Hi Folks,
About 3 weeks ago I first aired my concerns here regarding the choice
of heating for
my new conservatory.
I've had more thoughts, and whilst not wishing to try the patience of
the kind folks
here, it's worth my while to see what others think of these new ideas.

Some years ago I refurbished a small bathroom (9 feet by 4 feet floor
area) and
renewed the chipboard floor at the same time.
Before fixing the new flooring, I strapped the sides of the joists with
small supporting timber
to hold the solid polystyrene insulation blocks I planned on using
below the floor.
Since one long end of the bathroom adjoined the eaves, I cut some
lengths of 8mm or
10mm microbore and made U shaped loops (about 5 feet tall) and laid
these one per
polystyrene board on top of the board.
The poly boards were fitted flush with the top of the joists. Add a
10mm microbore pipe and
then screw down the chipboard and the "crush" keeps the microbore in
touch with the
chipboard.
I connected a manifold in the eaves to the heating circuit (come
Autumn) and waited to
see if the family noticed the "underfloor heating".
Though not roasting, the heating effect is pretty good at taking the
chill off the tiles in the
winter.

So, you can probably now guess where I am going with this...

The present thought is to install wall radiators in the conservatory
plumbed via a
zone valve to the central heating system.
The zone valve being timer operated via one of those immersion-heater
timer devices
that have a maximum delay of a few hours.

At the same time, install my proprietary underfloor heating but plumb
this permanently
off the central heating system.

Thus under normal circumstances the underfloor heating ought to keep
the conservatory
comfortably above freezing, but when you need it you can kick into life
the wall
radiators.

Any thoughts on my scheme ?

Thanks in advance

Mungo

On 23 Dec 2005 07:50:16 -0800, "Mungo" wrote:


So, you can probably now guess where I am going with this...

The present thought is to install wall radiators in the conservatory
plumbed via a
zone valve to the central heating system.
The zone valve being timer operated via one of those immersion-heater
timer devices
that have a maximum delay of a few hours.

At the same time, install my proprietary underfloor heating but plumb
this permanently
off the central heating system.

Thus under normal circumstances the underfloor heating ought to keep
the conservatory
comfortably above freezing, but when you need it you can kick into life
the wall
radiators.

Any thoughts on my scheme ?


Quite reasonable. UFH with a concrete floor is relatively slow to
react because of the heat capacity of the concrete. However, if you
adjust it seasonally it should be reasonable.

There does need to be an additional zone for the UFH to comply with
building regulations, because you need to be able to show that it can
be turned off.


--

..andy

Andy Hall wrote:
On 23 Dec 2005 07:50:16 -0800, "Mungo" wrote:

At the same time, install my proprietary underfloor heating but plumb
this permanently
off the central heating system.

Thus under normal circumstances the underfloor heating ought to keep
the conservatory
comfortably above freezing, but when you need it you can kick into life
the wall
radiators.

Any thoughts on my scheme ?


Quite reasonable. UFH with a concrete floor is relatively slow to
react because of the heat capacity of the concrete. However, if you
adjust it seasonally it should be reasonable.

There does need to be an additional zone for the UFH to comply with
building regulations, because you need to be able to show that it can
be turned off.


I'm told the CH water temp in the UFH would crack conrete or warp wood
though.


NT

Ta for the feedback.
I didn't make it clear in the original post, but the conservatory will
have a timber
floor and not solid concrete.

Mungo

On 23 Dec 2005 23:28:41 -0800, wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 23 Dec 2005 07:50:16 -0800, "Mungo" wrote:

At the same time, install my proprietary underfloor heating but plumb
this permanently
off the central heating system.

Thus under normal circumstances the underfloor heating ought to keep
the conservatory
comfortably above freezing, but when you need it you can kick into life
the wall
radiators.

Any thoughts on my scheme ?


Quite reasonable. UFH with a concrete floor is relatively slow to
react because of the heat capacity of the concrete. However, if you
adjust it seasonally it should be reasonable.

There does need to be an additional zone for the UFH to comply with
building regulations, because you need to be able to show that it can
be turned off.


I'm told the CH water temp in the UFH would crack conrete or warp wood
though.


Mmm. Good point. There should be some kind of UFH blending device
to reduce the temperature.


--

..andy

Care to elaborate Andy (yeah, I know I should Google for "blending"
but tis the
season of goodwill :-)

Mungo

On 24 Dec 2005 02:33:11 -0800, "Mungo" wrote:

Care to elaborate Andy (yeah, I know I should Google for "blending"
but tis the
season of goodwill :-)

Mungo


I see.

A Google on { under floor heating conservatory } would work

The point, as was mentioned, is to reduce the water temperature going
into the floor tubes. Normally this is done using a blending valve
plus a pump. The principle is to mix some of the return water from
the UFH circuit with the flow water coming from the boiler so that you
have a lower temperature flow into the UFH circuit.

You can buy complete packs for this.

e.g.

http://www.nu-heat.co.uk/onezone/

I noticed that there is a complete installation manual on their site
which has blow by blow details of what's involved.

Hepworth also do a pack with a much simpler idea - basically a valve
which operates based on return water temperature and restricts the
flow. Obviously cheaper, but not as accurate and doesn't limit
inbound flow temperature - could be an issue with the floor as has
been said.

I think that I would probably look at the information in the Nu-heat
solution (there are others like this) and then look at sourcing the
components elsewhere if it looks less expensive.


--

..andy