# warming system



## amirmg

Hi friends,

I am keen to know what do you call the system in houses or offices to make their place warm during the winter. I think we can use air conditioner for the system we use in summers to make our place cool, but I do not have any idea about warming systems such as furnace or other heating systems.

To sum up my question, I keen to know the following compound nouns are correct

1- warming system
2- Heating system

If it is not so common to use such nouns, I would appreciate if you could tell me what I can use instead.

Thanks,
Amir


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## heypresto

Please give us a _complete sentence_ in which you might use this term, and some _context_.


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## amirmg

heypresto said:


> Please give us a _complete sentence_ in which you might use this term, and some _context_.


As the weather is getting colder, I would appreciate if you could send someone to turn on the heating system.


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## PaulQ

amirmg said:


> As the weather is getting colder, I would appreciate if you could send someone to turn on the heating system.


 This would be used for a block of flats/apartments, an office/factory, school, or other multi-occupancy building.

For a single house: "It's getting colder - turn the central heating on." / "It's getting colder - turn the boiler on." (The latter is BE, I think AE uses another word for "boiler")


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## heypresto

Thanks. In that context, just say 'the heating'.


Can't you turn the heating on yourself? 

Cross-posted. Yes - 'central heating' is also a good suggestion.


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## amirmg

PaulQ said:


> This would be used for a block of flats/apartments, an office/factory, school, or other multi-occupancy building.
> 
> For a single house: "It's getting colder - turn the central heating on." / "It's getting colder - turn the boiler on." (The latter is BE, I think AE uses another word for "boiler")


Your posts are priceless Paul. I wanted to raise another thread asking if getting cold is right, but you used it then it must be right.
Thank you my intelligent friend


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## heypresto

So I'm not intelligent?


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## amirmg

heypresto said:


> Thanks. In that context, just say 'the heating'.
> 
> 
> Can't you turn the heating on yourself?
> 
> Cross-posted. Yes - 'central heating' is also a good suggestion.



If I do not explode the building, I will try 
Thank you for your answer


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## amirmg

heypresto said:


> So I'm not intelligent?


Oh noooooooooooo 
I deeply appreciate you for your invaluable answer.

_<——-Off-topic comment removed by moderator (Florentia52)——->_


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## heypresto




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## kentix

We would just say, in a house, "It's getting cold, we need to turn on the heat." In most places, it would be a furnace. You just flip a switch on the thermostat.


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## amirmg

kentix said:


> We would just say, in a house, "It's getting cold, we need to turn on the heat." In most places, it would be a furnace. You just flip a switch on the thermostat.


Furnace!!! I did not know that word. I thought rarely do people use furnace. 
Thank you kentix


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## Hermione Golightly

I'm having the annual "Turn on the heating!" battle with my spouse, who seems to think that feeling freezing cold represents British virtue.

'Furnace' is not used in the UK. It suggests something with a real fire inside it. We use the word 'boiler', fueled by gas or electricity. The degree of heat is controlled by a room thermostat, and the boiler itself: if the boiler isn't switched on there won't be any heat.


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## kentix

Is there water in the boiler?

Everywhere I've lived we've had a real furnace with a real flame inside that is fed by natural gas. It burns inside and directly heats the air, which is then sent through air ducts to the rest of the house (called central heat(ing)).

In old buildings, and especially large buildings (like at my college), it's common to have an actual boiler that heats water that is distributed through pipes into radiators that then radiate the heat into the room. You turn a knob at the base of the radiator to adjust the heat (usually ineffectively).

Houses in the Northeast tend to use heating oil instead of natural gas. Electricity isn't used because it doesn't make a flame.


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## ewhite

Given the wide range of devices used to heat buildings, I would go with soundly "turn on the heat".


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## Hermione Golightly

The hot water is stored in a hot water tank after it's been heated by the boiler. The thing that heats the water for either the central heating usually with radiators of some sort, or for general domestic use, is called a boiler in the UK. (The boiler might also heat air to be  circulated through hot air ducts as in my house).

I don't care how it's done, I just want to feel warm! "For heaven's sake, man, turn on the heating!" ( Of course I could turn it on myself!)


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## kentix

In private homes we generally only heat water for sinks and showers in a (hot) water heater.


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## Hermione Golightly

It seems that practice and technical terminology differ very much indeed. I think 'central heating' is a shared term, as is 'air conditioning'.


