Central heating design
Article about designing CH systems.
Heat requirements
- Discuss + links to whole-house heatloss calculators
- Discuss + links to energy conservation articles
Heat Sources
- single source
- gas or oil boiler
Discuss types of boiler, combi/conventional choice etc asper Ed's Boiler Choice FAQ with additional discussion of- combined range+boilers
- CHP (Microgen, Whispergen)
- electric
- peak rate v. off-peak
- standalone electric boilers
- thermal store
- gas or oil boiler
- multiple sources
- sources (additional to above):
- ranges (Aga, Rayburn etc) with back boiler
- wood burner with back boiler
- solar thermal hydronic
- ground source heat pump
- combining sources:
- thermal store
- neutral-point mixing things
- controls
- sources (additional to above):
Heat Emitters
- radiators
- output specifications Delta-50 and Delta-60
- locations wrt heat losses - under windows v. inside walls
- fan-assisted e.g. kickspace
- underfloor
- other radiant e.g. in wall, in ceiling (I kid you not!)
Controls and Zoning
- Y-plan, S-plan, pump-plan
- number of zones
- Programmer + room stat v. progstat (link to article on progstats (tbd))
- location of thermostats
- hall or living room - no external heat sources
- location of thermostats
- TRVs
- mixed rads + UFH layouts
Pipework
- materials
- plastic
- barrier v. non-barrier (link to Mr Hepworth's article in uk.d-i-y)
- copper
- plastic
- pipework layout
- pipe sizes v. heat-carrying capacities + noise
- microbore - easy install + balancing
- tree + branch ([28]-22-15-[10/8]) - good for balancing
- dual loop - inherently balanced but rarely practicable
- random - bad for balancing but sometimes necessary
Installation
- routing
- installation in solid floor
- joist notching
- drain-off points
- plastic v. copper or chromed pipetails
- pressure testing
- flushing