Heating Issues When Buying A Home

By Greg Tilley

When considering whether you should buy a home, heating issues are something you should take a close look at. This is especially true when we talk about rising energy costs.

What about Heating Issues?

Heating issues should be foremost in your mind as you inspect potential homes. While obvious issues will be apparent, there are less obvious things that need to be considered.

What about Your Layout? When it comes to the layout of a home, it can have a major impact on both heating issues and energy bills. High ceilings are beautiful architectural aspects but even so, they can be a huge heating issue. Heat rises, which means you are going to need more of it to warm a home with high ceilings. What you should always remember is that high ceilings equate to higher energy bills.

The number of stories in the residence is the concern of a second layout issue. While a tri-level home or townhouse may seem enticing, how are you going to heat the lower floors? A problem with something some call the zone effect is what tri-level homes often have. The rooms on the bottom of the tri-level are always cool, while the top floor may be close to a sauna. Unless you have a very sophisticated heating system, tri-level residences are going to drive your heating bill through the roof.

Control Areas. A controllable heating system is one way you can reduce the heating requirements for high ceiling and tri-level homes. You will be able to isolate particular sections of the home your wish to heat because of modern heating systems. There are larger homes where certain rooms are not used often and for them, these can be a godsend.

Consider the Vents. An issue that is more mundane but still important are vent locations. What you will notice in some homes is that the vent layout appears to have been undertaken by a drunken sailor. If you find vents located under windows, you can expect the heating bills to be outrageous. You should also look for very large rooms with one or no vents since these rooms will take a long time to heat up.

One can expect to find heating issues addressed competently with new homes. But with older homes, what you may need to do is consider how the heating issue is going to sap your cash flow during the winter months.

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