In recent years, several hundred thousand Poles have decided to purchase and install a heat pump, also in existing buildings. This energy-efficient heat source can significantly reduce heating costs, but… not always. Why? Because a heat pump alone will not change much if we do not look at the installation as a whole. In what situations will a heat pump prove useful in modernized houses, what should be done and how to prepare so that the investment is not equivalent to a costly general renovation?
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Assuming that we have a starting situation in which the heat pump is properly matched to the building (i.e. not too large and not too small) and the house is adequately insulated, the focus should be on modernizing the existing installation.
New pump and old installation – where to start?
There is a common belief on the market that a heat pump works most efficiently with low-temperature heat emitters, such as underfloor heating, which is popular in our country. However, in the case of modernization, this is not always the best solution.
"First of all, it is very rare that underfloor heating that meets the requirements of a modern heat pump has been installed in the entire house . If this was the case, then we have an ideal situation - all we need to do is adjust the system and make the appropriate settings. If not, and we would like to install "underfloor heating" in the entire house, the investor will have to face very high renovation costs - tearing up old floors, installing heating and new floors, and the time it takes to complete it, during which the rooms cannot be used. Therefore, very few investors decide on such a solution, if a general renovation of the building is not involved at the same time," says Piotr Krzemiński, Technical Sales Support Manager at Purmo.
There are several effective solutions and possibilities, but everything depends on the "initial state". The cheapest and simplest solution (!) will be to use existing radiators (if they are of good quality and class), move them to smaller rooms and buy new ones for larger rooms. However, in this case, you should start with an analysis of the initial state. If we have an existing heating installation, where the supply is currently 75°C, and we want to bring it to 55°C, it means that we have to use radiators about twice as large.
In this situation, you need to start by taking stock of what you have in your home and analyzing where you can move existing radiators and which ones need to be purchased and installed. This is important because it often happens that in older homes, radiators were selected with a "reserve" or the home was insulated in recent years.
In such a case, a special application developed by experts – Purmo Calculator (available in the mobile application) will be very helpful, which will help to calculate what radiators for a given power we need in a given room. The right selection of radiators, combined with moving the existing ones to other rooms and installing new ones can give us the expected effect.
Solutions for special tasks
In a situation where we need "stronger" solutions, it is worth considering the use of radiators for special tasks with additional convection forced inside the radiator, thanks to which the heating power is up to 60% higher . The new low-temperature Ulow-E panel radiator has been developed specifically for cooperation with a heat pump. Thanks to its special design with built-in fans, it has a thermal efficiency of up to +60% higher compared to traditional solutions.
"We are not talking about separate, modular 'fans' available on the market, mounted above or below radiators, which for various reasons are a temporary solution and not very ergonomic. Compared to the Ulow-E radiator, they only slightly increase the efficiency of the radiator, very slightly increasing the temperature in the rooms," says Piotr Krzemiński.
What if we need to increase the heating power two or three times and we don't have space in the house for such large radiators? Or if we want the underfloor heating and "radiator" heating to work with the same low water temperature in the installation? In such a case, the only possible solution will be fan coils (e.g. Vido S2 by Purmo).
More information about the Ulow-E radiator and Vido S2 fan coils is available at www.purmo.pl
Watch a short animation presenting the Ulow-E low-temperature radiator
Earn up to 55,000 points at Onntop for purchasing Purmo radiators!
Promotion lasts until 10.12.2024 For purchases of 3 Ulow-E radiators from Purmo you will receive EXTRA 30,000 points to your individual Onntop account. And when purchasing 5 Purmo Ulow-E heat pump radiators you will receive 55,000 points to your individual Onntop account!
