If you’re into flipping houses and want to get a foreclosure ready to sell before winter puts a lockdown on the market, then you should have heat on your mind. With the temperature steadily dropping, you’re going to need a functional heating system installed in your real estate investment if you want keep buyers interested for more than a few seconds. Here are a few different ways to bring the heat in your house:
- Forced Air Systems. Forced Air is far and away the most popular and affordable type of domestic heating system used in modern homes. It works by blowing air that has been heated in a special furnace throughout a system of ducts and out of registers located in the rooms of a house. If your real estate investment already has these ducts installed, upgrading your heat can be as simple as replacing the furnace with a newer, more powerful model. If you don’t have any ducts, however, you might be better off saving the money it would cost to install them and using an alternative heating system instead.
- Radiant Heat. Before the invention of forced air systems, radiant heat was the standard for houses everywhere. It works by forcing water that’s been heated in your house’s boiler through a system of thin pipes. As the water cools in the pipes, it radiates heat and raises the room temperature. There are several different ways to incorporate a radiant heating system into your home. While many houses use sheathed baseboard units that run along a wall in every room to radiate heat, these can easily be upgraded to a more modern system where the heating tubes are installed under the floor itself. This method is much less intrusive and will distribute the heat more evenly through your house.
- Steam Heat. Steam heat was the first commercially produced heating system on the market and many older homes and apartments continue to use it today. Like radiant heat, steam heat works through the process of boiling water and then distributing it into mechanical heating units. Unlike radiant heat, steam heat requires the use of large, cast iron radiators that can withstand the pressure of the superheated steam inside of them. These radiators, while affordable, can be unsightly and dangerous and are best replaced with a radiant heating system if you’re flipping a house.
When rehabbing properties that need a heating upgrade, a forced air system should always be your first choice. The furnaces they use are affordable, interchangeable and will run on any type of fuel. If your real estate investment doesn’t have the ducts required for forced air, then always go with a radiant heating system over a steam-powered one.
