Hello, I'm looking for some advice on installing a new heating system/method for my home. First of all, here is my current situation. 45 year old home,
2 floors, each floor has about 950 sq.ft of floorspace, each floor is a separate unit. All heating is done by an older non-efficient gas furnace with the thermostat in the tenant's unit (lower floor). The heating ducts run between the two units, and branch up to the floor registers (upper unit) and down the wall to the lower unit's registers. There isn't any access to the heating ducts, except for when it first leaves the furnace. Typical winter temps have lows of 0 to -5C ( 30 to 40 F) and highs of 0 to 8C (40 to 56F). The lower unit is cooler than the upper, so either the tenant will be cold or we'll be too hot. The method of heating is very inefficient. Both units have a wood fireplace in the SW corner of the house (the fireplaces are not used), and the bedrooms are in the NE corner of the house.One solution I was thinking of was to install high-efficiency gas fireplaces in each unit, and turn off the furnace (I'm looking at fireplaces that output 22,000 btu). This would be good because each unit would have complete control over their temp. I'm very unsure if this will heat the bedrooms though: the heat will have to pass from the living rooms down a hall and into the bedrooms. Can anyone offer insight or experience with this type of situation? If needed, I can always add electric heaters to the bedrooms, but that would involve hiring electricians to feed new 240V lines to the rooms, etc. More $$, which would seem silly have spending up to $4000cdn for new fireplaces.
Any thoughts or other suggestions?
thanks