What type of furnace do I need?

What is your current heat source for the baseboard heaters? For example, are they electric baseboard heaters or hot water/steam baseboard heaters?

They are water steam baseboards.

See if there is any information in this link to help you.

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12320

Sounds like you have forced hot water system for the delivery side. What are you using for the consume side (Oil, electric, Natural gas)?
You will look to match your delivery system for the furnace choice with what you currently have. You can change from gas, oil, electric but there will be costs associated with any changes there too. Some companies will advertise changing from one source to the other for many reasons. Gas is cheaper than oil, etc, etc.
Much also depends on what your climate is.
Here is one of many reads on the web for How to choose

This will play into your decision unless you have scads of money and convert everything.

If you are going to keep the hot water baseboard heating you should be looking for a boiler. It can be gas(if you have natural gas in your area) or oil fired.
if you intent to go to a forced air system you will need to run duct-work throughout the house. That can be an extra expensive proposition.
When you look for a system, don’t be tempted to over size it. Get what you need so it runs at peak efficiency as often as possible. In the remote chance you have a super cold day you can turn on a electric heater.

If I recall oyour house was in the 1400 square foot range and you were in a souther region. Right. 4000 heating degree day per year. I might be wrong. If that is true, you do not need a furnace bigger than 50,000 BTU per hour. You also have, or were considering, a wood burning stove. That would be a great help for the one day in 5 years year when the temp might drop to -20F.

@livingchoice… if the heating element runs along the wall baseboard , you may possibly have a hydronic heating system or more commonly called hot water baseboard. This sytem uses a hot water boiler. Steam heating do exist in the form of radiators and this uses a diferent type of boiler. Hot water boiler heats water up to around 200 degrees F and circulates the hot water along the pipes and baseboard elements in a closed system, while a steam boiler actually need to boil water at 212 degrees F to get the steam up to the radiator.

my system currently runs on Oil. The current furnace is 135,000 BTU so I am looking to get one that same size. We also have plans to expand the home sometime next year. The home is 851 sq ft.

If you are planning on any home expansion, size it to have an extra zone. They can cap this zone for future use when you do the expansion.
When I put my new furnace in, I made sure I spent a small amout more to have expansion capacity.
I replaced my furnace a few years after moving in and stayed with oil and force hot water. There were specific reasons I did not look into converting to Natural Gas, but it is an option for you.

That sounds like a hot water system you’re describing. I suppose it could be steam, but steam usually uses steam radiators.

Baseboard radiators as you describe aren’t very efficient for steam.

It’s also possible that you have electric baseboard heating. Sometimes the electric heating element is encased in a copper tube that looks just like water pipe.

Go down into your basement and look at the pipes or wiring that go up your floor to the radiators. If they’re electric cable, you have electric heat. If they’re copper pipe, you have hot water. If they’re larger steel pipe, you have steam.

If your system is hot water, you need to replace your furnace with a hot water furnace. You could do it on the cheap by using a water heater and a circulation pump instead of an actual furnace, but it’ll be more expensive to operate. A hot water furnace is tiny, about the size of a large microwave oven.

If your system is steam, you have to replace your boiler with a steam boiler. If you have a steam boiler, you’ll know it. Those suckers are huge!

If your system is electric, there’s no furnace at all, just heavy electric cables running to your breaker panel.

If you want to replace your baseboard system with a forced air system (maybe because you want central air?), you’re looking at a 10K to 20K expense, since you’ll have to run air ducts all through your existing finished walls.

Hot water and steam systems are the most economical to operate. But forced air has a lot of advantages, like being able to filter and sterilize your air continuously, add central air, etc.

@HungryGuy… you have the concept behind water heater and boiler backwards. You cannot have a water heater doing the work for the baseboards other wise you’ll never going to heat up the pipes enough to warm the rooms, unless you set your water heater thermostat to over 180 degree F which then becomes dangerous to the people using the tap as this can severely scald them. On the other hand, there are hot water boilers that can integrate a tankless water heating system for tap use. The down side with this is that if you use a lot of hot water at certain point of the day, there maybe not enough hot water to go around….a separate hot water heater with tank is the better option.

@njnyjobs – Right. I should have added that you can’t use the same water heater for both domestic hot water and for heating…because you have to set that water heater to 160 to 180 F. Another reason you can’t use the same water heater is because hot water heating pipes tend to collect large amounts of sediment, and you don’t want to mix that with your water supply.

And it’s not something you want to do unless you’re strapped for cash and you need to replace your hot water system right now so your cockles don’t freeze. A hot water furnace is basically an ultra high capacity tankless water heater.

Remember the heating system will need to be installed by a licensed heating systems / plumber.
DIY heating systems may void your home insurance and cause problems with mortgage.

@njnyjobs & @HungryGuy Hot water based furnaces have the separate pipe and temp settings between the heat system and the hot water delivered to the tap.
The heat part of the system that delivery hot water to the baseboards is set between 160–200 degrees. This is a closed loop water zone(s). You can have one or many seperate heating zones each controled by their own zone value.
Your Hot Water system is completely different pipes and set usually between 120–125 degrees. This can vary if you have children or elderly. It can be tankless delivery off your furnace (furnace has to run even during warm summer months) or tank. The tank heaters use their own energy source (electric or gas). I think @njnyjobs has it backwards on the ability to deliver large amounts of hot water in short periods. Tankless can delivery constant hot water for long periods of time because of how they function. Tank water heaters keep a large reservoir of water constantly hot. If you have a large demand, you can use the hot water faster than it can reheat it.
Here is an article on tank vs tankless As far as which one to use depends a great deal on your individual usage, climate, installation location, noise concerns, length of venting and energy source.

@blueiiznh – The building that I currently own has a hot water heating system that heats all the apartments via zone valves. Very reliable and economical system. The furnace supplies only the heat to the building. Each apartment has a separate water heater to heat the potable water.

@HungryGuy yep. exactly the point I was trying to clear up.

@livingchoice 135,000BTU Oil?! That is tremendous for your size house in your location. Do you not have good insulation? Leaky windows?
That size furnace will just turning on, run for a few minutes and then shut down. Cycling on and off many times per day. That is not the best arrangement for durability, efficiency, emissions, and comfort.
You can have an expert come in and do an audit for you – most likely for free. They will tell you the size you need.. Call some place like Agway (if they are in your area) and get a quote. I’m guessing a 75000 BTU/hour Beckett burner with a Burnham boiler is plenty. Add insulation if it is not.

@worriedguy The house was built in 1910 though it does look like the previous owner was trying to fix up the place. So I am not sure how well insulated it is. I’m trying to tell my husband that but he still insists we get one with the same BTU range as the one already in the home. Why are guys so stubborn? Oh, wait, that can be my next Fluther question. :O)