Hydronic Underfloor Heating can be used with most domestic and commercial heat sources and its ability to provide designed heat outputs with significantly cooler water than other emitters enables heat sources such as Air Source Heat Pumps to operate more efficiently.
The systems use plastic pipes, placed in the floor construction. The pipes are placed at a consistent spacing sufficient to ensure uniform heat across the floor.
Room thermostats activate the heat source and open the valves on the pipes supplying the room it controls. Warm water is then circulated through the pipes and around the room to be heated. Each room is zoned and controlled by individual thermostats.
If required, a mixing unit complete with a secondary circulator is also activated. This reduces the water to the correct temperature and is required on any system where the water supply may be greater than the required temperature. This is typical on systems supplied by a gas condensing boiler that also supplies radiators, but a mixing unit is equally important to protecting the floor from high water temperatures from heat pumps that have sterilisation cycles at temperatures up to 70°C.
The system performance is controlled by varying the water temperature and water flow rate using room thermostats and floor sensors, sometimes in combination with a weather compensated heat source.