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## Linkway

Homes with *central heating*, have what is called in the UK a *boiler *and in the US a *furnace*.  (The word furnace in British English has other uses and connotations.)

In the UK, most homes with central heating have a *gas-fired boiler* which is used (a) to heat water for use in basins, sinks and baths, etc, all year round; and (b) to heat water for pumping through pipes to *radiators *in each room.  Some hot-water systems store the heated water in an enclosed insulated water tank (which may also have an *electric immersion heater element* as a standby or for exceptional use).   Modern combi-boilers  (combination boilers) heat the water on demand as and when needed and do not store it.

In the UK, some (few) homes use a warm-air system; the boiler heats air which is carried through ducts to each room with the aid of fans.

In the US, ducted warm-air systems are most popular for various reasons, not least because both winter heating and summer cooling is done by an integrated *air-conditioning* system.

In the UK, very few houses have air-conditioning; it is not as necessary to cool the air in UK homes as it is in many parts of the US.


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## kentix

In the U.S. we still only use air conditioning to refer to cooling. The entire system is referred to (in house listings, at least) as central heat and air. More technically, it's called an HVAC system - heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Which all uses the same ductwork.


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## amirmg

Hermione Golightly said:


> I'm having the annual "Turn on the heating!" battle with my spouse, who seems to think that feeling freezing cold represents British virtue.
> 
> 'Furnace' is not used in the UK. It suggests something with a real fire inside it. We use the word 'boiler', fueled by gas or electricity. The degree of heat is controlled by a room thermostat, and the boiler itself: if the boiler isn't switched on there won't be any heat.


feeling freezing cold?!?!
Is this a correct combination of world? I think either freezing or cold should be used.
feeling cold or feeling freezing.


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## heypresto

This is a new question, and should be asked in a separate thread. And with a _complete sentence_.


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## amirmg

ewhite said:


> Given the wide range of devices used to heat buildings, I would go with soundly "turn on the heat".



Besides an appropriate use of soundly that I did not know the meaning of.


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## amirmg

heypresto said:


> This is a new question, and should be asked in a separate thread. And with a _complete sentence_.


Sure 
Someone else has raised this thread earlier. Surprisingly he/she was Persian.


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## amirmg

Linkway said:


> Homes with *central heating*, have what is called in the UK a *boiler *and in the US a *furnace*.  (The word furnace in British English has other uses and connotations.)
> 
> In the UK, most homes with central heating have a *gas-fired boiler* which is used (a) to heat water for use in basins, sinks and baths, etc, all year round; and (b) to heat water for pumping through pipes to *radiators *in each room.  Some hot-water systems store the heated water in an enclosed insulated water tank (which may also have an *electric immersion heater element* as a standby or for exceptional use).   Modern combi-boilers  (combination boilers) heat the water on demand as and when needed and do not store it.
> 
> In the UK, some (few) homes use a warm-air system; the boiler heats air which is carried through ducts to each room with the aid of fans.
> 
> In the US, ducted warm-air systems are most popular for various reasons, not least because both winter heating and summer cooling is done by an integrated *air-conditioning* system.
> 
> In the UK, very few houses have air-conditioning; it is not as necessary to cool the air in UK homes as it is in many parts of the US.



I was looking for the radiator, but I think the hot water does not flow in a duct. The hot water flows in tubes. Please correct me if I am wrong.


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## heypresto

In this context, water flows through _pipes_.


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## amirmg

heypresto said:


> In this context, water flows through _pipes_.


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## AnythingGoes

Linkway said:


> Homes with *central heating*, have what is called in the UK a *boiler *and in the US a *furnace*.


We Americans don't normally call boilers furnaces; if your house has hot-water radiant heating, its heating plant is a boiler. Such systems are relatively rare in the US, though, so "furnace" is sometimes used for the heating equipment regardless of its type.


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## amirmg

AnythingGoes said:


> We Americans don't normally call boilers furnaces; if your house has hot-water radiant heating, its heating plant is a boiler. Such systems are relatively rare in the US, though, so "furnace" is sometimes used for the heating equipment regardless of its type.


Useful information, thanks a lot


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## london calling

Hermione Golightly said:


> 'Furnace' is not used in the UK. It suggests something with a real fire inside it.


Indeed. Say 'furnace' to me and I think of an ironworks/foundry.

