Minisplit vs Wall heater for raised ranch
Thanks to everyone who contributes to the blogs here, I have been reading everything on the site for years.
I have a friend with a small raised ranch which is heated with baseboard electric heat (!) and I’m helping him move toward something else. My suggestion is a minsplit with the head located in the living room which is fairly open to the dining area and kitchen. By locating it fairly centrally the head will also provide some heat to the three bedrooms and bath. The electric baseboards will supplement that – they are used to cold BRs (out of necessity).
My friend is interested in a direct vent NG wall heater which will be less expensive up front and slightly less expensive to operate at our electric and gas rates i think. I am pushing for the minisplit as it will provide more even & comfortable heat, push more heat to the BRs due to its better air distribution and more central location, provide AC, and likely be better for resale.
We are located in Albany NY (12208). The home is 1000sf and was built in 1985. No current info on insulation / air sealing but I will get into the attic to see. Basement is completely finished and we are mostly ignoring it for heating / cooling..
What are your thoughts on minisplit vs wall furnace? Anything else I should be telling him? I couldn’t find much comparison of the two in the Q&A.
Thanks again,
Chris
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We are climate Zone 5A
Chris,
Looks like you've provided a good summary.
The minisplit provides AC as well as heating, and is more compatible with a house that includes PV. (I have no idea whether this homeowner cares about PV.) Many green builders are moving toward all-electric solutions, to save the annual cost associated with a gas hookup.
But natural gas heat is often cheaper to operate, and a wall-mounted heater will cost less to install than a minisplit.
The homeowner gets to choose.
If you wanted to micro-zone the place to the nth degree a condensing gas water heater and individual slim profile wall coils can deliver the comfort and efficiency, but it'll never air condition the place.
A 1.5 ton ducted mini-split mounted in the basement MIGHT work out better for heat distribution, and might cover 90% of the heating load on it's own.
But if looking for a point-source heating to cover a major zone, 1ton or 1.25 ton mini-split is likely to be the right choice. Run a heat load calculation on the zone its covering at -2F outside (Albany's 99th percentile temperature bin) and 68F inside (code minimum for heating systems) to see what it comes up before choosing a size. Bigger isn't always better, and if the numbers say it can be covered with a 3/4 tonner, that's what it should be.
Hi Dana, thanks for the time you spend responding to everyone's questions.
Why might the basement work better for heat distribution? Because it may heat the lower level as well as the upper level? Or is there some benefit to distributing the air in the main level because it is rising from the lower level?
I had given thought to adding a second head in the lower level if my friend wanted it, but the basement / lower level gets very little use today. There is a door at the bottom of the steps that he has removed that I recommended he replace, at least while running AC.
Installing wall coils would be challenging due to the fully finished basement ceiling as well as the likely difficulty in finding an installer, but is an interesting option.
Be careful with this idea of using baseboard electric to "supplement". If you want a bedroom as warm as the living room, 100% of the bedroom heat will be supplied by the baseboard electric - which isn't very efficient.