Yes, this is my furnace. I remembered seeing a thread on here about furnaces, so I had to go see if this thing was running! Sure enough, it still works...
When we bought this palace is was literally falling down. So, the first order of business to to jack it up in the air and frame in a new bottom story (it previously had a 5 ft basement--now it's a full 8 ft). It's on a grade, so the front of the house is about 3 ft below ground, the back is at ground level.
The existing ductwork was (poorly) retrofit to the house, so I decided to install radiant heat. Of all of the boneheaded thing I've done, this wasn't one of them! I had zero experience on the subject, but it went almost without a hitch*. There's PEX in the 6" slab to heat the new story, and then more PEX run in the joists to heat the upstairs. Running the PEX through the joists in the dead of winter wasn't fun (it's not very flexible). Besides that though, it was pretty straightforward. Those gravity pumps hook into the thermostats. The water is heated by an expensive water heater that has a higher recovery rate than normal. It's the same water heater that heats the house's hot water, so it's an "open system", meaning that water is always flowing through the system even when the heat's not on--so there's never any need to flush the system.
Overall, I'm totally pleased with it--no maintenance, no noise, it provides a very even heat, it's been cheap to operate and the best part: no dust being thrown around by air coming from the ducts. Given the number of furry animals around the house, this is a huge plus...
*one snag I did have along the way. They aren't kidding when they recommend 60PSI to the system. I also put in a new water line and before I had the pressure regulator hooked up, I had about 100psi coming to the system. One of the PEX connections let loose while I was sleeping! Fortunately, I hadn't finished the room yet....
So, how common is this stuff? Does anyone else have this in their house?
