I was just looking at a news item about a home owner in New England describing his first cold snap of the year and how his heat pump unit performed. I remember my Georgia house and the issues I had with heat pumps. It got my thinking about how our family handled the cold many decades ago.
In 1967’s we moved to the beach area of New Jersey and built a two story house. It was larger than the retirement single-story retirement house nearby which were on slabs.
The siding was a rubber material ) I think called Rubberoid and perhaps made from recycled tires. It sounds horrible but was colored throughout and has stood the test of time over the decades. It also was fairly think. The walls of the house were filled with a chemically treated newspaper (not asbestos) called cellulose. It is quite good as I understand it.
So for heat we used radiant ceiling heat. A wire was embedded in the plaster ceiling and each room had a thermostat. This seemed a better solution than radiant floor units because they heat cold air and expell warmer air which rises and causes a convection system in the room. In our case, the heat just came down from above and I don’t ever remember cold spots or drafts. The windows were thermal units. Oh and in the bathrooms we had tile floows. Embedded below was another heating wire. When you stepped out of the shower or tub, the floor was warm!
In our case it was not expensive as we had it all installed at construction time. There are no moving parts to wear out (except perhaps the thermostats). They were a simple twist dial with no fancy electronics. We also had a nuclear power plant down the road which guaranteed that we would not pay over a certain amount for electricity.
So how did all that work out? I saw the house for sale many decades later. No problems at all and they were proud to tell me that whomever came up with that idea was smart. They didn’t know it was my family and that I had done lots of th wiring and some sheet-rocking.
So could this work today? I think so. I have seen ‘This Old House’ and similar variations they have produced. They used tubes with water and a heater, but that can leak. I think they suggested that at the time was because electric rates might out weigh the cost savings. However, these days with solar, you would have maintenance free heat. In a utility outage you would still have heat from your backup sources (battery, generator, the sun, etc).
I think this type of heating and construction makes it cost-effective and low maintenance.