_Turn the heating on_ is what I say.


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## kentix

But it does have a real fire inside it. There's not a drop of water in the system.

Troubleshooting Furnaces: They do8 Furnace Repair Parts You Might Need to Buy

_There are several switches inside a furnace heater and this one is in charge with making sure the heat around the burners is being properly regulated. Normally, the flames from the burner should be led into the heat exchanger and exhausted out through the flue._


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## Hermione Golightly

It doesn't matter what element of fire or flame there is these things are called boilers in the UK not furnaces.
_Very few _people these days in the UK use solid fuel such as wood or coal to warm their houses. In my youth we had a coke (/coal) burning open fire in the living room which also heated the water. It was called a Baxi back boiler.

There was no central heating. The bedrooms had gas fires in them, never used unless you were seriously ill in bed or the daytime temperature was so low that you had to scrape the ice off the inside of the windows.
These days there are 'stoves', I believe, somewhat like European solid-fuel burning stoves. They are wood-burning I guess. Few Brits can access fire-wood.

I recall a conversation with my brother in Tennessee. I asked him where he got the wood for his stove. He told me he just chopped it down from the woodland on his farm property as if this was something perfectly normal.


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## london calling

This in AE is a 'gas furnace heater' (tekseven.com): 






That's a boiler in BE.


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## ewhite

amirmg said:


> Besides an appropriate use of soundly that I did not know the meaning of.


That is because I am sure I meant "simply".


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## Myridon

london calling said:


> That's a boiler in BE.


There's no water.  What does it boil?


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## london calling

Myridon said:


> There's no water.  What does it boil?


It's a combi boiler. See this (worcester-bosch.co.uk), I quote:

_Combi boilers heat water directly from the mains when you turn on a tap, so you won’t need a hot water storage cylinder or a cold water storage tank in the roof space._

That's what I have here at home. It also operates the heating system.


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## AnythingGoes

london calling said:


> This in AE is a 'gas furnace heater' (tekseven.com):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's a boiler in BE.





Myridon said:


> There's no water.  What does it boil?


The pictured device is called a _furnace _in American English. It heats air and distributes it to a system of ducts to which it's attached. Do such devices even exist for residential use in Britain?

In American English a _boiler_ is a device which heats water and circulates it for distribution around a building, either in radiators or by warming the floors. Boilers are typically smaller than furnaces because they don't need the large blower and heat exchanger the latter require.


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## Hermione Golightly

Why is it so hard to accept that BE has different terms?


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## AnythingGoes

Hermione Golightly said:


> Why is it so hard to accept that BE has different terms?


I'm not trying to argue. I just wonder whether an air-heating device like the one in the picture would really be called a _boiler_ in British English. My hunch is that the question wouldn't come up because residential hot-air heat doesn't exist in the British market, and therefore, nobody actually has one.


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## kentix

I think this was the source of the misunderstanding:

_'Furnace' is not used in the UK. It suggests something with a *real* fire inside it. _

My bold.

Looking back, I now realize that it's the definition of "real" that's different. It appears Hermione was using the word "real" to mean a solid fuel fire in some kind of firebox. She's not counting gas flames as a "real" fire.


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## london calling

Hang on, no, I see what you mean, Myridon. It doesn't store water.  In any case it isn't called a 'furnace' in BE. I imaginine it's what we call a gas air heater. 

Winterwarm.co.uk:

_An indirect air heater burns fuel (most commonly natural gas or LPG) within a sealed chamber so that products of combustion do not enter the work space.  Air from within the room is then passed over a heat exchanger, increasing its temperature, and is then blown into the space to be heated._


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## Hermione Golightly

The flat we live in at the moment uses _electricity _for everything. The central heating is via hot-air ducts. We have an electric 'boiler' for the central heating and what we call an immersion heater for our year-round hot water.
In our other property, our central heating is fuelled by town gas. We can also use electricity to heat hot water, via an "immersion heater", so if the central heating/water boiler is down we can still have hot water.
Cooking in that building is either by electricity or gas. Gas is not a fuel option where we currently live.


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## Myridon

london calling said:


> Hang on, no, I see what you mean, Myridon. It doesn't store water.  In any case it isn't called a 'furnace' in BE. I imagine it's what we call a gas air heater.


Not only does it not store water, no water goes anywhere near it (unless you have leak in your roof or your basement floods).
Note that a furnace can also be electric as well as gas.

