Radiant Heating and Cooling Written

¶ … radiant heating and cooling written by Interface Engineering.

If the assignment is to deliver comfort to humans in buildings, there are several ways to do so. These are discussed: radiators which depend on hydronic heating, air convection which depend on air velocity and air turbulence and humidity which depends upon the amount of water in the air. All of these are necessary for a human to feel comfortable in a heated or cooled environment.

HVAC systems, depending on building envelope, massing, glazing and internal loads, may be internal (such as a radiator), external and piped in, or, as suggested in this article, may be made part of the building itself, built into the cast concrete of the structure itself to utilize thermal masses and delete interior appliances. The article suggests that this is cost efficient in that the HVAC system of radiant heating and cooling may be placed within the walls and concrete areas of the structure in order to save space and to utilize the masses of concrete to spread and deliver heat to the interior. This is called Integrated Design.

The Integrated Design option for radiant space conditioning may be combined with natural ventilation from windows, skylights, doors and openings. It may be part of the daylighting feature of skylights and windows in that it may be installed in conjunction with heat panels and depend upon daylight to enhance and control energy expenditures. Overhangs and blinds, along with light-colored surfaces may assist the direct solar gain on the thermal mass, so that in winter more sunlight is used to heat and in summer it is shut out.

Thermal mass may be added to floors, walls or ceilings in order to create a long-lasting heat or cooling system, as thermal mass stores the heat and the coolness created by the HVAC system throughout the day and allows the building to cool off at night, when the system is shut down. This is a financially efficient way to heat and cool in either hot summers or cold winters, as less time is needed to produce a certain temperature in the thermal mass, which stores this temperature for longer periods of time.

Fans, motors, lighting and air transport loads are reduced as much as 54.7%when utilizing radiant heat in thermal masses, as these accessories to the traditional heating systems are not as necessary and therefore downsized for radiant heat systems. Other savings come in the form of needing 80% less air conditioning to cool and an energy savings of 20-50% in operating costs. The article adds many more savings statistics, without saying from where these results are derived, but claiming that there are fewer costs all around, from environmental cost reduction to needing less equipment overall for a comfortable environment. Since natural air flow is derived from heat rising and cool air dropping, few fans are necessary for ventilation.