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Warmfloor Solutions Ltd. discover some hot favourites which will be an installation sure bet this winter. Read>>

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What is the energy costs for the Warmfloor Solutions products?

The Warmfloor Solutions Underfloor Heating products have long been accepted as an excellent means of heating both new or for the improvement of existing properties. The three basis solutions are: -

Mini Mat - Under tile Heating system
Easy Heat – In Screed Heating system
Heat Safe – Underfloor (either embedded in a concrete screed or contained under a wooden floor structure)
Comfy Floor – Insulated and heated floating floor system

All of these systems are essentially a continuous method of heating. Each of these systems provides the user with low capital cost, ease of installation and systems, which takes up no space.

Insulation (roof, walls, etc.) is a very important issue for all heating systems to save on energy, for floor-warming systems the floor insulation is significant. The local building norms must be followed in this regard.
To illustrate the importance: With no floor insulation 30% of the heat is lost to the ground. This can be reduced to less than 5% with adequate floor insulation. Warmfloor Solutions recommend the use of floor insulation materials to significantly reduce energy usage and costs.

Running Costs

The calculation of running cost at best can only be approximate. The actual cost will depend on a number of considerations:

User preferences
Temperature and switch on time set points
Insulation values of the properties
Cost of energy

With these variables in mind we can consider a number of average values in order to provide an idea of approximate costs:

What is the energy costs for the Warmfloor Solutions products?

As an example let’s look at under tile heating. Essentially this is normally used to take the chill of cold floor tiles and is not predominantly used to generate comfort conditions within a room. Under this presumption the heating system will normally be switched on/off as follows:

ON 6.30 am to 9.00 am - 6.00pm to 11.30 pm
Total energised time period 8 hours
The cables will generally operate in an on / off mode controlled by the floor thermostat for 60% of the energised time period.

If electricity costs are 5p per Kilowatt-hour. Then for an installation based on 100 watts / m 2 then this equates to:

Energy cost = 8 x 60% x 80/1000 x 5 = 1.92p / m2 / day

Hours of Operation

The heating season in the UK is normally considered to be 230-days which is equivalent to 5,520 hours and over this period the average external temperature is 6.1 C. If, therefore, an installation is designed to maintain a room temperature of 21C against a minimum ambient of –5C then the calculated use per Kw of designed heat loss for continuous heating would be (21-6.1)/(21—5) x 5520 = 3163 hours. The actual hours of use are, however, appreciably reduced because of fortuitous heat gains from extraneous sources, i.e., solar gains, body heat, and heat from other sources of energy, electrical lightening etc. Previous building research has suggested that as much as 20% of heat requirements may be gained for “other” sources.

Individual applications / products will be assessed on a similar basis.
Warmfloor Solutions are pleased to provide additional advice and analysis.

Building Regulations 2001 – Part L

The latest revision to the Building Regulations Part L make significant changes to the 1995 version. The regulations have been divided into two sections, the first covering dwellings and the second with other types of building. The requirement relating to heating and hot water systems has been changed to include the whole system performance and not only controls as previous.

Compliance with Part L1 of the Building Regulations will have been demonstrated by one of three methods:

Elemental
Target U-value
Carbon Index

Each imposes slightly different requirements on the space heating and hot water systems. The calculations can be complex. To support our customers in this assessment our partner company Rockwool Insulation (www.rockwool.co.uk) provide an excellent guide on the web site. You will note that Warmfloor Solutions appears on this site as a partner organisation. All our systems employ Rockwool products.

Comparison with Hot Water based systems

When looking at comparison with other energy uses i.e. gas-fired boilers significant care should be taken since in addition to the variables above additional variables need to be considered: -

Boiler efficiency
Losses in the distribution of the hot water to the individual heated areas
Controllability of the heating zones

What is the energy costs for the Warmfloor Solutions products?

Significant independent information is available from the following sources:

Government Agencies

	Energy Saving Trust	0207 222 0101
	Energy Efficiency Advice Centres (Free phone)	0800 512 012

Industry Organisations

	Electricity Association	0207 963 5700
	National Home Building Council	01494 434 477
	National Home Improvement Council	0207 828 8230

Consumer Organisations

	Consumer Association	0845 650 5566
	Energy watch (Gas)	0845 906 0708
	Energy watch (Electricity)	0845 601 3131