In milder climates here, some houses have a heat pump instead of a furnace.
Heat pump - Wikipedia


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## london calling

I have electric wall split air conditioners at home which can pump our hot or cold air, as well as gas-fueled central heating governed by a boiler which also heats water taken straight from the mains. 

In any case the whole point is that in AE you use the word 'furnace' when talking about all these various heating systems  but in BE we don't. Ever.


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## Myridon

london calling said:


> In any case the whole point is that in AE you use the word 'furnace' when talking about all these various heating systems  but in BE we don't. Ever.


You don't call a cow a horse and we don't call a horse a cow.  We aren't usually talking about the same thing. Why would we call it the same thing?


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## Myridon

Hermione Golightly said:


> Why is it so hard to accept that BE has different terms?


We don't have different terms for the same thing. We have different things.  Stop telling us you call a furnace a boiler - you don't have a furnace.


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## kentix

london calling said:


> In any case the whole point is that in AE you use the word 'furnace' when talking about all these various heating systems but in BE we don't.


No, we only use furnace for devices that directly heat air which is then blown throughout the house. If it doesn't do that, it's not a furnace.

If it heats water for bathrooms and kitchens, it's not a furnace. If it heats water for a radiator system, it's not a furnace. If it heats water for an in-floor radiant heat system, it's not a furnace. If it heats water at all, it's not a furnace. If it's a heat pump, it's not a furnace. If it's a wood-burning stove, it's not a furnace. If it's an in-room electric heater, it's not a furnace. A furnace produces hot air for distribution and only hot air. If it does something else, it's something else.

From uponor-usa.com:
_How do radiant floor heating systems work?

In a *radiant floor heating system*, warm water flows through flexible plastic tubing called PEX that is located underneath or within the *floors*. ... The *heat* source in a hydronic *radiant floor heating system* is typically *a boiler or a hot-water heater*._


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## london calling

Myridon said:


> . Why would we call it the same thing?


But that is exactly what we've been saying from the BE side.


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## Hermione Golightly

> No, we only use furnace for devices that directly heat air and blow it throughout the house. If it doesn't do that, it's not a furnace.


*
It* does do exactly that in my house and I do not call *it* a 'furnace'. If I don't call* it* a furnace *it* is not a furnace in my vernacular.
There is no _central _'furnace' in either of my English apartments, unlike those I lived in in Manhattan. The heating systems in both my apartment buildings are individually controlled. The tenant or owner decides how hot they want to be at any time of the year. 

Rents are not inclusive of heating, unless, maybe, we're talking about single room rentals in shared housing.


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## kentix

I didn't say you did and I didn't say you had to. My response was clearly directed at London Calling who said we call everything a furnace. The truth is we call one particular piece of equipment a furnace and we call everything else something else, because those other pieces of equipment don't do what a furnace does.


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## AnythingGoes

Myridon said:


> In milder climates here, some houses have a heat pump instead of a furnace.


Not just in milder climates. Our heat pump operates at temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit, if I remember right. The furnace's electric heating coils kick in when the heat pump can't extract enough heat from the ambient air.

And I'm sorry to say that around here we _do_ call a residential electric heating plant a "furnace".


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## Hermione Golightly

> No, we only use furnace for devices that directly heat air and blow it throughout the house. If it doesn't do that, it's not a furnace.


Who's *we?
It does do that and we call it a boiler.*

Worse still we need a new one.


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## TayScot

This has turned into a rather *heated* discussion


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## kentix

Hermione Golightly said:


> Who's *we?*





london calling said:


> In any case the whole point is that* in AE you use* the word 'furnace' when talking about all these various heating systems


Like I said, a direct response to London Calling.

It's always bad news when you need a new major appliance.


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## london calling

kentix said:


> I didn't say you did and I didn't say you had to. My response was clearly directed at London Calling who said we call everything a furnace. The truth is we call one particular piece of equipment a furnace and we call everything else something else, because those other pieces of equipment don't do what a furnace does.





kentix said:


> We would just say, in a house, "It's getting cold, we need to turn on the heat." In most places, it would be a furnace. You just flip a switch on the thermostat.


This is where it all started! 

Ok, you don't call* all* heating systems furnaces and we don't call *any* heating systems furnaces.


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## kentix

Phew, glad that's over. (P.S. A very good summary.)


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