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Invisible, efficient, comfortable heating. A very attractive combination of features. A warm floor immediately comes to mind for many. And rightly so. But this is not the only heating method that meets these characteristics. There is also a warm plinth. The system is easier to install, most of it is available for maintenance at any time. So a heating baseboard should also be considered as an option for invisible heating.
Warm skirting system: what is it
Heating baseboards or baseboard heating are not new in the field of heating. The idea was proposed at the beginning of the last century, but due to the complexity of implementation and high price, it was almost forgotten. With the development of technology, the complexity has become lower, but the price is still high. It is this, in the main, that deters potential users.
The main difference of this system is the non-standard form of heating devices and their unusual location. Heaters are long and low, located along the perimeter of the room at floor level. The heaters are covered with a long decorative strip that looks very much like a plinth. When installed, they replace the usual plinth. Therefore, such a system is very often called a “warm plinth”. This system is very good for panoramic glazing – it can be no higher than the frames, so it is completely invisible. She is no worse in ordinary rooms – she is not visible at all.
Types of warm plinth
There are two types of warm plinth: electric and water. Electric warm plinth is different in that each heater is independent and can work separately. They can be installed in case of lack of power of the main heating – as an additional one, in case of cold weather. Installation is simple, but it works efficiently, is invisible, does not dry the air too much.
There is a water warm plinth. This is one of the subspecies of water heating, that is, all heating devices are connected into one system. It can be either the main one (only baseboard heaters) or an additional type of heating (together with a water-heated floor or radiators).
Heating pad device
In any case, the warm plinth looks like this: these are two copper tubes, which are located at a distance of 7-15 cm from one another. To increase heat transfer, vertical plates of aluminum and brass are put on the tubes (they cost a little less, but the heat transfer is slightly lower) or copper (more expensive and warmer option). From above, the finned tubes are closed with decorative covers made of extruded aluminum. Aluminum was not chosen by chance – it transfers heat well. So the heated lid itself radiates heat.
Вверху и внизу крышки есть отверстия для движения воздуха. Через нижние засасывается холодный, через верхние выходит нагретый. Так что получается обогрев идет от трех источников:
- The air is heated, which passes along the pipes and fins.
- from heated walls.
- From the body of a warm metal plinth.
This is what the system looks like before installing the protective and decorative strip
Such a triple heat source contributes to the fact that the room heats up quickly, and the location of the heating elements around the perimeter contributes to uniform heating of the air throughout the volume.
Advantages and disadvantages of baseboard heating
What is the difference between heating using a warm baseboard? Warm air is taken from the heating element up along the wall, heating the wall. As you move up, the air gradually cools down, then falls down, but not along the wall, but in the center of the room.
As a result, it turns out that the warmest air is at the bottom along the perimeter of the room. The warmest object – other than heaters – is the walls. Also, warmer air is located near the floor. Rising up, it cools down and at the level of the head it is a little colder. The difference is small 1-2 degrees, but it is this distribution of temperatures that is better for a person’s well-being.
Отопление при помощи теплого плинтуса получается инерционным. Однозначно отнести это свойство к достоинствам или недостаткам не получится. Есть и положительные, и отрицательные моменты. Минус: пока стены не прогреются, в помещении прохладно. Потому такая система хороша только для домов постоянного проживания и совершенно не подходит для дачи. Положительный момент в том, что нагревшись, стены работают как большой стабилизатор – поддерживают температуру на одном уровне, отдавая при необходимости накопленное тепло. Такой большой аккумулятор тепла поможет продержаться некоторое время даже в случае отключения отопления.
The advantages of heating systems with heating skirting boards include their efficiency. After the walls are heated, the boiler consumes a minimum of fuel – only to maintain the temperature. And such modes, as a rule, are more economical. But this applies to any inertial heating system, so this cannot be considered a special advantage of a warm baseboard.
There are skirting heating and undeniable advantages. The first is one of the few systems that provides uniform heating. Even the corners are always warm. The second is the most inconspicuous system that easily fits into any interior. With all this, heating devices are easily accessible, the system can be repaired at any time.
It has a warm baseboard and a clear drawback – a high price. This is due to the fact that copper and aluminum are used to increase heat transfer, and they cost a lot.
Types of heating skirting boards
The baseboard heating system can be of two types: with electric and water heaters. At the installation stage, a system with warm water baseboards is more complicated (requires a collector or beam connection), but during operation it is more economical. Electric warm plinth is mounted quickly – you just need to fix the heaters to the wall, immediately after installation it is ready for use. But heating costs, like any electric heating, are high.
Heating device with water warm plinth
The system of water plinth heating differs only in the non-standard form of heating devices. The key components do not differ from the standard ones: you need a hot water boiler, a collector assembly and a pipe system with which a warm baseboard is connected.
Please note: the optimal operating mode of the system is low-temperature. On the supply 40-50°C, on the return about 5°C lower. Therefore, it is necessary to select a boiler or build a system based on this. If the boiler is gas, the best choice is condensing. When installing any other, the system requires a heat accumulator and / or a mixing unit – to reduce and stabilize the temperature.
Connection method
There are features in the choice of connection method. Serial connection of all baseboard heaters in the room is inefficient: until the coolant reaches the last ones in the heater branch, it will cool down greatly and they will remain cold almost all the time.
