We own a small Queen Anne in Northern New Jersey (1800 sq ft), and the prior steam heat system has been converted to water. So it has black iron pipework to cast iron radiators, with relatively large diameters for the basement primary distribution. Since owning the property I have been nursing the current 1967 gas furnace, which clogs with soot and rots the burners every 2-3 years (probably running too cool, inefficient). Now the frame the carries the burners has rotted away, so its probably time to think about something more efficient. Coupled with the standard gas heating, is a standard gas fired water heater.

The current furnace is a Peerless, and the net output rating is 116,000 BTU. I ran a Manual S heat load calc, with predictably poor results for a house built in the 1870's!
On the pesimistic side, no wall insulation, no ceiling insulation and poor attic insulation, requires 96,000 BTU. If I run the calc more optimistically, some wall insulation (the reality), some ceiling insulation (the reality), R19 attic insulation (probably R11 now), then the requirement is around 60,000 BTU's. I also installed a small wood stove, mainly for family room comfort, but it can expel 40,000 BTU's, which is able to maintain the house temp in the 60's when outside temps are above 30, but I don't want to rely on this for the purpose of this analysis.

We are looking for efficiency (financial and green reasons), reliability, performance, bang-for-buck.

After doing some online research I found the Energy Kinetics site and read about their System 2000 products - sounds really cool. I also read a bunch of forum posts either trashing or talking up the products, they seem to enflame both camps views!

The EK products are way out of my price range, however:
* What do you think about the product?
* Are there other manufacturers that produce similar packaged systems?
* Is there a better system that fulfils our needs and goals?

Regards,
Ken