Elo Dhaene, Brand Commercial Director, Purmo Radson

Taking all the facts into account, we can conclude that low temperate radiators have a key role to play both now and in the future. This future has already started with the introduction of high efficient heating sources as condensing boilers and heat pumps; sources that make low temperature radiators even more effective as they respond extremely quickly and efficiently to heat demands and valuable heat gains. I believe radiators are the only true alternative to create a proven energy efficient heating solution that has all the advantages that builders, planners and installers need and ask for.

Today’s high efficiency projects, both in modern new buildings and well-renovated older ones, use advanced materials, have stricter standards and are raising the bar even further for overall efficiencies. But it’s not only efficiency, it’s also comfort that is important to create a pleasant indoor climate in such buildings.

At Purmo we develop clever heating solutions to meet future standards, reducing dependence on finite energy sources, cutting emissions and, of course, lowering overall costs. Contrary to popular misconceptions, these high efficiency low temperature heating systems perform best when combined with radiators.

In this heating guide we’ve shared, I think, significant proof to support our claim that it’s impossible to ignore low temperature radiators. Our investments in research and development have resulted in really clever solutions and products. All researchers underline that our radiators are in almost all cases, the most efficient heating emitter within a modern heating system. Low temperature radiators have proven to be the most energy efficient emitter in low energy buildings. Wherever this building is built or located, and whatever the outside conditions; radiators provide not only the highest energy efficiency rates, but are also able to create the highest levels of comfort.

The main reason for the lower energy efficiency of under floor heating is the unexpected heat losses both to the ground (caused by a so called phenomenon ‘downwards heat conduction’) and also to external surfaces (caused by heat radiation). It also appears that the thermal mass of under floor heating systems hinders its ability to utilise heat gains, causing unpleasant room temperature fluctuations. These in turn cause people to turn up the room temperature setpoint.

Our extensive research and tests have shown that under floor heated buildings are more sensitive to end user behaviour. In daily practice we’ve seen that this leads to prolonged heating periods and higher room temperatures. Failures in the construction of, for example, cold bridges between the floor and external walls, also contribute to considerable differences in energy consumption.

While we claim that with our radiators you can save up to 15% on energy, the research of Professor Harrysson shows that this even can be much higher! The measured differences in modern Swedish houses demonstrated that it’s possible to save even up to 25% on energy!