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HEAT PUMPS BSEE
HEAT EMITTERS FOR PUMP INSTALLATIONS Commercial confidence requires a domestic touch
By Jim Bennett, Sales & Marketing Director, Smith’s Fan Convectors
may look more favourably on a new build or refurbishment that uses low carbon emissions to support a planning application. Neither are hydronic fan convectors particularly new. They’ve been with us for years and those in the know recognise their flexibility and suitability for a wide variety of commercial projects. The benefits they bring with them, flexible siting, low water content, easy to control heat, come into sharp focus when considering the kind of heat emitter required for a heat pump installation.
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Whichever type of heat pump you are planning, an important question to determine is what kind of heat emitter you will use in your project. In new build projects, there is often scope to install underfloor heating, which achieves the most favourable SAP ratings for heat pump optimum efficiency.
The challenge comes when you are working on a building that is being refurbished or a new build with more than one storey. UFH doesn’t easily work upstairs! Radiators will perform much less efficiently with heat pumps, especially in older properties because the heat loss will be much greater. It is here that fan convectors come into their own.
Pros and cons
A good illustration of this is a domestic project where the contractor installed EcoPowerad fan convectors. Based in Norfolk, many of his customers are off- grid and depend on an annual delivery of oil, which is costly and unpredictable, depending on the state of the market. Peter Miller did his research and considered the pros and cons of UFH, radiators or fan convectors.
His client didn’t have the additional budget required for UFH and this was often the case with other projects,
ommercial projects involving heat pumps are growing. For one thing, it is still the case that local authorities
where clients could afford the investment in the heat pump but this would take the lion’s share of the expenditure available.
Radiators are designed to operate at 70°C and can work at the desired lower temperatures of a heat pump. In order to achieve that efficiency, they have to be much larger than a standard radiator and in any setting, commercial or domestic, space is often at a premium; larger radiators are not aesthetically pleasing, nor are they practical.
He also ruled out smart radiators, believing that they were too expensive and carried too many unnecessary features that didn’t particularly bring any value to his clients.
Hydronic fan convector technology is very straightforward. They use 5% of the water content of an equivalent output radiator, and heat using forced-air convection, via a small and energy-efficient electric fan, which means they circulate heat almost instantaneously and are easily controlled. Significantly, this means fan convectors function very effectively at water temperatures below 45°C, ideal for heat pumps to work at optimal efficiency.
Hydronic fan convectors
Miller Installations recommended hydronic fan convectors to the householder for a number of different reasons. For this client, and all clients in fact, space was the most important factor when selecting a heat emitter. The contemporary-looking fan convectors would take up less space, being more compact that a radiator of an equivalent output. Secondly, a fan convector is more controllable than a radiator and in a commercial setting, EC motor models offer a proportional heat output controller to modulate the fan speed.
This means that in a cold office, for example, the fan inside the fan convector will run faster until the room achieves a sensible heat level of, for example, 17°C, the fan will then modulate to a much slower speed to achieve the required temperature of, say, 20°C.
The speed that the room will come to temperature will depend on the fabric of the building, the level of insulation and the size of the unit. As a contractor, if you do the correct heat loss you will be able to select the appropriate size unit and specify something that will exactly meet the client’s requirements. Fan convectors have a faster heat recovery time than radiators, which means you can purchase the correctly sized unit, rather than buying something larger than you actually need, whether or not you are partnering the fan convector with a heat pump. Fan convectors also have an adjustable low temperature cut out. In other words, the contractor may set the temperature at which the fan operates by measuring the temperature of the central heating water and tailor the operation of the appliance to meet the heat source. With a gas boiler, you might set it at 45-55°C but with a heat pump you will want to set it much lower at around 30°C.
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uSmith’s EcoPowerads are an affordable and effective heat emitter option used in conjunction with the company’s air source heat pumps.
uPeter Miller’s clients wanted a heat pump central heating system that would offer them great value for money and the energy efficient delivery.
Fan convectors allow for much more versatile siting than radiators and this is why they are available in high, low, universal, concealed, LST and ceiling versions, to give clients totally freedom to be utterly specific about their heating requirements, rather than going with a default low sited heat emitter because that is what was there before.
For Miller Installations, they wanted their domestic client to have a heat pump central heating system that would offer them great value for money and the energy efficient delivery they desired.
Peter Miller said: “I take tremendous pride in the work we do for our customers. We want to give them the best solution, with hard-working products that will deliver the warm, energy-efficient homes they’re looking for.
Smith’s Eco-Powerads have been a real hit with all our customers that have had them installed. It means we can offer a true solution, combining the best all-round affordable heat emitter on the market confidently and effectively with the air source heat pumps we supply.”
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Miller
Installations wanted their domestic client to have a heat pump central heating system that would offer them great value for money and the energy efficient delivery they desired.
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http://www.smithsEP.co.uk BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER OCTOBER 2016 31
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