When my great friend and I first bought our house, the floor heating was something we always looked forward to when the floor boiler turned on.
I loved the house because it had such fantastic flooring and space, but the hydronic heating had worn me out.
However, two years later, I began noticing a change in the appearance of the floors, which I did not like, but during one of the Heating and Air Conditioning service visits, the Heating and Air Conditioning repairman mentioned the floor change and said it happened in homes where they use a similar heat and A/C product. In short, the floor heating system was causing damage to the floor. It had something to do with how temperature fluctuations affected the wood’s expansion and contraction. I turned off the equipment and began using the boiler on its own. Because the boiler/heater installation was not as efficient as I had hoped, I was forced to consider another option: replacing it with whatever the heating dealership recommended. We conducted a quick consultation and determined that adding a heat pump to the existing equipment would result in a hybrid heating system. It sounded more feasible than any of my other ideas. Except for the floor, we no longer had to get rid of anything. The plan would also make boiler service more manageable because I wouldn’t have to run three different types of equipment. To avoid future boiler repairs, I had to keep the boiler meant to keep hydronic functional well taken care of when I changed the floors. I intended to keep the floors for two years while I figured out how and when it would be best to do such a project with my children out of the house.