MINOT REAL ESTATE 101
Welcome to Bob Timm’s, National Marketing Realtors, Minot North Dakota Real Estate 101, lesson 13, Heating Systems.
The purpose of this ongoing course is not to teach anyone to be a Real Estate genius but to simply help you know the absolute basics about Minot North Dakota.
Being many of the people/families coming to Minot come from much warmer climates I decided to address the heating systems you will find in Minot.
Depending upon the age of the home you may find something you had never seen back home, such as the “Octopus” below.
photograph by Lauren Zerbey
The old octopus system was very prevalent here in the early 1900’s. They were built to last and you will still find a few around today. I believe their efficiency rating would be 50 to 60%. Some of the problems with these beasts were/are: their size, most were wrapped in asbestos, they were made to burn coal and maybe oil after that and then again to burn natural gas. Also I do not believe they were/are adaptable to central air conditioning.
Another oldie but goodie is the vintage boiler furnace as seen below.
There are new, modern boilers today but I’ve seen them this old in houses I’ve shown here in Minot. Boilers were, and still are, highly efficient and for the most part long lasting. The draw backs to boilers the initial instillation costs and maintenance as well as that they are not adaptable to central air conditioning. Old boilers like the one pictured above were also usually wrapped in asbestos.
A good furnace in our climate is an absolute must. Reliability is a must because if your furnace goes out on a weekend or a holiday you can not wait until Monday to have it fixed if we are having one of our infamous 30 degree below days (I guess it also goes without saying it’s best to know a reliable repairman before it goes out as well).
The vast majority of heating systems in Minot ND are forced air, natural gas. The second most popular would be baseboard electric heat. The advantage to baseboard electric heat is each room has it's own heater thus you can control the temp in each room. Baseboard electric heat is reliable but more expensive than forced air natural gas and does not accommodate central air conditioning.
Unlike the climate you may have moved here from central air conditioning is not a must and I would venture a guess that about 30% of the homes in Minot have no AC.
First time home owners please remember that when you get a home loan most lenders will loan you 80% of the homes value. They do not typically loan you extra money to upgrade the heating, AC, or plumbing system.
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