I'm inclined to agree with Wacky, above.

Hi, earthlyepicure,

Choosing the best HVAC system for your home involves drawing a just-right balance between your lifestyle needs, the demands of your climate zone, the performance of your home, and your budget. I recommend you have a professional HVAC designer on board as a member of the design team--and early in the design process. They can help you make an informed choice. If you're going with a ducted system, make sure your designer and architect are on the same page. Don't leave the question of how to install the duct work unanswered until the construction phase.

If you have horizontal space for a coiled ground loop system, that's what I'd look into.

You may have to go diy for part of it to get a fair price.

Hot, humid summers, cold wet winters here. Our builder sent the floor plans to a firm in CA where a design for radiant heat was made...similar look to a blue print. The plumber installed the grid, but my builder laid the floors himself and followed the blue print so there was no danger of damaging the install, The radiant heat was in all the public spaces. There was, also, duct work for hot air in the bedrooms and basement and public areas. In the summer, radiant heat was turned off, central hot air turned off, and AC turned on. It was a very efficient system, and the and all ran off the natural gas burner.

@elcieg thanks for your input! this sounds like a wonderful system! Might i ask what it cost to install? My builder thinks we can run the basement radiant off culinary water… and then we are thinking a well-deidgned forced hot air system for main and second floors (with potentially a humidifier). Then electric radiant in master bath.

I'll look the cost up, if I can put my hands on the old bills. It is a big house and the cost to build it was expensive, but, the radiant heat made monthly bills doable. Does the radiant heat have to e fueled by electricity in your build? That can get expensive. If you go that the electric route, consider solar panels,too.

I found this article and it is what we did. Hydronic not electric. My sub floor looked like this:

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/radiant-heating

If you haven't had radiant before, you will flip when you feel the difference in your home. The floors are warm, but so is your furniture.

If you have a very tight, well-insulated house, you will likely find that radiant floors do no get appreciably warm, which is often why people want radiant heat. It is also rather expensive to install (unless it's in a slab that has to be poured anyway). Take a look at panel radiators, such as Myson or Buderus. They are visually minimal, easy to install, provide very even, comfortable heat and many have built-in thermostatic valves that allow you to control each radiator individually with no electric parts. Size them to heat with very low temperature water (under 120 degrees) and a modulating/condensing boiler with outdoor reset and a proportional pressure pump running constant circulation and you will end up with a silent, efficient, low-maintenance system that will keep each room within 1 degree of set-point.

Whatever you do, make sure to get a REAL (ACCA Manual J) heat loss calculation done for EACH room and do not oversize your boiler. Any contractor that is willing to size a boiler without a proper heat-loss calculation should not get the job.

For AC, mini-splits are great. There are options other than the high-wall "heads" - most can be connected to slim or even full-sized air handlers, so you can still hide everything away, but get the benefits of mini-split (shorter, smaller duct runs, inverter compressors, modulation, damper-less zoning, etc).

Hello if I may. I think I can help. I'm currently in the process of building our retirement home. Real nice to put my couple years of college learning RHVAC design to installation. Physics was a hoot. Now I get to build our retirement home using learning. Having a blast n still drafting with my drafting board. We do everything mostly. Gettin golder so after standing fitty two foot wide trusses by myself I found a great young energetic carpenter. Real deal guy. Put the 3/4" TnG p.ply on n extra thick metal roofing on. Membrane under metal. Facia boards complete roof. 2-1/2 days 3 grand. Brought a nice lift in too. Safety first. Everything inspected by the guy most contractors don't prefer. I Iuv the dude. Shape up or ship out. Right or wrong. My kinda guy.

Sorry I like design. I read eeverything I could get from the cold weather research center several times n stuff from the University system in the Nordic regions. Then developed my plan after visiting with a technician with 40 years experience. Nice guy.

I installed an insulated cement slab with hydronic heating similar to the university recommends. Pictures n engineers reports at university site. We only have fuel oil electric or proper, wood for energy. Zone 7 plus whole house envelope. I used fuel.

Toyo hydronic boiler supplies warm water also. We will have solar hot water during the summer and also to assist the Toyo to insure best energy values. House will have r forty something walls close tto R seventy as I can get. In the cold attic.

8 zone heating tube manifold. 4 individual loops. Seperate different heat zones. Heated side walk and water heater. Kuma classic fuel oil drip stove in our open kitchen living room concept. We have always had wood heat but papa n Nana want more time with the grandkids watching them play in the park we call our yard. Complete with fire pit setting and motor home for guests. Then they can fire up the motor home n go cruising n see AK.

Anyhows we lost our home in a forest fire. Darn fires but they need to happen or forest fire fighter folks can get hurt. I was a forest fire fighter and kinda known the ropes personally. Oofda that was a blast.

