We finally decided to have radiant heated floors installed instead of a furnace.
My wife and I debated a lot about the costs and pros and cons before deciding to call a heating technician to come out and look everything over and give us a quote.
The misses was really happy that we were installing a heater that would not be so drying as the furnace we were so used to. I liked the idea of even heat. But then, the technician asked if we wanted cooling floors as well. He explained that the cooling floors would have to work in tandem with our forced air cooling system but that a lot of people like that option as well. I immediately said no. My wife said yes. I guess we now have something else to discuss before we settle on a unit to hook up to the pipes that will be under the floors. I really don’t see the need for this addition if we still have to use our regular air conditioner too. The HVAC technician explained that hot air rises and cool air sinks so only cooling the floors will not cool the whole house. However, he also stated that cooling the floors would make the forced air unit work more effectively and more uniformly. I am just not sure it is worth the extra cost or that we would really be saving money on or cooling bill if we have two cooling systems running all winter. My wife thinks we should go for it now or we will regret it later. She says we don’t have to run the underfloor cooling system if we don’t want to.