Keeping your home sufficiently warm throughout the winter is important for your comfort and ensuring your pipes don’t potentially freeze. A furnace or a boiler is an excellent option, but choosing between the two isn’t always that easy. When deciding whether a boiler or furnace is the better option for an existing home, it first comes down to what type of heating system you currently have.
Boilers are for hydronic radiant heating systems and supply hot water or steam to radiators, baseboard heaters, or underfloor heating coils. A furnace is instead part of a forced-air heating system that relies on air ducts to circulate hot air into every part of the house. In this article, we’ll explore the differences between these two types of heating and explain everything else you need to know to help you choose the right heating option for your home.
Can You Switch From a Furnace to a Boiler or Vice Versa?
Rarely would you switch from a central forced-air heating system to radiant heating. The amount of work it would take to retrofit a building with radiant heating means the only time it would ever make sense or be worth it is if you’re performing an almost total renovation. On the other hand, switching from radiant heating to a forced-air system with a furnace is not all that difficult as long as your building has central air conditioning and an existing ductwork system.
If the building doesn’t have ductwork installed, switching from heating with a boiler to a furnace would be highly impractical. In many homes, it simply wouldn’t be possible due to insufficient space for all the air ducts. If you’re building a new house or planning a total renovation, you can choose either a furnace or a boiler. In this case, it’s essential to consider the differences and understand the pros and cons of radiant heating and forced-air heating.
Differences Between Radiant and Forced-Air Heating
Although both radiant heating and forced-air heating are good options to ensure your home stays fully warm and comfortable throughout the winter, they heat in different ways. A forced-air heating system draws cooler air in through the home’s return ductwork and forces it over the furnace’s heat exchanger. The heat exchanger continually absorbs heat from the hot combustion fumes produced by the furnace burners.
As air flows over the heat exchanger, heat radiates off of it to almost instantly raise the temperature of the air to at least 120 degrees. The hot air that flows out of the furnace then gets pumped through the supply ductwork and out of the vents in every room.
Radiant heating is different because it technically doesn’t just heat the air in a home like a forced-air heating system does. Instead, it works by heating certain surfaces. All the heat then continually radiates off the surface to raise the temperature of the air and the rest of the surfaces in the room or space. Older radiant heating systems almost always have either radiators or baseboard heaters.
In contrast, most newer systems have radiant heating coils in a space between the subfloor and the overlying flooring. Both systems work similarly, but underfloor radiant heating heats more quickly and provides consistent temperatures throughout the space.
When a radiant heating system is on, the boiler continually circulates water through a series of pipes or the underfloor coils using a pump. The hot water flowing through a radiator or baseboard heater causes the unit to get quite hot, and the heat radiating off the unit then makes nearby surfaces and objects like the floor, walls, and furniture much warmer. As these things warm up, heat radiates off them to raise the temperature of the air and everything else in the room.
Underfloor radiant heating works the same way, except that you have heat continually radiating off the floor throughout the entire room so that you don’t potentially end up with hot and cold spots like you sometimes do with radiators or baseboard heaters.
Pros and Cons of Forced-Air and Radiant Heating
The most significant advantage of having a furnace and forced-air heating is that it allows you to heat your house much faster than if you had radiant heating or any other heating option. Even though the hot air produced by the furnace loses a bit of heat as it travels around the house through the air ducts, it is generally at least 100 degrees when it flows out of the vent in each room. That allows a furnace to raise the temperature throughout the house by around 2-3 degrees in as little as 15 to 25 minutes.
While forced-air heating is exceptionally effective, it also has some drawbacks, primarily due to physics and the ability of air to retain heat. As you surely remember from science class, hot air always rises. That means all of the hot air from your vents quickly moves upward and settles in the upper part of every room. You usually won’t notice this when your heating system is on since more hot air is constantly coming out of the vents on the floor.
Nonetheless, it does lead to the lower part of the room being not as hot once the furnace shuts off since the warmer air settles at the ceiling, and the cooler air gets pushed downward. The other issue is that air doesn’t retain heat all that well, especially when the humidity level is lower, as it so often is in winter. With forced-air heating, you frequently end up with your walls, especially your floors and windows, which are quite a bit colder than the surrounding air.
As a result, the air in the lower parts of the room quickly starts to cool off once your furnace stops running. This results in the furnace needing to cycle on and off continually to keep the house sufficiently warm.
The biggest drawback to radiant heating is that it can’t heat nearly as quickly as forced-air heating. A radiant heating system is great at keeping a house comfortable once fully warm, but it can take a reasonably long time to raise the temperature by all that much. On the other hand, radiant heating is far better at keeping the temperature in every part of a space more consistent and making you feel warmer and more comfortable.
That’s because the heat radiating off all surfaces and objects helps keep your body warm and ensures that the lower parts of the room don’t quickly get much cooler. Most solid objects and surfaces retain heat quite well and much better than air, so they’ll continue radiating heat for a long time after the boiler shuts off so that the temperature doesn’t drop quickly.
If you’re building a new home or commercial building or need to replace your heating system, you can trust the experts at Southport Home Services for help. We install and repair furnaces, boilers, and heat pumps and can work with you to determine which option is best. You can also turn to us for HVAC repairs, maintenance, or plumbing services. Contact us today to schedule a service or heating installation consultation in Madison, WI.
