Warm air heating V gas central heating

[PrettyCandles]

Has anyone lived with warm air heating, or converted a WAH system to GCH? I've only ever lived with GCH or none, so am wondering what WAH is like.

We recently moved to a house with WAH. It's not so bad but I would like to convert to GCH at some point in the future. What annoys me is that the pipes 'bang' alot especially when you've used lots of hot water! Another thing which took alot of getting used to is that the pilot light is pretty big, especially when you have WAH on constant. I felt really uncomfortable with that, I felt like getting some bread out to toast it!

Also, the WAH dried our skin out alot at first as well as giving us a dry throat, but that doesn't seem to be a problem anymore - or maybe we've just got used to it!

Anyway, WAH is ok - it does the job but I do prefer GCH.

Our house had a very ancient WAH system when we moved in a couple of years ago. We used it for a year but converted to GCH last Xmas. We had to change as the boiler was about 35 years old. Our hot water system was on a different system so banging pipes wasn't an issue. I found the WAH system pretty good but there were cold moments as the room cools down faster than if you have radiators, although apparently the newer WAH systems don't let it cool down as much. My neighbour stil has her original system with a newer boiler and gets on really well with it.

Is WAH drafty, and do cooking smells etc get channeled around the house?

How does the cost of running WAH compare with GCH?

If you don't mind my asking, Kittypickle, why didn't you just update your boiler, like your neighbour?

Not just idle curiousity - dh has fallen in love with a WAH-heated house, but I'm not so sure...

We moved in to a WAH house 8 years ago and while it was fantastic downstairs (warms up v.quickly) was crap upstairs, really cold. The system was 34 yrs old but we were assured by variance men in the know that they were really meant for buildings on 1 level.

Anyway, converted to GCH about a month ago - find it takes ages in comparison to heat up, but upstairs is really cosy now.

Also GCH is much quiter.

I find that the upstairs is alot warmer - no doubt due to heat rising!! Another thing is that especially upstairs all the floors have vents in to allow the heat to circulate and you can hear everything going on downstairs.

As I already said the main complaint I have with mine is that it is VERY noisy, but as Mum2girls says, it does heat up the place very quickly.

Saying that, even knowing what I know now, I certainly wouldn't let WAH put me off moving to another house with it installed.

We have a WAH flat. I love it, though really wanted to change it to GCH at first. Find it's warm quickly and very economical, and like not having radiators on walls. But it can be noisy and someone needs to get out of bed to turn it on. Think ours is an ancient one, the heater takes up a small cupboard.
I also find the air too dry in GCH homes now, I think our WAH tends to be damper and I prefer it that way.
Funny how everyone's experiences are different, guess a lot of it depends on the building, bolier etc.

I grew up with WAH in california and now have GCH here in england. I would take GCH any day. It's soooo much quieter and I HATE drafts, even if they're warm ones.

Steer well clear if you have any astham suffers in your household - WAH can sometimes affect people because of the increase in airborne dust.

Also if you want to sell the house in the future you'd probably have to fork out for GHC as most people expect it these days.

We changed the heating in our first flat from WAH to GCH. WAH blew SO much dust around the place. It was horrid. Also, radiators seem easier to control the temperature in individual rooms. Our (V. old) WAH was either on or off with one room thermostat so you couldn't control the tep differently in different rooms.

Ugh, dust - that's one of the other things I'm a little owrried about. Housework is not one of my strong points .

This place has the downstairs vents in the floor (perfect for toddlers palying Postman Pat) and the upstairs vents in the ceiling. And it's probalby also about 35 years old.

It was going to cost a fair bit to replace the boiler and the heater that we had for the hot water was dangerous and needed replacing. It didn't cost a lot more to put in a new system and I was persuaded that it would be easier to sell the house in the future if we had GCH.