I’m definitely interested, for what it’s worth. I’ve lived in some old houses with head-scratching design choices (though mostly around the wiring) so I sympathize
The house is divided into 5 semi-floors, but of those, one is basement level, and another is halfway underground. There are 3 above-ground floors. The entire thing is heated mainly using a furnace in the basement that drives hot water into the radiators and also a hot water tank that by default always runs into the toilet sink, but a switch can be made to use it in the other faucets too. Otherwise, the upstairs bathroom has its’ own electric boiler, that can also be used downstairs in the kitchen, and also the sauna, but for it to run into the kitchen, you’d have to switch around some valves again - otherwise the kitchen and sauna use hot water from the stove in the kitchen, which also has a massive tank. The stove tank I believe is the only one that can’t be used in the upstairs bathroom. I’d also like to add that there used to be a separate tank in the sauna that got its’ heat from the sauna furnace and ONLY heated water for a single faucet in the sauna, but NOT the shower in the sauna. That’s been gone a long time, because there was no real need for a faucet there, you can just get water out of the shower which has a faucet attachment anyway.
Now, insulation. The house has a total of 5 big windows and 10 small ones. The big ones are now double or triple glazed (they weren’t all done at the same time, so 2 are double glazed), the small ones have two single pane window panels, which does technically create an air gap, but all the windows leak hair like crazy. The walls themselves are actually well insulated I believe. But the roof has been insulated using sawdust. Naturally, mice have carried it all away, there’s none left. But also the upper half of the roof leaks water, so I can’t add new insulation to that half until the roof’s fixed. Also it’s lined with asbestos-cement panels, so those are going to be fun to remove. Luckily the lower half was repaired years ago.
The kicker? The house being as big as it is, the furnace is absolutely massive and burns through wood like there’s no tomorrow. It’s meant to be used with long-burning coal, which was cheap in the soviet times. Now it’s expensive and hard to find, so the heating benefits don’t really outweigh all the drawbacks anymore.
Ah and if it gets really cold, there are two additional fireplaces I could make a fire in. You know, in addition to the furnace, stove and sauna.
Do I want a ground-source heat pump with under-floor heating? Hell yeah. Is it feasible? Not even close. The yard isn’t big enough to fit a horizontal collector big enough for the house and I’m not sure I could have deep enough holes drilled for vertical ones. And even if I got the heat pump, it’d have to heat the existing radiators, because I’d simply lose my sanity installing under-floor heating here.
That’s kinda amazing. I’m impressed by the number and variety of heat sources, and the way they’re all kinds tangled together. Also the range of technologies used in the construction and heating. Thank you for sharing all this!
I’m definitely interested, for what it’s worth. I’ve lived in some old houses with head-scratching design choices (though mostly around the wiring) so I sympathize
Welcome to my personal hell!
The house is divided into 5 semi-floors, but of those, one is basement level, and another is halfway underground. There are 3 above-ground floors. The entire thing is heated mainly using a furnace in the basement that drives hot water into the radiators and also a hot water tank that by default always runs into the toilet sink, but a switch can be made to use it in the other faucets too. Otherwise, the upstairs bathroom has its’ own electric boiler, that can also be used downstairs in the kitchen, and also the sauna, but for it to run into the kitchen, you’d have to switch around some valves again - otherwise the kitchen and sauna use hot water from the stove in the kitchen, which also has a massive tank. The stove tank I believe is the only one that can’t be used in the upstairs bathroom. I’d also like to add that there used to be a separate tank in the sauna that got its’ heat from the sauna furnace and ONLY heated water for a single faucet in the sauna, but NOT the shower in the sauna. That’s been gone a long time, because there was no real need for a faucet there, you can just get water out of the shower which has a faucet attachment anyway.
Now, insulation. The house has a total of 5 big windows and 10 small ones. The big ones are now double or triple glazed (they weren’t all done at the same time, so 2 are double glazed), the small ones have two single pane window panels, which does technically create an air gap, but all the windows leak hair like crazy. The walls themselves are actually well insulated I believe. But the roof has been insulated using sawdust. Naturally, mice have carried it all away, there’s none left. But also the upper half of the roof leaks water, so I can’t add new insulation to that half until the roof’s fixed. Also it’s lined with asbestos-cement panels, so those are going to be fun to remove. Luckily the lower half was repaired years ago.
The kicker? The house being as big as it is, the furnace is absolutely massive and burns through wood like there’s no tomorrow. It’s meant to be used with long-burning coal, which was cheap in the soviet times. Now it’s expensive and hard to find, so the heating benefits don’t really outweigh all the drawbacks anymore.
Ah and if it gets really cold, there are two additional fireplaces I could make a fire in. You know, in addition to the furnace, stove and sauna.
Do I want a ground-source heat pump with under-floor heating? Hell yeah. Is it feasible? Not even close. The yard isn’t big enough to fit a horizontal collector big enough for the house and I’m not sure I could have deep enough holes drilled for vertical ones. And even if I got the heat pump, it’d have to heat the existing radiators, because I’d simply lose my sanity installing under-floor heating here.
That’s kinda amazing. I’m impressed by the number and variety of heat sources, and the way they’re all kinds tangled together. Also the range of technologies used in the construction and heating. Thank you for sharing all this!