Floor heating radiators: how to heat a room with glass walls

No matter how versatile wall-mounted batteries, they are absolutely not suitable for installation in spacious rooms, most of whose walls are made of glass. In this case, other heating radiators are used: recessed into the floor or mounted on the legs.

Practice shows that the first option is most acceptable, as it allows you to completely mask the cumbersome and unaesthetic heating devices. It is about the features of the use and installation of these devices will be discussed below.

Unusual heating equipment

Design features

Floor-mounted heating radiators are rarely used, but sometimes they are simply indispensable. The main scope of their application is the heating of rooms with a large glazing area. It may be just a room with large windows or a covered terrace with access to the garden.

In this case, there are several ways to heat:

1. Classic batteries mounted on the side or back wall. This option is the most inefficient, as everyone knows that heating equipment should be installed in the coldest place in the room, that is, by the windows. In addition, in this way, the interior style conceived by the architect or designer may be disturbed.
2. Floor-mounted heating system. A good solution that can not be implemented if wood is used as a material for the floor: parquet, solid or deck board, and so on. The fact is that it has a low coefficient of thermal conductivity. This will significantly reduce the efficiency of such a heating system.

In addition, the price of such a solution will be much more than the cost of installing channel heaters.

1. Floor-mounted radiators. Represent one of the varieties of classic batteries that are used in heating networks with a heat transfer fluid. They differ only in the form and place of installation: they are mounted in specially designed for this purpose grooves (channels) laid in the floor.

On top of these batteries are closed with bars that do not interfere with the flow of air and perfectly mask the installed equipment.

The advantages of this solution are as follows:

• the heat source is located exactly where it is most needed;
• a battery located under the floor does not prevent access to the door or window and does not cause dissonance in the design of the room.

Modern construction supermarkets offer two types of radiators installed under the floor:

1. Corpus. In this case, the heating element is installed in a special case, which is mounted in the floor and acts as a channel.
2. Without body. Such radiators are placed in niches that must be designed before.

Body radiators

Boxes in which heating elements are installed are made of thin galvanized metal. The walls of the body to increase their heat preserving properties are covered with insulating materials and painted in the appropriate color.

The heater itself is made of a specially bent pipe on which heat exchanger plates are welded, increasing the area of ​​contact with air. The material for these elements is aluminum, which transfers the heat of hot water to the surrounding air well.

On top of the case is closed decorative grilles made of wood or metal. This allows you to choose an option that is combined with both parquet and ceramic tiles.

Body radiators come in the following sizes:

• width - from 5 to 25 cm;
• length - from 50 cm to several meters;
• depth - from 10 to 70 cm.

The efficiency of the battery, located under the floor, depends not only on the area of ​​the heat exchanger and the temperature of the coolant, but also on the speed of air convection. The most powerful models can be additionally equipped with electric fans. The disadvantage of this solution is the need to connect equipment to the electrical network and an increased level of noise generated by it.

Packageless

These radiators are installed under the floor in specially designed grooves. Niches are made in the form of a rectangle, insulated and covered with any non-combustible decorative material. Depth, width and length are designed based on the size of the radiators that will be installed in them.

Note! Remember that there must be a gap of not less than 10 cm between the bottom of the niche and the heat exchanger of the convector. It allows you to organize natural convection of air, without which uniform heating of the room is impossible.

From above, the groove in the floor is covered with a grill. It must be strong enough to withstand the weight of people passing through it and be easily removable, providing access for cleaning and maintenance of the installed radiator. The edges of the recess, where the protective grille is installed, can be decorated with metal or aluminum corners.

Power calculation

Determining the size and, accordingly, the power of the niche heater is made according to the same scheme as the classic battery. The required figures can be taken from the engineering calculations that are in the project documentation for the building being erected.

However, in order to maximize the efficiency of radiators located under the floor, such nuances should be taken into account:

• it is necessary to install niche heaters, the power of which is 20% higher than that required by the project;
• if the battery length is more than 3 meters, it is advisable to connect it to the pipelines diagonally (hot water enters and exits through the pipes located at opposite ends of the device).

Mounting devices

Development of an architectural project

Immediately it should be noted that the built-in heating radiators are quite complex equipment in terms of installation. Therefore, it is possible to undertake the work with your own hands only if you are 100% confident in your abilities and skills.

The possibility of using such heating devices should be laid at the stage of the architectural design of the building.

It is advisable to take into account the following nuances:

1. Make sure that the created drawing complies with the requirements of sanitary and other services. It is important to observe the required floor thickness on the first floor or the strength of reinforced concrete floor slabs on the second. Indeed, besides the radiators themselves, pipelines will be installed in the same place, supplying and removing coolant.
2. It is important to prepare the channel of the desired size. Than it is deeper and longer, the more powerful battery you can install. However, a niche in the floor of this size affects the strength characteristics of the structure; therefore, the engineer performing the calculations must consider the possibility of installing a radiator under the floor.

Arrangement of the heating system

In addition to the structural elements of the building, the climate system itself is subject to design. In particular, you need to properly place the pipes that supply the coolant, as well as determine the installation location of air valves that remove the air accumulated there from the pipes and radiators.

Note! A floor heating radiator does not work like a battery mounted on a wall. This is due primarily to other resistance to the flow of fluid. Therefore, when designing, it is necessary to make a very careful hydraulic calculation and select the operation modes of the thermal valves.

Otherwise, the heat energy generated by radiators will not be enough to warm the air in the room to the desired temperature.

It is advisable to provide for automatic control of radiators using electronic valves and sensors. This will allow for more precise adjustment of operation modes depending on external conditions, which will not only add comfort, but also provide an opportunity to use energy resources more economically (gas, diesel, electricity, and so on).

Mounting niche

The most crucial stage is making a niche for a radiator. Instructions for its design is simple. Here it is important to observe only one very important condition - to provide a continuous waterproofing layer (especially if the installation of a niche is made on the first floor, where the draft floor is arranged “on the ground”).

The process of work for convenience of presentation will be divided into several successive stages:

1. A niche of the required length and width is being prepared. If the floor is not flooded yet, it is easy to do. But in the finished flooring too, you can make the necessary grooves. It will not take much longer.

1. Protection against water settles with the use of coating or roll materials. Make sure that they do not emit substances harmful to the human body when heated.
2. The next stage is warming. You can lay out a niche foam polystyrene or other material with a low coefficient of thermal conductivity.
3. After that, you need to make a niche decorative material. You can simply plaster it or revet it with ceramic tiles, which were used for laying on the floor of the terrace or veranda. In the first case, it is necessary to reinforce the surface with a grid to avoid cracking or crumbling as a result of temperature and shrinkage movements of the base.

Note! If such a system is mounted on the second floor, then the architect or engineer designing the house should provide for reducing the overlap, as well as arrange the supporting beams or reinforced concrete slabs so that the niche goes along them, not across.

The upper edge of the recess for the convector can be decorated with corners and provide brackets that hold the decorative and protective grille.

Combined solutions

In the case when it is necessary to heat very large rooms with large windows, channel heaters can be combined with other climate equipment:

• classic radiators;
• floor heating system.

In this case, it is necessary to install and properly configure the automatic climate control system, which will independently coordinate the work of all mounted devices, achieving the most effective and economical result.

Conclusion

Underfloor duct heating radiators are an excellent solution for space heating in the event of the impossibility of installing traditional systems or the inexpediency of designing heated floors. However, there are other innovative methods of heating (see also the article What Characteristics and Benefits Rifar Heating Radiators Have).

You can learn more about them from the video below.