Begetube Solar Powered Underfloor Heating

The most efficient heating and hot water system under the sun.

Following extensive research with renewable industry leaders AES Solar Systems and Akvaterm, Begetube UK are now able to supply complete solar powered underfloor heating and hot water systems.

If you are serious about building a new house and really keeping the annual hot water and heating costs down, you should read this short article and then talk it through with one of our design team - this principal really does work.

The idea of using free energy from the sun has been around for a long time, the problem has always been storing the solar energy until it is needed.  We are all aware that the amount of solar energy striking the earth is many thousands of times more than we could all possibly use, so how can we utilise more of this free energy, and what is most important, how can we achieve this without involving the sometimes enormous costs involved with ground source heat pumps.

Using solar energy to heat water for domestic use in a hot water cylinder is a good starting point, but with the equipment and controls available now we can take this principal to a much higher level, and with an accurately designed low temperature floor heating system we can now put solar energy to work providing a comfortable environment as well as domestic hot water.

To achieve this does not involve a huge financial outlay, more a change of direction (thinking out of the box).  Water is an excellent heat storage medium, in fact it is five times more efficient than concrete.  So instead of a standard solar hot water cylinder and solar thermal panel installation, it will be far more efficient to replace that with a large thermal store and extra solar thermal panels.  Replacing the conventional hot water cylinder with a thermal store is the first step, a thermal store is the opposite to a hot water cylinder and enables different heat sources to be connected into the system.  Solar will obviously be the prime input as it is a free energy, to that end it is advisable to fit extra solar thermal capacity to enable a better input of energy in spring and late autumn.  There will obviously be times when solar input is minimal so a back-up system is needed, the best advice we can give is to use a wood burning appliance to maintain low running costs—this option is not always suitable to some people, but as this is a thermal store then anything can be connected and provide a top up of heat energy.

Domestic hot water is easily obtained from a thermal store via a plate heat exchanger or high efficiency coil, these units are very efficient and dispense with the need to store domestic hot water—it is simply hot water on demand.

The floor heating system should be controlled to respond to external temperatures, ( weather compensation ) this level of control will ensure that the lowest water temperature possible will be flowing in the floor and therefore make more use of solar energy before requiring extra heat from another source.

Further information click here for contact information and our technical team will be pleased to discuss your requirements.