Conservatory Heating

[Lawrence Zarb]

What is the best way to heat a conservatory...I am looking for something that will heat the room quickly, but not need to be run all the time

[Dave Fawthrop]

| What is the best way to heat a conservatory...I am looking for something | that will heat the room quickly, but not need to be run all the time

Anything with lots of watts, and a frost stat setting for cold weather.

[Set Square]

Have you tried the Sun?

[Mark Hewitt]

One of those plug in convector heaters you can get from B&Q for £15 should do the job,, as long as it's not too big a place.

[Doctor Drivel]

will heat the conservatory very quickly. Make sure the pipes as large as possible. Get 22mm as near to the unit as possible.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The fastets way to heat a space is with hot air blowers. These can be retrofitted to normal CH pipework and equipped with thermostats and a zone valve for independent control...- run the valve and thee fan off the stat to stop water circulating AND shut off the fan. They have a muh higher output per unit size, and the hot blast tends to equalise temperatures very quickly. My favorite is the hot air curtains used in shops that blast hot air down..this is excellenet if you have a high ceiling as the hot air collects up high, gets heated and then pushed down to floor level...

[Christian McArdle]

Myson Hiline above the door. Doesn't even use wall space and can have stupidly high outputs for getting the temp up quickly in time for dinner. It'll need zoning off your main system. It must have independent timing and temperature control from the rest of the house.

Christian.

[Doctor Drivel]

It doesn't require a separate zone. That is the best case of course, but it can be taken off the existing rads. If you are fitting a zone for it, don't bother with a zone valve, use a pump and non-return valve. They need a bit of flow through them for best performance, with pipes as large as you can get.

[Christian McArdle]

Part L differs, however. A conservatory must have indepedent timing and heating control for building regulations due to energy efficiency.

For simiplicity's sake, you can probably get away with a zone valve off the existing house zone. The problem then is that the conservatory will only fire up if both it AND the house stat require heat.

Christian.

[Matt]

Unless the run is dedicated and particularly long you don't *really* need the zone valve, the output from these units when the fan is switched off is very low.

[Christian McArdle]

Not really. With the pipe run as well, you could be looking at several hundred watts from a hiline.

You will still need a programmable thermostat or suchlike to provide independent timing and temperature control.

Christian.

[Doctor Drivel]

They have temp control. When the fan is off little heat floats out to worth worrying about. Time control? A plug-in timer into the fan heaters socket. If it brings in the fan heater when the main clock is off then there is no heat to the fan heater, then the internal temp stat holds off the fan.

[Matt]

Yes that's why I said "Unless the run is dedicated and particularly long" But considering the unit itself, when the fans are switched off the actual heat gain to the room itself IS minimal, so much so you would have great difficulty, short of grabbing the feed/return pipes, in telling that the boiler was even firing.

[dennis]

You should fit the zone valve and a timer stat. Mine has been like that for 22 years now and has saved tons of energy over that time. Don't forget to lag the pipes.

Make sure the timerstat has a frost protection setting.

[Doctor Drivel]

Best use a pump. These fancoil units need flow through them, and a conventional system with a 6 metre pump may not be adequate.

[Andy Hall]

This really depends on the output of the fan convector.

Unless the pipe runs are very long, 15mm is suitable up to about 6kW.

A calculation can be done using the tables on the CDA web site.

[Doctor Drivel]

They really need flow through them and as hot as possible.

[Christian McArdle]

The internal stat is on the pipe temperature and is used to stop the fan when no heat is available from the hot water circuit. It doesn't have a room temperature stat, which must be fitted externally.

Christian.

[Doctor Drivel]

They do have a room stat fitted to the unit (the Kickspace and other models do not) . An external stat can be fitted for better temp sensing, or temp and timing (programmer stat).

[Christian McArdle]

It was my understanding that only the Loline (heating only model) has a built in thermostat, whilst the Hiline requires an external one. Am I mistaken?

The Hiline is much more suitable than the Loline for most conservatory installations due to its use of wasted space above the door to the house. The Loline would require precious low down wall space, which is often of limited supply in a conservatory or made of materials not suitable for mounting heating appliances.

Christian.