On May 30, 9:58*pm, David J wrote:
On Mon, 30 May 2011 08:08:50 -0700 (PDT), Tabby
wrote:



On May 30, 12:42*am, "Endulini" wrote:
Hi All,

A flat that I've been looking at with a view to purchasing is heated by an
old hot air blower system. I'm not familiar with these systems but they
don't strike me as very efficient are they straight forward to replace or
are there likely to be some lurking issues (I appreciate that it will
obviously *depend on the actual system but in principle might there be some
problems)?

Cheers

You havent told us what trype of system this is yet.

If its gas fired ducted hot air, theres no reason to replace, as long
as you dont mind mild background noise when it runs. The boilers to
use in such systems are still being sold new, albeit by only one
company.

If its blower radiators on a water based system, these perform much
the same as ordinary CH, but the rads are much smaller and make a
little noise.

If its fanned storage heating, they're bulky and csot more to run than
gas or oil, and old units may not store enough heat to keep a place
warm all evening. Insulation can solve this, or replacement new
heaters are better at predicting heat needs and storing enough.

NT

I bought a new house in 1970 that had a warm air CH system, originally
oil-fired, from a central distibution storage tank. There was no gas
in the small town at the time. The downstairs ducts were all under the
suspended floor. *When town gas was supplied about 10 years later,
most of my neighbours changed over to gas-fired boilers, and many also
changed to radiators. I eventually bought a new gas-fired warm air
boiler and retained the ducts. I found that they were perfectly
effective - although I realised later that the original design was
technically flawed.

If you study a/c systems in hotel rooms, you will see both inlet and
outlet ducts for good circulation. Our builder had installed only
inlet ducts - assuming that the return air would find a way back via
gaps around the doors. *Bad design that, just to keep the costs down.

David *

Easily solvable though, with louvre style grills in doors


NT