Given free rein, how would you design a heating system ?

[Talay]

If we can't find the house we want in the next couple of years we're considering building one or more likely, going for a renovation project.

In both of these I am looking at a new wiring and heating so on the presumption of their being gas on site, how would you go about it ?

To give some pointers, I like wooden floors though I have had good and bad experiences of underfloor heating. The ability to service multiple wet rooms / hot water outlets at the same time without any major loss of pressure is an absolute necessity.

We are looking at circa 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, plus reception rooms and garages.

 

[muggles]

The ability to service multiple wet rooms / hot water outlets at the same time without any major loss of pressure is an absolute necessity.

This is entirely dependent on the available water supply on the site you choose. You ideally want an unvented cylinder, or maybe even two running in parallel depending on the layout and expected usage, but if the water runs slower than you can p!ss there's not really any point having them, unless you're prepared to go to the complication and expense of buffer tanks, accumulators, pressure sets etc etc. You'd probably want secondary circulation for instant hot water at all outlets, and balanced pressure hot and cold supplies. A 32mm incoming main into the cylinder / boiler room (have a separate room where all this is) would be ideal, but again you need to be sure the flow rate and pressure are up to the job.


As for the heating, there is no such thing as a perfect system. UFH gives you a nice warm floor, a more even heat and doesn't take up wall space, and is very cheap to run, but it takes forever to respond so unless you have very fixed living patterns where the controls can learn how long it takes to heat a room and setback the heating start time so that the room is warm when you want it to be it can be a bit of a pain, or you just end up running it 24/7. Radiators are faster to respond than UFH but need to be quite big to give the required output at high-efficiency 60/40 F&R temperatures, adding to the install cost. K3 radiators help from the point of view of reducing the width but you need strong walls to hang them off and strong men to fit them as they weigh rather a lot.

Consider ground source heat pumps to heat the house if you do go down the UFH route and have the land to do so, and go absolutely nuts on insulation. I've got an architect mate who's just built himself a 5,500 square foot house, insulated to the max, total heating load is 11kw on GSHP and UFH. More expensive to install, VERY cheap to run.

While you're in the process of digging up your lawn, put in rainwater harvesting so you get free water for flushing loos, washing cars, running washing machines etc etc.

 

[Norcon]

Design the home that it needs no heating system.
Or at least one that a candle would heat.

 

[Talay]

Thanks Muggles for the very detailed reply.

 

[Charnwood]

First, bypass the gas and electric meters.

 

[dcawkwell]

Passive house I think the term was on one of the grand designs projects.

The house requires so little heat.

I would then go for some air con for warming it up and cooling it in the summer. Not that it would need much of either.

Air source heat pump for heating hot water and unvented cylinder.

 

[sherbert]

if you have the money and space ....... ground source heat
underfloor heating
unvented cylinder .. if correct pressure
solar hot water

Basically go as green as you can