You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Aside from the obvious ‘why on Earth would you want to do that’! Crazy idea or possible to insulate 22mm pipe sufficiently well?
It does happen, my dad was working somewhere where there was a central large boiler feeding 2 houses on a farm. Burried pipes some special insulation. Boiler ran off some waste product I forget what so I guess cheap enough to allow some losses
I've seen a pellet burner in an outbuilding ~3m from the house, the pipes ran underground.
Probably not that efficient but realistically is there much difference to running below floors or an uninsulated attic?
Probably not that efficient but realistically is there much difference to running below floors or an uninsulated attic?
The only difference is the temperature differential between the fluid in the pipes and the surrounding air, there's a linear relationship between heat lost and this 'delta T'.
A very rough (engineering toolbox...) figure for heat lost (Watts) per metre insulated pipework assuming 5°C external temp and 80°C fluid in pipe is maybe 12W/m.
Is probably the equivalent of running an extra very small radiator on your heating circuit.
Oh and it happens more often than you would think. If you're worried about the pipework contents freezing e.g. if the heating is off for long periods of time you can trace heat it, trace heating only activates if the pipe surface temp drops too low, so typically it won't draw any power
Yes it is.
Losses will depend on length of the runs and ambient air temperature V depth of insulation. Steam pipe insulation is very thick and clad im ally, 75mm wall roughly. This is the sort of thing you need.
If you go down this route, don’t be tempted to just bung the thickest insulation you can find on there, it could have a detrimental effect to heat loss. In spherical surfaces (e.g. pipe exterior) the addition of insulation also increases the outer surface area which increases the convection heat loss. If you make the pipe insulation big enough, the increased surface area means heat loss by convection overtakes heat losses resisted by thermal conduction, leading to an overall increase in heat losse vs a non insulated pipe. There’s some fairly simple maths to work out the optimum (or critical thickness) , but a use of ‘rules of thumb’ should be sufficient.
We’ve done this a lot. Uponor eco flex is an excellent product, really well insulated wrapped in a hard waterproof plastic armour. Heat loss over 20m was negligible. They make it with up to four pipes in for heating and hot/ cold services. Expensive but belt and braces.
Insulation won't stop freezing, only delay it, unless there is a heat source. So you'd either rely on the frost protection on the boiler, or put trace heating in with the pipe.
Pretty much every house I’ve been in in Donegal does this. Nasty smelly oil boiler bunged outside in something resembling an Asgard dog kennel away from the house, then a insulated conduit runs underground to the house with the feed and return pipes in it. They used to use rigid pu insulation wrap around the pipes, but now use similar stuff to the upunor mentioned above.
You have to bury the Uponor pipe,750mm min for Uk.
£10,0000 worth went in about 5yrs ago, no problems yet, even with property lying dormant while under construction.
Air source heat pumps have short lengths of external pipework and isolator valves. Moderately thick UV rated foam insulation seemed to keep building regs man happy.
My previous house had the boiler in the outside bog. P{ipe work wasn't actually outside but through an unheated wall.
Currently we have the old outhouse reinstated outside a thick walled cottage. About a 10 foot gap between buildings. All hot water and heating runs along a external wall. Very well insulated and boxed in with a double walled box. Can't tell any temperature difference at taps or rads just inside the house and inside the outhouse.