Grand Designs: radiant window heating?

Someone was telling me about a Grand Designs where they'd put in radiant window heating. Never heard of it before and it sounds firmly in the league of containers for beverages of Asian-sub-continental herbal infusions constructed of confections of sweetened South American stimulant bean-based plant extracts. But it was apparently Belgian, which might (or not) explain it. Anyone see it, have any more info?

Reply to
John Stumbles
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only had half an eye on the programme and missed details of the heating.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Minchin

Triple glazed (on that house), metal oxide coating on the inside pane with making them sufficiently conductive to act as radiant heaters from the glass surface. Mains power bus bars in the frames carry current to the glass and into the metal oxide surface where heat is generated. A special coating on the outer pane reflects the Infra Red radiation back into the room

Claimed heating is 20% cheaper than the 'equivalent alternative', but I'm not sure what that is - possibly oil or electric heating as the houser seems to be in a village so may not be on mains gas.

Presumably by heating the glass you reduce draughts caused by cooling against the glass - so you can get by with a lower air temperature.

What surprised me was that the actual house itself didn't seem to have any kind of privacy at all, as there was no sign of blinds or curtains on any of the windows. Presumably putting a curtain over the heating system would be inefficient, so I'm not sure how you would combine the heating with curtains - fortunately the house faced over fields so privacy isn't a problem but getting woken with the light at 4am in the summer wouldn't be fun.

Reply to
OG

Good description of the heating. But you forgot 'delivered late' and 'expensive'.

Lack of privacy and excess light seem to be recurring themes in GD houses - where the hell do you go with a migraine and urgent need for dark room?

Reply to
Rod

The dreadful acoustics would probably be the cause of the migraine...

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

And bird strike! Bound to be chaos all that reflection. We have the odd pigeon crash into our windows and it makes a right old noise. I think only one has died from the impact though.

Reply to
mogga

This is surprisingly common with the houses featured in "Grand Designs". I've seen two with liquid crystal glass that could be obscured at the touch of a switch, but many people featured in the programme seem to want rooms with no curtains.

Reply to
Bruce

You go to one of the partly underground houses featured in the series, the one with insufficient illumination from too few light tubes. ;-)

Reply to
Bruce

Parent's dining room has two large windows either side of a corner, and about once a year, something tries to fly right through. Pigeons make one hell of a bang when they do it, and I think it's always resulted in a broken neck. First couple of times, it was rather alarming -- a really loud bang which we had no idea what it was, and on going to investigate, there's this ghostly image of a large bird in full flight on the window glass, and a dead bird on the ground. The image on the glass is a perfect imprint in what looks like white flour dust of the whole bird with wings outstretched -- you can make out all the feathers and the body. Most bizzare.

Smaller birds usually survive, and after a few minutes on the ground with stars going round their heads, they take off again.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

I thought they claimed the windows had a very low U value somehow because of this electric heating. Was this a misunderstanding (by us or them) or is it possible, for example, that by heating the inner pane you remove the downward convection air flow on the inside and thus reduce the heat transfer?

Robert

Reply to
RobertL

From what I understand, the U value is inherently low for the glazing units (multiple glazing with IR reflecting layer on the outer pane, and krypton gas filled gaps). So much so that the internal pane of glass can heat the air inside, whilst still meeting standards for Building Regs Part L.

With this arrangement, heat transfer at the windows will be from pane /into/ the air, thus eliminating cold draughts from the windows.

Reply to
OG

I wonder if the heater automatically switches off when SHMBO flings the window open? ;-)

I guess you might arrive home to find an electrocuted burglar halfway through breaking in :-)

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

I saw it and wondered what the point was. If the house had curtains the heating would be useless. I also can't see in what way electric heating makes sense or that the heated windows are more efficient than underfloor heating. Electric U/F heating would have been a doddle to install if you don't mind the costs.

There are other unobtrusive heating designs such as heated skirting board (water filled radiatiors), and underfloor heating using ceramic tiles to spread the heat evenly. Systems which use water to transfer heat seem to me to have the advantage that the owner can make their own decisions about what sort of heat source to use as events change.

i.e. use gas/oil at present, but consider a heatbank + woodburner + solar, if electric heating works out to be more economical (say if fusion power ever appears) then put in an electric boiler.

Reply to
Steve Firth

Only because they have spent so much on their barmy projects they can't afford any curtains.

I can't help thinking the one this week would have been much better with plasterboard on the walls and carpet on the floor. That kitchen they chucked in was crude and cheap looking. I've got better looking units in my shed.

Reply to
Mike

In article , Andrew Gabriel writes

Friends abroad have a couple of mid sized silhouettes of birds of prey in flight stuck on theirs, don't know how effective they are at frightening flying birds away from the windows or if they are available here.

David

Reply to
fred

What surprised me more was that there is clear air between the two levels, as the upper floor was suspended on a steel frame above the roof of the ground floor.

Why?? Kevin McCloud said this was so that it appeared 'floating' over the fields, but at what cost (other than £685,000 of course!)?

Reply to
OG

Fair enough, I don't really like curtains, I put with them (and in a Victorian house with single glazed windows and such they are useful) , but if I was building my own that might be a different matter.

I suspect they often have some discrete blinds.

Certainly some of them have had such things.

Reply to
chris French

Good point... :-)

Reply to
Rod

The cost of heating what becomes a room effectively with six external walls?

Reply to
Bruce

I thought they claimed the windows had a very low U value somehow because of this electric heating. Was this a misunderstanding (by us or them) or is it possible, for example, that by heating the inner pane you remove the downward convection air flow on the inside and thus reduce the heat transfer?

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

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