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Traditional heating solution design
involves providing enough heating capacity to offset heat losses
from the building on the coldest days and then balancing the heat
supply room-by-room so that all rooms are about the same temperature
plus or minus a degree or two. The only control tends to be one or
more ambient temperature thermostats that turn the (typically)
central heat supply on or off.
Thermometrics and
thermometric planning are terms to describe the
art and science of designing a spot heating solution and are
analogous to the much more familiar photometrics and
photometric planning for lighting.
Coming Soon:
Thermometric
Planning Software
Lighting manufacturers and many 3rd
parties provide software tools to design lighting solutions. Soon,
Radiant Optics will provide similar tools for heating solution
design.
Until then, heating solution planning
is a manual process with the following steps:
1) Determine
how your space is going to be used. Break your space into logical
zones with distinct heating requirements (e.g. different comfort
levels required at different times of the day)
2) Is
this an "all radiant" solution or will there be base load forced air
heating for such things as freeze protection?
3) By
zone, determine the radiant heating capacity required
4) By
zone, determine if there are any constraints on gas or electric
energy supply
5) By
zone, determine the specific heater types, number, mounting position
and angle required to provide the thermal comfort desired
6) By
zone, determine the
heater controls required to minimize energy usage
while still providing appropriate thermal comfort.
7) By
zone, determine the
heater colors
and mounting accessories
required to create an aesthetically pleasing heating solution.
Radiant Optics and/or one of our
Radiant Optics Authorized Resellers can help you with heating solution
design.
Also, please visit the
Reference
Materials section of our website for:
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