Concealed heating system: floor convectors and built-in radiators

Floor convectors are most often used in the following cases:

• If one of the rooms of the house has solid glazing, that is, there is simply nowhere to hang an ordinary radiator – there is no usual place under the window.
• The apartment or house has stained-glass or panoramic windows, which also do not leave space for the heating battery..
• For heating the winter garden, swimming pool.
• Near the French door to the balcony or outside to keep cold air out of the house.
• In commercial premises, for example, for heating shop windows, an office building lobby, a car dealership, etc..

We wrote about the choice of conventional wall-mounted electric convectors for heating rooms. Floor floors can also be electric, but most often there are water ones, which are an integral part of the general heating system of a building. We will focus on them.

Floor convectors can be divided into two types:

• Naturally ventilated. Typically, such a radiator is a copper tube with aluminum fins over a U-shaped structure recessed into the floor. Aluminum ribs are designed to increase the heat exchange surface area. The entire system is covered with a grill, which, in addition to the protective function, can become a decorative element. Warm air freely passes through the grate and rises up, heating the room. Cold air descends to replace it. That is, air circulation occurs naturally.
• Forced ventilation. In such floor convectors, a fan is additionally built in, which will distribute warm and cold air flows. The rest of the scheme is the same.

For floor convectors with forced ventilation, the heat transfer is about three times higher. They heat the room faster, work more efficiently, but the fan needs electricity and the whole system is more expensive to maintain, and it costs a little more than usual.

Installation of floor convectors is usually planned at the construction stage. If you decide to equip them after the end of the construction, you will have to do a major overhaul – without changing the floor covering, arranging special recesses in the floor and laying heating pipes, nothing will be done.

The grille that covers the floor convector can look very attractive. It is strong, reliable, it is quite possible to step on it – above 37 ° C, modern options do not heat up.

The disadvantages of such a heating system include the fact that debris and dust can penetrate through the grill into a metal box or channel with radiator pipes. You will have to regularly lift it and clean it using a special narrow nozzle of the vacuum cleaner. However, you also have to wash your usual wall-mounted radiators regularly..

Lattices can be:

• Wooden. Most often mahogany or durable oak.
• Steel and aluminum. They can be painted in different shades..

A hidden heating system is often called a channel heating system, because the pipes and the radiator itself are hidden in special channels. In this case, there are two ways to install floor convectors:

• With a body. This is a ready-made version, the whole structure is arranged in a metal box, which is built into the floor.
• Without your body. In this case, it will be necessary to heat-insulate the channel, for example, using polyester foam..

The depth of the channels can be from 10 to 70 cm.

Floor radiators increase the design possibilities of the space by eliminating wall structures. The power and other parameters of radiators built into the floor are usually the same as those of traditional panel ones..

As for the wall built-in, hidden radiators, which it was decided to cover with grilles, this is a simpler option that does not require the arrangement of special channels in the floor. In this case, the lattices also have a decorative function..

If the radiator is hidden behind a grill, it turned out to be behind the storage system, for example, in the case of transferring the working area of ​​the kitchen or home office to the windowsill, you need to take care of the presence of natural ventilation. Such holes in the windowsill will allow warm air to rise up, that is, to perform the main function of heating the room.

Due to the design features and the need for a sufficiently large floor thickness, floor radiators are usually used in private houses and are immediately included in the construction project. Duct convectors are often used in conjunction with a warm floor system, helping to avoid significant heat loss in the case of a large glazing area or wide door leading to a garden or terrace.