Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Feb 16, 2008 6:35 am We have a final decision to make. Hydronic panel heating or hydronic inslab. what do you think?
Panels - are easily controlled with a 30min - 1hr heat up time but take up wall space in our smallish house (187m2 of living). more expensive $11-12k Inslab - heat up time is 6 hrs when first started, has to be on all winter but is not visible. $8-9k Thanks Re: Hydronic heating - panels or inslab 2Feb 16, 2008 7:38 am I'm going for in-slab hydronics with solar hot water panels and no electric or gas boost. The running costs will be minimal (a small water pump). There is a hot water storage tank between the solar panels and the in-slab hydronics, but at this stage I don't know how long it will keep the heat. The slab of course will also retain heat. I think it will only fail to warm the place up in winter if there are more than four consequetive cloudy days.
Also, on summer night the storagetank is bypassed and the heat stored in the slab is dumped o the night sky. I think it will be great, but the proof is in the pudding. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Hydronic heating - panels or inslab 3Feb 16, 2008 7:56 am Thanks for the reply. Ours will be powered by a natural gas boiler.
Solar panels would be fantastic, unfortunately, they don't generate enough heat for Canberra winters and the system is out of our price range. Re: Hydronic heating - panels or inslab 4Feb 16, 2008 8:27 am James, Have they indicated the running costs for each system.
Obviously it is cold in Canberra - even in summer cold days can blow in - so IMO either system will be fine for winter, it is more those edge periods where you may have some nice weather then a cold snap comes through, and it takes 6 hours to heat up the slab, versus the wall panels. I lived in a house in the UK for 2 and bit years that had hydronic heater panels under the windows, with double glazing, and we used to crank it on and off as the seasons closed in - then on all the time - which was also the bath hot water heater, then on and off as the winter eased off. The other advantage of panels, is you can control how much heat is in being released into each room via the control valves on the panels. For instance, bedrooms are nicer coller, but the lounge room we had a panel behind the lounge that we used to turn up more on a cold sunday morning, or late night movie watching, but turn it down the next day or later that Sunday as the day warmed up. Where as with the in slab hydronic, it's all the same - and slow to respond - which might be too much or too little at the time - but hey 6 hours later it might be right. And as you paying to heat it - not free like casa - you do not want to be opening windows to coll the palce down after the boiler has cranked away all day geting it hot for you. Have a look at your temperature range for Canberra, (click on Plot to the right of the mean min and max temps) to see how much variance there is in the averages. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_070282.shtml Hope this helps. Steve Re: Hydronic heating - panels or inslab 5Feb 16, 2008 12:25 pm Thanks Steve,
The inslab is individually zones so each bed and living area are controlled separately through a Siemans control system. Running costs are a little less for panels, but not enough to off set the extra cost of panels versus inslab over 5 years. However, you are right about the edge days, we have had some unseasonal weather of late which has made me consider panels over inslab, but I am unsure about the wall space issue and kids playing (i.e. damaging) the panels. Still undecided but leaning towards inslab and perhaps retro fitting panels in living areas a few years down the track, if necessary. We are looking into having the north/ west facing windows double glazed and also any others in living areas. So hope this would help with heating costs. cheers. Does anyone have a suggestion for a good hydronic in slab heating speacialist who may be able to help me with an existing system and wether or not it may need a seperator… 0 4858 Currently renovating, and our main lounge is 5m x 10m, with a cathedral roof peaking at 6.5m high. Currently have tiles on concrete slab. Room is very hard to heat. I am… 0 4781 Hello - we were hoping to apply laminate click lock panels to our concrete ceiling, but not too sure how to go about attaching the panels to the concrete. Any idea what… 0 1664 |