central heating / insulation

[HavinaGo]

Hi all, As a newbie who has been through the heating routine twice in the past 12 months I'd start by asking One question, do you need to heat the whole house?

We put in a space heater last winter and heat the living ares, but not the the whole place. So far it has worked a treat. For my mother-in-law, their only option was electricity based (Vic country near Echuca), the choice was reverse cycle air conditioning.

Efficiency is an interesting term that can mean:
a) works well
b) uses the natural resource effectively (ie heat in room rather than heat up a chimney) or
c) minimises running cost.

From the running cost view point, my back of the envelope calulations during Dec 2003 said reverse cycle airconditioning wins ... just. (Assume 5 *air conditioner, and 5 * gas space heater heater and VIC prices for natural gas and elec). Not sure what ducted does to those figures but friends at work had rude shocks with their systems that put me off exploring that path.

catch you

David

[MrFixIt]

Originally posted by seriph1
SIGH!!!!
....... so I got up in the roof for the first time since its installation only to find that the blue "tapes" they had used to keep all the ducting level and off the deck had come undone, the ducts were on the ceiling in a few places and the main "Y" junction had come adrift, requiring duct tape immediately.....

You have my sympathy

I was asked to add some evap aircon ducts to a rental property. Went up there to check out and measure up etc, etc.

Found out that where the ductwork was attached to the dropper there was NO duct tape to seal the connectors. The connectors were really cheap and nasty. There were gaps all the way around all three ducts, so the roof was kept nice and cool.

I took out all the old "cr*p" and fitted quality components (after finding out that I also had to seal the dropper), so yes, there are tradesmen and there are tradesmen.

I just had somebody install blow-in instalation. They got the job conditionally that I would pay ONLY after my full inspection. I know from experience that you can't trust many tradesmen these days.

The last time my house needed painting, I did not have the time to do it myself, so I had a "many years experience, older" tradesman do it for me.

After TWO returns visits at MY request, the job was STILL not satisfactory. I sent a two page list to the painters registration board (in WA) and it took a futher TWO visits WITH THE PRB INSPECTOR to get an adequate job. The best room in the house is the one he DID NOT paint

It is no wonder that people resort to DIY, now if only the reality programs RFI, etc could get it right when they show the viewers what to do

regards

Peter