For a long time I thought our only option for heating was a oil furnace, however i wasn’t too pleased with the oil furnace that came with our Elgin, IL home. I don’t suppose a single oil furnace really cuts it with the Illinois winters; The snow is brutal plus the windchill is horrible, however a oil furnace uses ductwork to convey the heat from room to room. The issue is that heated air rises plus then gets wasted, and my oil furnace was working all the time but our family was cold. The equipment just couldn’t keep up; So I started researching. There had to be something better. I found that a boiler was the best for our area! When the winters are long plus cold, you need something with power. A boiler system can sit in the basement plus be hooked up to all sorts of things, you can have it serve as the family water heater, baseboard heating system or be a radiator. You can even hook piping to it plus put it within the floorboards, then hydronic heating is truly efficient plus silent in operation. Since it is water, you don’t have heated air rising or creating chilly spots. The hydronic heat also warms anything that comes into direct contact with it, then obviously I am leaning towards hydronic heating. The main setup is what is slowing me down. I need a boiler plus a hook up for hydronic heating. That will be quite pricey, but, I think for our chilly weather Illinois area, I will never regret having a hydronic gas furnace.