The owner of an aspirational self-build home, featured on the television series, “Building the Dream”, has made use of two different systems from underfloor heating specialist Timoleon to create a comfortable and controllable environment within the highly insulated German manufactured structure. The single and two-storey residence, located in one of the UK’s fastest rising property hot-spots at Over near Cambridge, has been constructed using an advanced off-site manufactured timber framed system offering optimum levels of sustainability as well as style. The elevations display a blend of white render, timber boarding and high performance glazing, including three sets of sliding doors facing onto the courtyard style garden.
In harmony with the high performance building envelope, the designers for the project have specified a very energy efficient heating system. Installed on the ground and upper floors respectively, it features both the Staple and the Foilboard Batten systems from Timoleon designed to deliver the space heating. Pure Heating and Plumbing of Cambridge carried out the installation work. It is a characteristic of both heat pumps and modern condensing boilers that they operate most efficiently in combination with underfloor heating systems, due to their flow temperatures. In this case the space heating demands are relatively low and the M&E contractor decided to specify two of the options from the Timoleon product portfolio; enhancing the efficiency and facilitating the responsiveness required.
The Staple system has been developed primarily for the installation of underfloor heating pipe coils over screeded sub-floors, with the pipework itself being held in place using barbed clips, which bite into the insulation. The Timoleon Gridded Insulation boards feature an aluminium foil surface that offers enhanced retention characteristics as well as a convenient grid guide, which assists in achieving a regular pattern at the specified 150 mm centres. The Foilboard Batten system’s panels are intended to fit between timber battens and feature soft-temper aluminium heat diffusers. This construction ensures that when chipboard, OSB or other flooring is fixed across the top that it is in direct contact with the Foilboard diffusers; improving efficiency of heat delivery. The pipe runs are rapidly pressed into the channels in the Foilboard panels at 200 mm centres. Timoleon’s technical department provided layout drawings to enable the creation a total of nine separate heating zones across the four bedroom house, fed from one of the manufacturer’s A class Axios manifolds located in the property’s own plant room. The system was designed to perform with flow and return temperatures of 55º and 45º degrees Centigrade.