610 Underfloor Heating

Hi
I do not have under floor heating in my trulli in Puglia, but i do in my house in Pontefract. It is the electric type & is very expensive. The under floor heating products that i have seen in Italy are the water type, these will be cheaper to run on gas even though gas is very exspensive too.
We are just buying two more neigbouring Trulli that need restoring & I too am thinking of under floor heating for these 2 properties.
I am thinking of using Geothermal to heat the water as we will have 9 hectares of land & a bore hole for our water supply.
How Geothermal heating works is as follows:

1st method: You lay meters & meters of pipe under the ground in a zig zag formation. This pipe work is then fitted to a heat exchange (like the one on a fridge). A solution on water & anti freeze in pumped around and the heat is extracted from the ground, the heat is the condenced & pumped into your under floor heating.

Giving cheaper heating cost.

2nd method: If you have a bore hole for your water, you can use this in the same way. The water from the bore hole (the deeper the bore hole the warmer the water) this is pumped through the heat exchange & then returned back to the water table by another return bore hole (down steam).
The heat is then transferd in the same way.
I think this will be more expensive to run than method 1.

The other good thing about Geothermal heating is that in the summer it will work it reverse. An you extract the heat from the house, to work like airconditioning.

If any one else Knows anything more about geothermal heating that I have not covered here please post a reply. Ie: running costs, ect

Mark

[QUOTE=Penny]Is anyone using underfloor heating here in Italy? If so, how do you find it and what are you using to run it?[/QUOTE]

We don't have it in Italy (yet) but do have it in the UK. It's much, much oh infinitely better than the alternatives. I posted about it a few months ago, and gave some links then to indicate the sort of system we're planning in Italy. We intend to have a system which makes use of solar panels, and a traditional back boiler for the hearth as well as a log burner in the family room with top up heating from a gas boiler. At some point we may install a windmill with an immersion heater in the thermal store as a diversion load. So that when the wind is blowing and we're not using the electricity the heat will go into the thermal store.

To combine all these heat sources efficiently you need a thermal store and these are compatible with underfloor heating because the thermal store tends to keep water at 60C maximum. An outlet can be fitted partway down the thermal store to take cooler water for the underfloor heating and this avoids the need for a mixing valve which you need with a direct feed from a boiler, water from a boiler is just too hot for underfloor heating.

Obviously we are doing things this way because of the cost of heating in Italy, and because there are uncertainties about the costs of fuel in the future. One thing you really need with underfloor heating on the ground floor is insulation. In the UK the entire ground floor was dug up and 100mm of polystyrene sheet put down before the concrete was poured.

Trulli Julie, we also thought of this method and researched it quite a bit. The thing to look at is how much electricity is used to run it. We were told that the system would draw up to 5kw (we only have 4.5!) although not constantly. That put us off for obvious reasons.

We too were disappointed to find that 1KW of electricity is needed for every 3KW of heat so opted for a pellet boiler. So this was impossible for us on a 3KW supply of electricity.

Do you have your own olives? If so you can run one of these biomass boilers on the crushed olive mass - I believe it is called, sansa. This is exceptionally cheap - although I believe there may be an aroma. Most of these boilers run on wood pellets, nut shells and maize - perhaps you have access to these.

We will be running ours on pellets in the autumn but will be connecting solar panels for domestic hot water in a while. Not enough sun to run heating systems in Liguria but in Puglia . . ..

We have seen a boiler that takes wood AND pellets so you can use wood during the day (when you are around to top it up) and then fill it with pellets for the night.

Unfortunately we have no olives at all but a fair amount of wood. The plumber also recommended a boiler that distills the wood into a gas and this is used to heat the water. He reckons you need only top it up once a day and his sister has been using one for 25 years! I have no idea what it is called though.

We too plan on solar for the summer hot water. Do you know anything about the government/regional grants available?

There is information on solar grants contained in each region's website. I think they may have run out of money a couple of years ago in our area, Liguria. I believe it is possible to claim income tax rebates over 10 years with some approved sytems - or sometimes there is an IVA reduction. Most of the manufacturers have this kind of information on their websites eg Palazetti. Our boiler manufacturer has just added some solar panel kits and info on special discounts.

Our boiler will do instantaneous hot water when it is running - we look forward to this in the autumn. Finding the right quality of pellet can apparently be a concern we are investigating this at the moment. Our idraulico recommends high quality ones from Austria but we have yet to find a supplier. Our two local builders' merchants have ones branded under MCZ and Edilkamin which appear to have the right technical specification - but who knows who actually made them.

ENEL's website has a section of solar panels for hot water as well as photovoltaic panels. In the end though I suppose you take a leap of faith and install a system recommended by a reliable and competent local person who will maintain it. We were interested in Austrian systems but its no use having to ship in a technician from abroad if things go pearshaped.

We have been quoted 4 years as the payback time for heating and solar panels. We believe heating will be about 50% of the cost of gpl to run and after 4 years the hot water will be free. We have certainly been amazed at our electricity costs.

Does any one know of any web sites for italian firms producing/supply these products but, that have english pages etc. We are looking at having a bathroom built and are wondering how to heat the water and possibly the floor as eco friendly as possible and as cheap! I have also found out that using ground-source heating pumps it is also possible to cool if required by running the system in reverse. Any info available would be great - to help other here is a web site for an international company that may help (Don't speak italian yet so get a bit lost on the italian site!) [url="http://www.viessmann.com"]http://www.viessmann.com[/url]

In my continued research on pellet quality standards I came across an interesting site which is worth a look, especially for some of the dual fuel wood boilers/cookers. It is [url]http://www.solarenergyireland.com/[/url] and is in English.

Talking of companies such as Viessman and Windhager you may find it difficult to find an accredited supplier and installer anywhere near you - or you may be lucky. Replacement parts and servicing could also be something to think about. We have found it impossible to get a price or follow-up from them with enquiries in England about an installation here. Regretfully we gave up on them and decided to accept an established Italian boiler known to our excellent idraulico. There are several Italian companies producing them and not all of them are completely designed for an agricultural market.

Hi there, I have a 4 bed house in italy and was looking to get solar heating for it. I found a brilliant system called Rotex(german made) which works with solar panels and which is distributed in italy. the brilliant thing about it is that it can be connected to both radiators and underfloor heating systems independently of each other or togheter as a combined system. If you have only underfloor heating than it is likely that the hot water produced with the solar panels will be sufficient for comfort heating as the required temperature is in the region of 28C. the system also provides hot water for domestic use. I was quoted about 9,000 euros for my house for solar panels, boiler and storage tank for a heating requirement for 6-8 people.Contact Rotex Italia for more info: the tel. number I have is 0541944499 they are based in Savignano sul Rubicone (FC).
The boiler is a condensing boiler (very efficient) and would be running on oil or gas (more eco-friendly) and you can have a LPG bottle installed if you do not have city gas supply.It is quite common in italy and they do supply very remote area like the one were my house is.
The boiler is the equivalent of an instant combi boiler, which is probably the most common type in Italy.
I'll be happy to help if I can, send me an email at [email]barti_g@hotmail.com[/email] if you need more info.

good luck.

PS I did not have it installed yet as I am spending very little time thereat present, but i am looking to have it installed in my house in london.

Thanks for the contact. I will check them out.

Here is an interesting link to a site that explains geothermal heat pumps, masonry heaters, and perhaps some other relevant topics related to energy efficiency.

[url]http://www.how-efficient-is-it-magazine.com[/url]

S.R.