Living in the north eastern part of the country, the winter weather lasts for more than fifty percent of the year.
We often rely on the heating system for eight to nine months.
The conditions are most often wet and chilly with temperatures below freezing. It’s not unusual for the temperature to drop down into the negative twenties and the windchill makes the air feel even colder. Plus, we set records for the amount of snow accumulation. We are known to get several feet of snow overnight. Snow removal takes up a lot of time and energy. We can spend hours shoveling and plowing the driveway in the morning and then need to repeat the process at least once more before heading to bed at night. FIguring out where to pile all that snow is a problem. It fills up the driveway and blocks the garage Because of the challenges of local weather, a boiler is the ideal heating system. One of the only drawbacks of hydronic heating is the lack of a centralized cooling. We don’t need whole-house air conditioning. For our brief summers, a few window air conditioners are more than sufficient. The heating system is the priority. With a boiler, we avoid the need for ductwork and associated energy waste. The boiler heats up water and sends it through a closed loop of pipes concealed under the floors. The heat from water spreads across the floors from wall-to-wall and corner-to-corner. Because the heat is infused rather than blown into the air and originates at floor level, the temperature remains more consistent. There are no drafts or stratification, and the comfort is especially gentle. The hydronic heating also lends itself to an outdoor snowmelt system. We have a series of pipes hidden under the driveway that eliminate the need to shovel.