Sizing a heating system for new build

sas

Hi,

I'm at the stage where I have the spec. of my build on paper. Ground work starts in 4 - 6 weeks etc.

On paper the spec is good, u-value of 0.18 for walls, better than 0.15 for roof, floor as good as I can get it. Windows with u-value in the region of 0.9. Airtightbuild so HRV etc.

It was allegedly designed with passive solar gain in mind i.e time will tell.

Where I'm going with this is that I want to do more than best guess the heating system.

Budget will be tight so I'd prefer not to oversize the heating system.

Obviously I can go to any supplier and they'll size a system accordingly but only for what they sell i.e. an UFH company won't tell me that my house is insulated well enough that a few small radiators properly placed will suffice ...

My engineer has most of his experience in building regular spec. houses and hasn't been able to advise me on this particular part.

I rang one company that do heat load requirements but they need to know up front what heating system I intend using. I found this a little odd because I wanted them to tell me that.

I'd opt for radiators with a good condensing boiler but we have a gallery over part of an open plan living area that I'm lead to believe means we'll have to use UFH. It would be a real disaster for us if that area was unpleasant in cold weather.

Has anyone any suggestions?

SAS

Villain

Sounds similar to mine in ways, I'm going direct labout and hoping to strip the site next week. I have just given a set of plans to my uncle who is a plumber for a large plumbing company in my area, he is getting their manager to size up what heating system I need i.e. how many rad's size of boiler etc.

I have been trying to explain that my house will be very well insulated and the south facing gable is almost all glass so while this is a large vaulted area it should be warm enough. I'm considering a pellet boiler but I might still go for oil, the uncle who is doing the labour doesn't seem too fond of pellet or chip.

My house is 2500 sq ft I'll let you know how I get on.

tipperary

Hi

The quinn radiators site gives a downloadable radiator sizing programme that allows you to input the u-value of the walls and air changes per hour. Found the link to the site somewhere either on this or the askaboutmoney forum.

sinnerboy

tipperary wrote: »

Hi

The quinn radiators site gives a downloadable radiator sizing programme that allows you to input the u-value of the walls and air changes per hour. Found the link to the site somewhere either on this or the askaboutmoney forum.

here 'tis

http://www.quinn-radiators.co.uk/downloads_heatloss.php

De_man

sas


here's another one for you,


http://www.deals4homes.co.uk/diyprojects/centralheating.htm