Many of us have heard the term boiler but other than references on television or movies, the definition of the term eludes many. A boiler is essentially a unit that heats water for the home, business, or an entire complex of buildings. They come in a variety of sizes and even different technologies depending on the job they need to do. Boilers can heat water and feed it into the home. It can even use an on board controller/computer to determine the needs of the household for hot water. What you may not realize is that a boiler heating system also exists.
Boilers can heat air as well as water and in fact use water to distribute it. Some systems that do this are complex but for the most part it is a simple process of heating the water and feeding it through piping which contains the steam within the pipes but through a chain reaction of heated metal the water is stripped from the process and just the heat in the metal is transferred to the air "radiating" warmth. It's simple and basic but truly a fascinating concept if you've never heard about it. A boiler heating system has many designs of which this is one of them. How that heat is transferred and distributed is what differentiates the different technologies and boiler models.
The boiler heating system has come a long way since it's inception, and thought efficient technologies a unit can get a great deal of heat to energy used. This heat can be distributed through out the home or from a central unit that is self sufficient. The distribution channels are pipes that are run from the boiler out to the many areas of the home, using insulation on the pipes to make sure the water/steam stays hot all the way out to the farthest part of the home.
Insulating the pipes is key to efficiency in this type of system. If your pipes are not insulated the heat will dissipate before it reaches the farthest room in the house, which will cost you money but not heat that room efficiently. The other issues with not insulating the pipes is that these pipes will be exposed and could burn you, or leak hot water which could cause structural damage as well as personal injury. You can find a great deal of good information on the web about boiler heating systems. This is a great choice, because it can put both the heating of the home and the heating of water used in the home into one unit.
