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Should you fully insulate
under concrete slabs on or below grade?
Below grade comparison
Downward heat loss
tools
Why is design validation important?
So many radiant designers with good
intentions have bought into the benefit of radiant as
being exclusively about comfort often having to defend the price
for customized, complex and expensive systems. Ignored are the
simple affordable systems with significant
sustainability benefits.
No doubt, comfort through mechanical solutions is a
consideration it is also a prime function of the
building
enclosure where high performance structures such as Canada's
R2000 home or Germany's Passivhaus could in many cases negate the
use of distributed heating and cooling IF one comes
at it from the
sole perspective of comfort and looks at a home as a stand alone
load.
However
energy and exergy analysis of combustion
and compression equipment provides reason to use low temperature
radiant heating and high temperature radiant cooling when many high performance
buildings with micro loads can be collected and served by a
single, small, simple and energy efficient central cooling and
heating plant such as those typical of district energy systems,
especially if these systems incorporate thermal energy storage
such as direct coupled earth energy systems.
To ensure the highest energy and
exergy efficiency made possible with the lowest possible
temperatures in heating and highest temperatures in cooling
whilst delivering high quality thermal comfort, it is important
to validate the design of low temperature heating and high
temperature cooling systems such as radiant floors prior to
construction.
www.healthyheating.com has developed two detailed
tools for this purpose.
Sample screen shots from our new design validator
Radiant sub-floor heating with heat transfer
plates
Click to enlarge
Radiant floor cooling embedded in poured screed
on a suspended floor.
Click to enlarge
Radiant floor heating in poured topping
Click to enlarge
Visitors to this page have also visited:
An Illustrated Guide to Radiant Based HVAC
Systems for Energy Efficient Indoor Environmental Quality.
In-floor Radiant Design Guide: Heat Loss to Head
Loss
Typical Radiant Surfaces for Cooling and Heating
Radiant Cooling - Facts and Myths |
