It’s winter, and your house is freezing. You’ve got a heater plugged into every room in your house, trying to keep the rooms warm. You’ve even got a fan heater in the hallway so you don’t freeze when you nip to the bathroom!
Surely there’s a better way to live?
In most parts of the world, houses are constructed with a heating system built-in. In fact, the World Health Organisation recommends that homes are kept at a minimum temperature of 18°C, but in Australia our homes are often below that.
So what exactly is a central heating system?
A central heating system consists of two basic parts – a heat source, and radiators.
The heat source is generally a boiler or heat pump that heats water, which is then pumped around a circuit of pipework to supply heat to the radiators. The radiators then warm up, and keep the different rooms in your house warm.
In modern homes, it’s common to heat the concrete floor slab of your house rather than hang radiators on the walls – that’s called an underfloor heating system.
How does it all fit together?
The radiators are split up into different zones. Normally, each room will be one zone and will have one radiator. Very large rooms, such as a living room, might require two or more radiators.
Each zone is controlled with a thermostat. You select the temperature that you want in the room using the thermostat – that’s called the Set Point.
When the room gets too cool, the thermostat opens the valve and allows hot water from the boiler to flow through the radiators. When the room is too warm, the controller shuts off the flow of hot water.
For an underfloor heating system, the operation is exactly the same but instead of radiators, each room has a network of pipes installed in the floor. When the thermostat wants heat, warm water flows through the pipes, heating the room. Your designer will ensure that the floor never gets too hot to walk on!
This means each room is always kept at an appropriate temperature.
If you’re building your dream home and you want t-shirt weather all year round, then make sure you install a Luxury Home Heating system!