Keyes North Atlantic, Inc.

Hot Water
Hot water heating systems use gas, oil or electric boilers to heat water that circulates throughout your home. Many consider hot water based systems to be the best heating system available. The systems are quiet to operate and generally deliver heat to the home at a more constant rate.
One of the benefits of hot water heating is the large variety of delivery systems available. Heating elements may include one or more baseboard mounted units, free standing radiators, in-floor radiant heat and in-line heating coils. If you’d like to know more, please feel free to visit our page on hot water heating systems.
Hot Air
Hot air systems use ductwork to deliver warm air to the rooms of your home. Cooler air is then drawn through return air grills to a furnace or air handler to be filtered and re-heated. Furnaces are available in gas, oil and electric configurations.
Gas and oil fired furnaces create heat by burning the fuel and passing the flue gasses through a heat exchanger which in turn heats the air from your home. Electric furnaces are used in connection with heat pump systems and in all-electric homes. Click here to find out more about hot air heating systems.
Radiant Heat
Radiant heating systems are based on the same principles as hot water systems. The system utilizes a central boiler along with a piping system to distribute heat throughout the home. But unlike homes with baseboard units or radiators, a radiant heating system distributes the heat through tubing placed in the floor (or sometimes in the walls or ceilings) of a room. The system is called a radiant system because a large portion of the heat given off by the system is in the form of radiant heat waves (as opposed to convection currents). The result is a very even heat that has the ability to make you feel warm even when next to windows and doors in the room. Click here to find out more about radiant heating systems.
Heat Pump
Heat pumps are combination heating and cooling systems that use ductwork to distribute heated or cooled air throughout your home. In the Northeast, heat pump systems are equipped with a secondary heat source for additional heating capacity when the outdoor temperature falls to the 20 degree F. range and below. Heat pumps are often used when a more conventional fossil fuel system can not be utilized. Click here to find out more about heat pumps.
Hydro-Air
Hydro-Air is another equipment configuration used in a hot air heating system. The hydro-air system uses ductwork and an air handler to move the air in the home across a hot water coil. The comfort you get in the house is the same as a conventional hot air furnace (as described above), but the heat actually comes from a hot water boiler. This system is a hybrid of the conventional hot water and hot air heating designs. These systems are useful in homes that want central heating and cooling but don’t want to pay the higher cost of installing two completely independent systems.
Hydro-Air Heating and Cooling Systems
Hydro-air systems use some elements of both hot water and hot air heating designs to create a heating system that can interface with central cooling in a very cost effective way. A typical system uses a single gas or oil fired boiler to produce the heat for the entire home. The boiler delivers heat to air handlers equipped with an in-line heating coil. The ductwork from the air handler connects to conventional supply air diffusers and return air grills throughout the home (or portion of the home for multiple zone systems.)
The installation savings of this design come in when we add cooling to the home. The air handlers that distribute the heat are also equipped with cooling coils so the distribution ductwork and air handler are utilized for both heating and cooling.
Design
When we prepare a design for the installation of a hydro-air system in your home we base the equipment on the heat loss and heat gain of your home. We do specific calculations in order to determine how much heat your house absorbs each hour during the summer months, and how much heat your house loses each hour during the winter months. The major factors, which determine the amount of heat gain and loss, are the size of your house, the number and compass orientation of windows, and the amount of exposed roof area.
We choose a boiler based on the heating demands determined in the heat loss calculations. The number of air handlers used is based on your home and where you desire separate zones. For example, a master suite with a bedroom, dressing room and bathroom may be perfect single zone. A portion of the home that contains the children’s bedrooms and lavatories may be a second zone. A third zone can be designed to serve the formal portions of the home and a fourth zone to serve the kitchen, breakfast room and family area.
Once we split up the zones, we size up the cooling equipment. Typically we’ll provide you with an independent cooling system for each air handler or zone in your home. The cooling capacity is based on the heat gain of the zone.