Warm Air Ducted Heating System Removal

tm9

retired2011 wrote: »

Did it put you off?

We purchased our house around 14 years ago and the surveyor (for the building society mortgage) made quite a big thing about the warm air heating, stating that it should be changed. We negotiated a substantial discount from the vendor based on this. However, when we moved in we found that we quite liked it so never changed it. We are now thinking of moving again though and wonder whether this would put buyers off.

retired2011

Where I live a lot of the houses were new build 20 odd years ago with gas warm air heating.

A few have taken it out and replaced with radiators.

Each have said, but not directly as they won't admit to being wrong, that they miss the instant warmth when it is switched on.

Not one has saved in gas consumption unless they have it timed less than the warm air.

Not on yet, but when I have mine on it is on from 08:00 to midnight and I use the same amount of gas as these who have it on from 06:00 to 08:00, 11:00 to 13:00 (home for lunch) then 16:00 to 22:00 and on all day at weekends.

This is what my next door neighbour has his heating on and uses, for heating, the same amount of gas as me.

I use more gas overall as he has an electric shower and electric cooker whereas I have a gas cooker and a power shower from the stored hot water.

All the houses have the same level of insulation though now some are getting cavity wall insulation for free.

Radiators are less responsive.

Keep the warm air.

Reeves

McKneff wrote: »

I do believe that the only asbestos is on the door to the boiler.

The door to the boiler has gone with the old boiler leaving behind some debris and what looks like the opening of the flue in the cupboard ceiling.

Reeves

tm9 wrote: »

Hi Reeves, Could I just ask - would you have purchased the property if the warm air had not been replaced with the new wet system. I only ask because we are going through the same dilemma at present - should we change to a a wet system. The warm air works fine but we might want to sell the property and are worried that it might put people off. Thanks and congrats on the new house.

My wife fell in love with the property the second she saw it but we thought it was beyond our means. We looked around but couldn't find something we like in our budget so kept coming back to this one. We viewed twice and had our second offer accepted after a bit of tooing and throwing regarding the cost they incurred putting the new system in.

We did go slightly beyond our top whack but thought the house was worth it currently and for it's potential.

The vendors were preparing to take the property to the rental market and after advice from their estate agent installed the wet system but we would have lived with it and changed it if necessary so no it wouldn't have put us off.

tm9

Thank you very much indeed for the info - making us think we might keep the warm air now.

yangptangkipperbang

tm9 wrote: »

Thank you very much indeed for the info - making us think we might keep the warm air now.

Keep it !

Warm air is as efficient as any wet system and it certainly heats up much faster.
Don't believe any of the "horror stories" you might hear about warm air systems - they always come from people who don't have it.
It doesn't spread germs/smells/dust - if it is installed properly, dust is filtered out (you can actually get electro-static filters nowadays) and germs and smells are actually burnt........do that with radiators ........:rotfl::rotfl:

The BIG mistake people make when removing it is not realising the huge amount of wall space that is required for radiators. It can make a major difference to your furniture layout, or even to how much furniture you can have in a room.

My only complaint about my present system was the rather agricultural timer, but I did find a way to replace it with a modern electronic programmer - a very simple DIY job.

tm9

yangptangkipperbang wrote: »

Keep it !

Warm air is as efficient as any wet system and it certainly heats up much faster.
Don't believe any of the "horror stories" you might hear about warm air systems - they always come from people who don't have it.
It doesn't spread germs/smells/dust - if it is installed properly, dust is filtered out (you can actually get electro-static filters nowadays) and germs and smells are actually burnt........do that with radiators ........:rotfl::rotfl:

The BIG mistake people make when removing it is not realising the huge amount of wall space that is required for radiators. It can make a major difference to your furniture layout, or even to how much furniture you can have in a room.

My only complaint about my present system was the rather agricultural timer, but I did find a way to replace it with a modern electronic programmer - a very simple DIY job.

Thanks so much for your info - funny you should mention the timer as I have just been speaking with the manufacturer today about fitting a more modern timer on ours - we have a Johnson & Starley J55 mod airflow system and they described how to add a more modern timer over the phone. I just need to find out if you can connect the electric feed to the same feed that feeds the boiler. Anyway, thanks again and sorry to the original op for taking this off subject - I will shut up now!

yangptangkipperbang

tm9 wrote: »

Thanks so much for your info - funny you should mention the timer as I have just been speaking with the manufacturer today about fitting a more modern timer on ours - we have a Johnson & Starley J55 mod airflow system and they described how to add a more modern timer over the phone. I just need to find out if you can connect the electric feed to the same feed that feeds the boiler. Anyway, thanks again and sorry to the original op for taking this off subject - I will shut up now!

Have sent you a PM.

retired2011

I could have done with a more modern timer when I worked as it was a pain remembering to switch from always on to timed after the weekend but now I and my wife are both retired we are in all day and the heating is on 24 hours now.

What I do now is turn the thermostat down to approx 16 degs C when I go to bed and turn it back up again when I get up in the morning.

Most nights the heating stays off all night, only if it is extremely cold outside does it come on.

And in the morning when I turn it back up by the time the kettle has boiled for my morning coffee the house is nice and warm again. Instant heat.

Pity there wasn't a thermostat for the heating that had a timer on it that changed the temp at set times?

It is not an off/on thermostat, it has a variable resistor? or something, which controls the speed of the fan depending on the temperature.

I did ask J&S about it years ago but at that time such a thermostat did not exist.

wallbash

We have been in the house ( with the warm air / Johnson & Starley )eight years and our only complaint was a noisy time with the hot water. Our heating engineer suggested an in line pump , best £200 we ever spent.

Don't believe any of the "horror stories" you might hear about warm air systems - they always come from people who don't have it.

So true . We lucky households love our warm air systems.

Ps , we did have one 'problem.' a few years ago Buncefield blew up !!
The rush of air thru the house did blow the side of the bath off
and did distribute a fair amount of dust from the ducts.