Answer
Feb 23, 2020 - 01:40 AM
If you are considering making any changes to your heating system, it is important to know what type of heating you currently have as that will determine what options are available to you.
COMMON TYPES OF HEATING SYSTEMS
Most Newton homes have one of two types of heating systems:
Central Forced Air: Central Forced Air systems have 2 components. A furnace, powered by gas, oil and rarely electricity, that heats the air and air ducts that carry the warmed air throughout the house. If your house has registers, coverings over air vents often visible in ceilings, on the top-most floor of a house, and around the edge of the floor, on the ground floor of a house.
If your house has registers that look like this that blow warm air in the winter, then you have a central forced air system: 
Boiler/Radiator Systems: These systems have a boiler, powered by gas or oil, that generates steam or hot water that is then circulated throughout the house through pipes and release the heat through radiators. Radiators can either be traditional or baseboard and will be in most or all of the rooms of your house.
Traditional radiators look like this:
Baseboard radiators generally look like this:
If you have radiators AND a boiler, usually located in the basement, then you have a boiler/radiator system.
UNCOMMON CONVENTIONAL HEATING SYSTEMS
There are many other types of heating systems that are less common. These include:
Electric Baseboard Heaters: These look similar to the radiators in a boiler/radiator system but are instead powered by electricity. You can tell if you have electric baseboard heaters if 1) You look underneath and do not see the pipes that descend through the floor for carrying the hot water, 2) You do not have a boiler in your basement, or 3) you do not have gas or fuel oil bills.
Wood Pellet Heaters: These are stoves or furnaces that are powered by wood pellets. You probably know if you have a wood pellet heater as you will need to buy wood pellets and load them into the stove or furnace.
Heat Pumps: Heat Pumps are units that provide heating and air conditioning all in one unit. These are environmentally-friendly options have only become popular in New England the last few years. So, unless you installed a heat pump recently, you probably do not have one. Learn more about heat pumps.
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