1972 Airflow Heating System

Discussion in 'Getting Started FAQ' started by Alan John Hall, Jan 5, 2020.

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1972 Airflow Heating System, what i should do with it?

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  1. Alan John Hall

    Alan John Hall New Member

    I and my family have bought a house with an Airflow heating system built-in 1972. At the moment have had plumbers look at it and they are keen to put in a plumbing system with radiators but I'm looking for other options if possible. It's heated with an oil burner that heats the air that is pushed around the system by one large fan all original items. Though at the moment the two end rooms are not heating, though have attached a photo underneath the house which shows pipe at these two rooms is dislodged and is not insulated (under the house has about 5 foot in height, making it somewhere that can be worked in.

    I have attached some photos.

    Thanks
    Alan
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Heat

    Heat Screwfix Select

    Wow! I didn’t know any of those systems would still exist!
    Long time since I have come across any.
    Well it needs all ripped out. The burner on the boiler is fairly recent replacement and useful for someone.
    The flue pipe is asbestos and needs carefully removed, bagged and taken to where your local council advises for asbestos.
    Radiator system hard to beat with a condensing oil or gas boiler, depending on your location.
    Personally I would only use all copper pipes and soldered fittings.
    Also consider multi fuel stove - even if not connected to a heating system.

    Insulate your house to as high a standard that you can manage.
     
    KIAB likes this.
  3. KIAB

    KIAB Super Member

    +1 for copper & soldered joints,nothing better.

    +1 Multi fuel stove
     
  4. MGW

    MGW Screwfix Select

    First house had hot air heating around that date, no double glazing then, and cost a fortune to heat, but main problem it made house very dry, we would put trays of water in the air intake, even if no loses and well insulated moving air around means any cold surface continually transmits heat outside, where if the air is moved less, we simply get cold spots in the room and we lose less heat.

    However I have to admit the hot air system was fast heating the house, far faster than wet systems. Within 15 minutes we could feel the heat, and 1/2 hour the house was nearly up to target temperature, also cooled down fast. The same applies to fan assisted radiators, fast warm up, and fast cool down, great with geofencing and occupancy detection, but not so good if lived in 24/7.

    We all tend to consider what is good for us, and some times forget not everyone lives in a house all day, to date I have not lit the fire in this house, it is there for emergency only, but brother-in-law uses his on regular basis. To my mind don't want to do the dusting required with solid fuel fires. With gas wet central heating the modern modulating boiler gives a constant heat with low hysteresis, but your on oil, which in the main does not modulate, so you want the water to maintain the heat so the boiler may be switching on/off (cycling) but the water is retaining that heat and damping out the natural hysteresis.

    We had the same problem using a Myson fan assisted radiator, heats house fast, but house also cools fast, we would feel cold before central heating would cut in, and toasty warm before it switched off again, plus the sound of the fan, not loud, but in evening when it kicked in did need to turn up TV volume.

    As to swapping to wet, that is likely best idea, but will depend on life style. With the hot air we had, open the vent or close the vent, it made very little difference, and all vents were manual, today we have programmable TRV heads in every room, rooms not fully independent, heat does move room to room, but we can select when and to what amount we heat each room. But on switch on, it takes the boiler around 20 minutes to heat water with all radiators off, we can set times so rooms heated in sequence, so on return home, living room first, then kitchen, then dinning room etc, so living room heated faster, but in real terms to heat living room from cold, at least 2 hours, so we keep rooms at an Eco setting, to reduce re-heat times, but still takes twice as long as it did with hot air system, and that heated all rooms together.

    As to solid fuel, again an hour to get fire to running temperature more like two hours to get room warm, and had to sit in high backed chairs to stop the draft, OK if combustion air drawn from outside that stops the draft, but fires with ducted combustion air tend to be expensive. My friend had solid fuel, and once lit great, but he used electric while waiting for fire to get going.

    So the big question what is your life style? Retired like me, then wet central heating, no question, but if you only get home at 7 pm, and are out again at 7 am then possibly the hot air could work better? With our wet system I will get out phone and turn it on before I set out to return home, with hot air that was not really required, it warmed up that fast.
     

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