Focus on Green Homes - Heating a Green Home

Methods used to heat a green home are cleaner, more efficient, less expensive and more comfortable than conventional methods. The heating systems are simple for the home owner to operate and maintain. However, since the system is basically custom-designed for each home, it is very complicated for the contractor to calculate the exact heating needs of every home and is based on an enormous amount of variables. A green home takes a lot of things into consideration when it comes to heating your home.

For example, variables such as the direction the house faces, how many windows are in the home, what is the solar heat gain of the window, the amount of shade, the insulation value of the home, and the ceiling height of the house need to be taken into consideration. Then owner preferences about the type of system desired are factored in. Choices include forced air heat, radiant heat (hydronic systems), gas, propane, or electric.

Third, another consideration in designing your heating system should be how clean the system is. For instance, radiant floor heating has a couple of major advantages over forced air, since it more efficient than forced air and does not circulate air back and forth spreading germs and bacteria throughout your home.

The efficiency in radiant floor heating comes from three sources. First, a thermostat on a forced air system might be set at 72 F while a radiant floor heat system thermostat may only need to be set at 65F or less and still maintain the level of warm comfort. Imagine your entire floor of your green home warm all the time! Second, heat rises. By heating the floor, the heat rises over the entire length of your body keeping you warm no matter where you are in the home. No more cold corners or freezing cold bathroom floors.

The last source of efficiency for radiant floor heating comes from the source of the heat. What does the heating of the water for this type of system? There are lots of options, some more efficient than others. One option is using a boiler or hot water heater, however efficiency is sacrificed. The best option is a secondary heat exchanger plumbed off a very high efficiency water heater. Another option is using a geo-thermal ground loop with a heat pump. Currently this option is too expensive for affordable green homes.

When considering your heating system for your green home, it is important to look at the pay-off time for your system. Some systems can be extremely efficient, but costly, costing tens of thousands of dollars to install. Why pay a dollar to save a penny? By carefully designing and building an affordable, practical green home, you can save utility costs immediately since it will not cost more than a conventionally built home.