On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:33:02 -0500, Existential Angst wrote:
I'm thinking water-filled rads would be a *lot* easier - I should be able
to run plastic pipe without disturbing the floors too much Only downside
is that I need quite a few pipe runs at right-angles to the floor joists,
and I don't like drilling holes in critical structures :-)

One possibility is to do the plumbing runs on the wall surfaces, and hide
them behind a kind of cove or crown molding -- basically just a 45 deg slat
of wood at the baseboard, or ceiling, or where two walls meet vertically.
Aesthetically, cosmetically, these 45 deg ditties could actually be a plus,
if done right.

interesting idea... in fact I've seen a lot of houses back in the UK where
they just run the pipes on the walls and don't cover them at all. Looks a
bit messy, though.

Last place I had in England had 10mm microbore for the radiator pipework
(which is what, 3/8"-ish) and that worked just fine - but I've not
investigated in the US yet to see if I can get fittings to do
something like that here. That'd mean trim for the rooms would only stand
about 1/2" from the wall, which could easily work (subject to something
interesting having to happen at the corners)

That still leaves the A/C, tho -- unless someone figgers out how to do a
hot water/chilled water system economically.

Yeah, thankfully that's not a problem I've got up here in MN; even in
mid-summer heat, just opening the windows and/or using a fan gets enough
airflow, so I don't need to worry about fitting AC.

Another idea, if going the ducting route, is to install both high AND
low registers, that are switchable, for heat, A/C. TOH or hgtv showed
this pneumatic ditty, where full zoning is achieved via pneumatic air
bags in each register

That's a really neat idea. I was (idly, not seriously considering doing
it) wondering a while ago how I could motorise registers, but that
approach is far more sensible...

Imo, however, ducting is inherently "sloppy", energy-wise, unless one
goes through phenomenal effort to make sure everything is air-tight,
insulated, etc.

Yeah, seems that way to me. I'm not sure why the US still uses so much of
it, except maybe just industry inertia. Maybe it'll change and we'll see
more and more hot water systems around in the next few years...