For a water heating skirting board, a beam system is used: devices are connected one at a time or in pairs. To do this, a collector node is built into the system, to which pipes are connected that go to heating appliances. The disadvantage of such a system is the high consumption of pipes. After all, two pipes go to each device (or a small group) – for supply and return. The pipe consumption is much higher, but the heat distribution is more even and the system itself is more reliable. Why is it more reliable? If pipes or radiators in one group are damaged, all others work normally.
Mounting Features
When installing water plinth heating, pipes are usually hidden in the floor. Laying them along the walls will not work, as the place is occupied by heating devices. That is, the installation of warm water baseboards is possible only at the repair stage – you will have to raise the floors.
Special polymer pipes are recommended to be laid in a screed – they are not subject to corrosion and have low heat transfer, that is, heat loss during transportation of the coolant will be small. But since the availability for repair of these systems is low, you need to take high-quality goods from well-known manufacturers, and this is not cheap.
Electric warm plinth
The electric warm plinth externally differs from the water one only in the presence of terminals for connecting the power supply. The rest is the same view. These are two tubes with aluminum/brass/copper plates fixed perpendicularly. A heating element is located in the lower tube – a heating element, wires for connection are laid in the upper tube.
It is much easier to install and connect an electric warm plinth. You just need to fix it, stretch the wires and connect them to the terminals. To maintain the set temperature, a thermostat is built into the system, which turns the heaters on and off. The use of thermostats is desirable, as it optimizes work – saves electricity.
Installation is really simple, but you need to connect an electric warm plinth to a dedicated line with a properly selected circuit breaker rating and copper single-core wires of the appropriate section. So in this case, repairs are also required – it is customary to lay the wiring in the wall, and for this it is necessary to make strobes, that is, to break the walls.
Installation of a water warm skirting board system
Installation of an electric warm plinth is very simple: we fix it on the wall. Everything, the system is ready for operation. It remains to plug in the sockets. The main thing is that the wire cross-section is correctly calculated, there are circuit breakers of the correct rating. This is the main problem in the case of using an electric warm plinth. Water is much more difficult to mount. Everything must be assembled into a single system, and this is not easy.
Calculation of baseboard heating
A complete thermotechnical calculation of heating is a long and complicated matter. The size and geometry of the room, the material of the walls, floor, ceiling are taken into account, the degree of insulation of all structural elements, including windows and doors, is taken into account. In general, the calculation is quite difficult. Therefore, most often they take the average figure, which is derived from the analysis of many calculations.
It is believed that 100 W of thermal energy is needed to heat one square meter of a room with medium insulation. That is, to calculate the power of a warm baseboard, you need to multiply the area of u100bu20bthe room by 25. Get the required figure. That is how much (and preferably more by about XNUMX-XNUMX%) should give in total all the elements of a warm baseboard.
For example, the area of the room is 18 square meters. For its heating, 1800 watts will be needed. Next, we look at how much heat is emitted by one meter of heating. A water heating skirting board can work in different modes, depending on the mode it emits a different amount of heat. The table above shows data for one of the systems. For example, let’s take the heat output of one meter of warm plinth from this table (other manufacturers may have significant differences).
For example, the system will operate with a supply temperature of 50°C. Then one running meter produces 132 watts of heat. To heat this room, you will need 1800/132 = 13,6 m of warm plinth. When ordering, it is better to add a margin of 20-25%. This reserve is necessary so that the system does not work all the time at the limit. This time. And also in case of abnormal cold weather. This is two. So, with a margin we take 17 meters.
Once again, we draw your attention: these are average data for some average house. And here even the height of the ceilings is not taken into account. It is again taken as an average – 2,5 meters. If you have better insulation, you will need less heat; if worse than “average” – more. In general, this method gives only approximate calculations.
How to act
The first thing to do is to draw a plan on which to indicate the length of each heater, the length of the connecting tubes. After all, the length of a warm baseboard is not always equal to the perimeter of the room. In this case, the segments of heating devices are interconnected by copper or polymer pipes. It is undesirable to use steel, as they chemically interact with copper (it is gradually destroyed).
Preparation for installation takes place long before its actual start. At the very beginning of the repair, even before the leveling of the floor, pipes are pulled from the boiler or collector unit to the place where the warm baseboard is connected. The pipes are laid, tested for integrity, filled with a screed in a filled state under pressure (working pressure in a private house is 2-3 atm, in a multi-storey building it is necessary to find out in the housing office). Then all repair work is carried out and only after the finishing of the walls and floor does the installation of a warm baseboard begin. Here is its order:
- A heat-reflecting tape is attached along the perimeter of the walls. It prevents the consumption of heat for heating the wall.
A heat-insulating tape is attached, and fasteners on top of it - Fasteners are installed on top of the tape with a step of 50-60 cm. They are fixed to the wall with dowels or self-tapping screws (depending on the material of the walls).
- In the fasteners, according to the plan, pieces of the heating plinth are fixed, connected to each other by copper or polymer pipes.
Устанавливаем куски и соединяем их в единое целое - The tightness of the system is checked by pressure testing.
- If everything is fine, pipes are connected from the collector unit or from the boiler, the system is filled with coolant and tested.
This is what it looks like when it’s done - After successful tests, decorative covers are installed, the baseboard heating system is ready for operation.
Actually, the installation of warm baseboards is not too complicated. But the tightness of the joints is important and special attention must be paid to this.