Warm Air Heating Systems - Do you have any experience with them?

TadleyBaggie

I had a warm air system (from gas) in new house in the 80's. It would heat up the house very quickly, but when switched off the house would cool quickly too. On the whole I liked it.

st999

TadleyBaggie said:

I had a warm air system (from gas) in new house in the 80's. It would heat up the house very quickly, but when switched off the house would cool quickly too. On the whole I liked it.

That would be the hole in the wall, that was what did it for me.

Bettie

I am happy with mine.  serviced once a year at a cost of £75  It has heating or a  cooling fan for summer. it is very fast to heat the house.  I have a  multi point for hot water. It is all very cheap to run. 
My neighbour has had his removed and replaced with a combi with radiators. It comes on every day at 6am and the noise of it firing up wakes me up and after a while it starts going on and off, I find it very annoying. We have concrete floors so his pipes are running around above ground and I think it looks unsightly. There was asbestos in the door and inside the out vent. I had my asbestos removed when I replace the old warm air unit about 8 to 10 years ago. I've been here 35 years. in the old unit I had to replace a fan once. I have never had any other problem. 

PennineAcute

Grew up with gas warm air.  My parents may have been lucky, but as I have grown and have only ever had radiators as an adult, I much prefer warm air.

danrv

I have electric warm air heating. Quite rare it seems.
In hindsight, I would have thought twice about buying the property but needed to get out of rented.
It’s instant heat, like the gas type and controlled by a thermostat in the lounge.
Main problem is the E10 electricity tariff is very expensive and I think only two providers are offering it.

I’ll be replacing it with Quantum storage heaters for downstairs and electric rads for bedrooms.
It’s ether that or air to air heat pump which would be a larger and more expensive install.
Not too sure how the gas version works but electric is pretty much maintenance free. Only the fan needs replacing once in a while.
The system in question doesn’t sound that old. Mine is 1970’s.

It’s space saving as there’s no rads and quick to heat up but also to cool down. No pre planning needed for heat.
If it works and is cheap to run then I don’t see any problem with warm air.

matt.j_3

Thank you to everyone who commented. It seems that there are mixed views on the system and it all depends on what is installed, and as with anything the condition and service history.

I requested more information from the owners and have a copy of the service plan, I am just waiting on a summary of energy bills. 

The new Warm Air Unit and Hot Water Generator where installed in 2005 by a local company. They installed a Johnson & Startley Economaire 50 Warm Air Unit and Intejan 50 Water Generator. The local company who installed it services it too.

I am going to call the local company who services the unit and see if they would give me some feedback on the heating unit etc based on its age.

We really want the house as it meets so all our requirements must have requirements with only this heating system as a query. Whilst this might put people off we are understanding the running costs as the local heating engineer was positive about the unit, and we are also looking into a potential cost of replacement.  

C_Mababejive

Warm air heaters are not obsolete, they are just not very prevalent in the UK though in USA and Canada they are common.

They are so up to date that you can buy a high efficiency condensing warm air unit with water heater.

https://www.johnsonandstarley.co.uk/products/warm-air-heating

A lot of the ones fitted historically went into local authority housing. LAs got twitchy because a lot were open flued and many were replaced with radiator systems.

There are some very good FWA units out there. They just need to be professionally installed and maintained. 

A lot of younger GSRs are not familiar with them /do not have a qual to work on them so they avoid them.

Reed_Richards

I can't help thinking that ducts to carry warm air combined with an air to air heat pump should be really efficient and really green.  But I guess if it happens it will be in North America before here.  

coffeehound

Air-to-air heatpumps have been used with ducted MHRV systems for many years in Scandinavia for pre-warming or -cooling the air from the heat exchanger

danrv

C_Mababejive said:

Warm air heaters are not obsolete, 

Electric ones are unfortunately. 
I’d like a newer version of my Unidare R10 /73 but no longer made.