Condo fan coils for heating (4 pipe) vs. Baseboards

[doopedeng]

I have a condo project here in Eastern Canada with central hot and chilled water systems serving 100 condos. I'm using fan coils for the cooling of each condo and would like to use the fan coils for the heating as well, but have reservations about the comfort of air heating in residences in such a cold climate (where I do most of my work we typically use baseboards for residential heating and don't get into using air heat that much). I have lots of ceiling space to get ductwork and diffusers to wash the windows, so that's not a problem.

Does anyone have any opinions on the advantages or disadvantages of using air for heating residences. It just seems to me that supplying heating pipe to a fan coil rather than snaking my way around each condo to baseboards would be cheaper (haven't run the $ yet), hence the urge to go fan coil heating. Any thoughts? What to most condos do?....I'm sure this has been done many times before...never one to reinvent the wheel.

Thanks in advance.
Dooped

 

[GMcD]

Well, if you look at like this: how many homes are heated by gas-fired forced air furnaces? A whole lot, and they can be kept "habitable", more or less. If you want a discussion of "comfort" that will be like how high is up? Personally, had I been involved in this project, I wouldv'e started off by integrating as much heating and cooling load reduction into the envelope as possible - better glass, solar shading, minimize the thermal bridging, etc., then it will be a lot easier to maintain comfort conditions in the space in the first place, and minimize the mechanical systems and plant sizes. Then, look at a heat recovery ventilator in each suite as a primary ventilation system, possibly with a chilled water coil for de-humidification and cooling purposes, and then you have a choice in the heating side: floor radiant heating in a topping layer, ceiling radiant heating and cooling from the ceiling slab, hot water baseboards, or warm air heating (best from floor outlets since warm air rises).

Have a surf through

http://www.healthyheating.com

for more detail on comfort and heating.

 

[ChasBean1]

Residences are a mess anyways with all the plumbing and exhaust. I've seen more and more engineers lately go with a condenser water loop and heat pumps (I believe ClimateMaster - Trane I think - makes them). I agree with everything GMcD says about the skin and the heat recovery ventilators, but running two pipe condenser water is a lot easier than running hot and chilled water and probably has substantially less heat loss (or sweating concerns) along the runs...

Best,
-CB