Purdue University Agricultural Extension Service Home Economics Department

He -30 June, 1951 (5C)
Choosing Your HEATING SYSTEM
When planning any change in your heating system, consider those items which will give you and your family greater comfort in the home at reasonable cost. Your heating provides an agreeable climate for you inside your house while the temperature drops and winds blow outside.
If you find you have such obvious heating deficiencies as hot spots, cold floors, drafts, or some area you can't heat, re-examine your whole heating system and perhaps take a little time to think about the conditions that make people describe themselves as being "comfortable,"
Heat is transferred by conduction, convection or radiation. When you burn your hand on a pan handle that is a sample of conduction. When you feel hot air coming from an open oven door that is convection. When you feel the heat from an open fireplace even though the air is cool, that is an example of radiation. Convection and radiation are the two most usual means of transferring heat from the source of heat (burner, furnace or boiler) to the part of the house to be warmed.
For instance, a stove without a jacket heats primarily by radiation while jacketed stoves or warm air furnaces heat mainly by convection - that is, movement of warm air currents.
Remember you don't heat your house to heat yourself; you are already warm; your body generates heat and normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F. You not only maintain your own body- heating plant, you lose heat to your surroundings, such as cooler air, walls, floors, window glass and furnishings. You (like the furnace) transfer or lose heat by convection and radiation and also by evaporation when you perspire.
To be really comfortable, then, the problem is to balance your rate of producing heat against the rate at which you lose heat. When these two are balanced you feel neither warm nor cold but "comfortable."
Are you heating your house with maximum effectiveness? Consider these factors:
1.	Design and construction of the house affect its heating: Does it have insulated roofs and windows? Is it protected on the north
. side? Are entrances protected from prevailing winter winds?
2.	Quality of your heating: Do you have gentle circulation of warm, fresh, clean air? Are the walls, floors and other surfaces warm? Does it provide a healthful moisture content so room air isn 't dry?
3.	type and condition of your heating system itself: Is the burner, furnace or boiler suitable for your house? Are you using the right fuel? Have you good means of distribution of the heat? Are you using the controls you need to regulate it?
4.	Is the heating system balanced in relation to the house construction, layout, and heat loss of the house? Is it properly installed? Are the controls as nearly automatic as is practical?