Adding cooling to 1990s Montana home

A homeowner posted a question about adding cooling to a 1990s two-story house in Montana that heats through hydronic radiant tubing (hot water pipes) embedded in the concrete slab. He wants to keep that floor heating system but add cooling too, without giving up the low 8-foot ceilings to ductwork and drop soffits, and without installing mini-splits, which he finds unattractive.

His idea is to install radiant cooling in the ceilings instead of the floor, paired with equipment that can send hot water to the floor in winter and cold water to the ceiling in summer — essentially a heat pump or chiller that reverses. He'd also need a way to bring in fresh air, possibly an energy recovery ventilator (ERV), which exchanges stale indoor air for fresh outdoor air while recovering some heat or coolness in the process. He asked for advice on whether to abandon the existing copper radiant floor pipes, whether an ERV would require the same ceiling space as ductwork, and what other cooling options might fit a low-ceiling home.

This is a homeowner's question posted to a building science forum, not a resolved case study or industry announcement. No answers, costs, or specific products were included. If you have a similar low-ceiling home with radiant floor heat and are weighing cooling options, this thread shows one way people are thinking through the tradeoffs between ceiling-based hydronic cooling, ducted systems, and ventilation needs — but no outcome or expert recommendation is available yet.