air handler that you need anyway. Try to find a company that advertises heat pumps because they'll probably know what they're talking about in regards to modern heat pumps instead of reiterating things from half a century ago.
That is exactly what I'm hoping to do! My understanding is that, with a forced air ducted system like mine, the resistive strips in the furnace can function as a (expensive!) backup during extreme cold or in case the compressor fails. I have to admit that the prices you mention are a whole lot better than what I've heard locally... maybe I should consider importing a heat pump expert from the North Country who wants to take a nice vacation up here in the mountains? Would likely be a lot cheaper than the local experts!