Warm air heating in a house- views?

catterlen

Question Warm air heating system in possible new house purchase?.
So, I am not sure if this or the house DIY thread is the one I should be using so have put in both!
I am looking at a house that appears to have been built Probably early 80s, which has a warm air heating system.
I was wondering if anyone had any experience of these (good or bad) and any tips as to what to look out for? One thing I thought was asbestos in the insulation around the flue pipe, but didn't know if there were any other issues that might come to light? It is GCH and a boiler I believe, which powers the system.
I haven't used one before so I guess questions would be
Reliability?
Efficiency?
Costs compared to usual rads etc?
Common problems/advantages?
Cheers

torbrex

I love my warm air system and would not trade it for anything less.

HappyMJ

More reliable...no water, no rusting, no scaling = better reliability.
Efficiency is slightly worse but similar you still have a heat exchanger.
Costs are lower to install.
Problems are it's not common in the UK. It can also blow dust around a bit but keeping a clean home should sort that out.
Advantages are much quicker heat. Wet central heating takes a while to heat up.
Disadvantages you need a boiler to get hot water (or use an E7 electric heating hot water cylinder) and having the boiler do both heating and hot water can be cheaper than having to buy both a warm air central heating unit and a boiler.

Me, I prefer warm air gas central heating and really do miss having it.

ABN

Loved our old warm air system, Only real draw back was that only 1 bedroom upstairs was "conected" to the duct work. So other 2 bedrooms and barthroom had to either stay cold or have electric heaters.

theartfullodger

I rent out a house to students with warm-air; Passes gas safety every year: I keep expecting it to die expensively but not so far...

These things as a matter of personal choice.. So like it, some don't: Some can't stand electric storage radiators: Some can't stand magnolia walls.. make your mind up!!

Mummyisbeauty

The house before the one I havve now had it and it was very good

fussypensioner

I lived in an open plan chalet style house with staircase in the lounge. The disadvantages was the dust being blown around (as already mentioned) but it also made my skin and hair dry in the winter. Sometimes it was good to sit with your feet over the warm vent though. Dust and dirt used to collect under the vent and on one occasion when the cat bought in a mouse and dropped it at my feet, the mouse disappeared down the vent. Not very nice, it probably died down there.

penguingirl

Don't have this type of system, but we do have asbestos around our flue in the loft. Ours is a concrete mix asbestos which if you do a bit of searching you find the general consensus is that it is pretty safe and not anything to worry about if you plan on just leaving it alone. It would only become a concern if damaged, and even then it has pretty low asbestos content. We're not planning on touching ours and just make sure we don't knock it in the loft. Other people choose to box it in to ensure it doesn't get damaged. Definitely not the end of the world at all

catterlen

Thanks everyone for this.
Views much appreciated.mthe system does seem good, and currently we live in a house with no gas so have a back boiler on a multi-fuel stove, which involves lots and lots of cleaning due to the dust generated by the coal etc, so I suspect (hope?) blowing dust around in a warm air system would be less than what we currently get with our solid fuel heating.
Just one more question then- in this cold and grim part of the far north (!) we often have power cuts- I assume (sorry if this is a stupid question) that the system has an electrical switch as with a gas fire, so we couldn't use the gas fire on its own if we had a power cut?

ruggedtoast

Dunno about the power cut but I have been told by a heating engineer that there is nothing wrong with warm air heating. The main problem is that it is out of fashion now so when it dies you are unlikely to be able to find parts.

Meaning you will have to install central heating, possibly at very short notice. Therefor most people replace it when they move in to a house that has it, rather than delay the inevitable.

HappyMJ

catterlen wrote: »

Thanks everyone for this.
Views much appreciated.mthe system does seem good, and currently we live in a house with no gas so have a back boiler on a multi-fuel stove, which involves lots and lots of cleaning due to the dust generated by the coal etc, so I suspect (hope?) blowing dust around in a warm air system would be less than what we currently get with our solid fuel heating.
Just one more question then- in this cold and grim part of the far north (!) we often have power cuts- I assume (sorry if this is a stupid question) that the system has an electrical switch as with a gas fire, so we couldn't use the gas fire on its own if we had a power cut?

A warm air gas central heating unit has a huge fan in it. It cannot run without the fan recirculating the air taken from the inlet in the house through the heat exchanger and out to the vents.