Sorry about the book but just my way, I'll own it. I do sincerely hope that folks will get some assistance out of it. I kinda like helping folks

Hello again. If I may. If you would like to see what I've done I believe you can go read about what I'm doing. Boy I got some interesting constructive comments, but all good. Nobody right Nobody wrong. Just folks trying to help. Mostly. Some folks get kinda frilln such. I don't understand but eh it's good. Live on your wins folks

"Banks do not care how extra your HVAC is. They will not loan you more money for that feature. Your home will not appraise for more for that feature. Upgrades like this come out of your pocket in cash."

Not so. Lender loans when your:

• Credit score: Most lenders will require you to have a minimum credit score of 620 or higher in order to qualify for a construction loan.
• Debt-to-income (DTI) ratio: Your lender will also look at your DTI ratio, which compares your recurring monthly debts to your gross monthly income.
• Down payment: You’ll likely be required to come up with a down payment of 20% when taking out a construction loan.
• Choice of builder: In addition to examining your financial history, your lender will also want to approve the builder that will be constructing your new home to ensure they are licensed and insured.
• Construction plan: In addition to your choice of builder, your lender will also need to approve your construction plan. Generally speaking, the more information that you’re able to provide your lender, the better. A signed contract, blueprints, a line-item budget and a payment schedule are all examples of documentation your lender may want to see.

As long as you are credit worthy and the lender approves the construction plan, you are good to go. And, in our experience, our "specialty" flexible heating/cooling system did indeed add, considerably, to the value of our home.

OP hasn't shared any financial information . If cash is in hand, then all decisions are a personal/financial choice.

You can't appraise a home if it hasn't been built. We're talking construction loan, not a mortgage.

"You can't appraise a home if it hasn't been built. We're talking construction loan, not a mortgage." Every construction lender I've ever worked with required an appraisal as the basis for determining the amount of the construction loan. An appraiser uses the plans as the basis for the appraisal. In my area they will often do two appraisals: a cost-to-construct appraisal and an appraisal based on market comps.

My thoughts on dust. There is nothing about moving air around that increases dust. In fact, moving air around offers an opportunity to remove dust. If you have ductwork in a dusty area and it leaks, then you could increase dust in the conditioned area.

I live in new build with forced air built to a pretty high but not perfect standard when it comes to insulation, air tightness, duct tightness.

The amount of dust we see is so crazy low I am really shocked (more than our last new house from 10 years ago that was built to a decent standard for the time). The primary area that I need to dust is bathrooms from the toilet paper. That is 5 times more than the rest of the house.

My conclusion (right or wrong) is that dust in a new, tight house is not a big issue.

Think about it, what about a plastic lined duct could possibly increase dust? Now it can collect dust and then recirculate it. But it can't create it.

I have the cheap filters at the wall (not the thick ones at the unit) and I can not see dust/dirt after 6 months when other houses have visible dust/dirt in a month or two. Also, in a tight house, not as much air runs through the system. If your heat loss is 3 times less than a comparable house, then 3 times less air movement needs to occur.

Now - if you open windows a lot and your environment is dusty and windy - well it is a different story. But moving air through clean plastic ducts doesn't add to it.

I doubt you will recoup the cost of radiant on resale and it only increases mainenance costs with 2 systems even if low.

@David Cary thanks for your input, and experience living in a tight home. Our current home is NOT tight at all, and is older, and I'm just tired of the dust (I'm sure some of it is from older ducts, and some from shedding fibers). Doesn't make sense to clean the ducts in a house we're going to demo... but it's where my mind goes. Thanks!

It is important to maintain a slight negative pressure in a home to expell dust and also germs. A home needs to breathe. Or home with zone 7 insulation is sealed well. But I am installing passive and mechanical exhaust systems. This will continually change the stale air in the home. And I can turn on a switch and change the air several times an hour. Recirculating and adding in ten percent new air continously . Ceiling fans assist in calculating the air in the proper direction to create a heat wall near outer walls for better warmth or comfort

Look into an electronic dust filter in the hvac system. We had one in our former house and it had less dust than anywhere I've ever lived -- I rarely dusted anything, because it didn't accumulate! Maintenance was easy: pull out the filter, run it through the dishwasher, reinstall in hvac. Every so often you'd hear a "zap!" as a piece of dust bit the dust (lol). I really need to see if one could be added to our current house.

Air quality in your home is more important than is currently prioritized.

"It is important to maintain a slight negative pressure in a home to expell dust and also germs"

I respectfully disagree. A negative pressure inside a home promotes infiltration of unfiltered, unconditioned outside air. The best case scenario is a home with balanced ventilation. A perfect balance is difficult to achieve due to wind and stack effects-- which are outside the designer's control and continually changing.