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Heating Older HousesCentral Massachusetts, house by house
The houses

The houses

The Cape

A story and a half under a steep roof, with a main floor that behaves and an upstairs that doesn't. Knee walls, sloped ceilings and a basement boiler shape nearly every choice here. These stories work through how many indoor units the house needs, why the upstairs stays wrong, what to do about ducts squeezed into the eaves, and whether the old boiler should stay.

White story-and-a-half house with a dark red door, matching shutters and a brick chimney, bare tree shadows across the roof
The Ahearn House in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, a low story-and-a-half house with a brick chimney.