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Author’s note: the following article on home heating is the third in an eight-part series. This article addresses climate conditions found in the San Francisco Bay Area, but may have applicability elsewhere.
Forced air systems are the most common heating systems in California and are used in most new construction elsewhere. They have two big advantages: they are cheap to install, and they provide heat at a moment’s notice. Having “instant-on” heat is vital for intermittent use spaces like ski cabins. Otherwise, forced air is the least energy efficient and least comfortable way of heating a typical home. Why?
Ventilation and Heat Loss
For the health and well-being of its occupants, a home must exhaust stale air and refresh it with new air drawn from outdoors. Forced air systems heat and blow this air, via ducts, throughout your house. Since new air is continually entering and leaving, you are heating the outdoors.
Author’s note: the following article on home heating is the first in an eight-part series. The series specifically targets climate found in the San Francisco Bay Area, but has applicability elsewhere.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heating and cooling amounts to 46% of all energy consumed by our homes. Water heating uses another 14%. In coastal California, where extreme heat is rare and winters are mild, a properly sited, well designed passive solar home can generate its own heat and hot water, and do without air conditioning.
Historically, few homes are so well sited or built. Since our area has more heating days than cooling days, most homeowners need a heating system. What few know is that many indoor air quality problems can be by-products of forced air heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems installed in their homes.
By Philip Proefrock •
February 14, 2008
Today’s news included the story that testing on FEMA-supplied temporary housing trailers in Mississippi and Louisiana has found extremely high levels of formaldehyde in the air, despite earlier reports issued by FEMA indicating that there was no problem.
Tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on more than 500 trailers in Louisiana and Mississippi showed formaldehyde levels that were five times higher than levels in a normal house. The levels in some trailers were nearly 40 times what is normal.
The CDC is saying that people living in these trailers “should move out quickly — especially children, the elderly and anyone with asthma or another chronic condition.”
