6.3. Inserting and editing heating zones (HZ’s)<br>

## 6.3. Inserting and editing heating zones (HZ’s)

### 6.3.1. Pasting a HZ with a spacing from walls

The first stage of editing a radiant heating system is the indication of the rooms where radiant (floor or wall) heating is to be used. This is done by pasting heating zones into these rooms.

¨ To paste a heating floor into a room:

1. Select a “Heating floor” component by clicking on the button on the “Radiant” toolbar. The heating zone insertion mode is enabled.

2. Move the mouse pointer to the room where you want to paste the HZ.

3. Press the left mouse button. The HZ is pasted into the room. By default it spreads over the entire area of the room leaving out a spacing from external and internal walls defined in general data. A HZ label in a box also appears. Later, when you want to mark the HZ, click this box.

4. To modify the size and shape of the inserted heating floor, right click the HZ label and select “Change type to freely modifiable” from the pop up menu. Handles appear in the corners of the HZ, which you can move by left clicking and dragging.

5. You can also draw the heating floor within a room using the manual drawing component: “Heating floor (manual)” . In this case the shape of HZ is determined by the user.

¨ There is a function that enables fast arrangement of heating zones. To use this function, select “Insert HZ to each room” from the “Components” menu or click the button on the “Radiant” toolbar.

¨ To paste a heating wall into a room:

1. Select a “Heating wall” component by clicking on the button on the “Radiant” toolbar. The heating zone insertion mode is enabled.

2. Move the mouse pointer to one of the walls in the room where you want to paste the HZ. If the AUTO mode is enabled, the inserted wall is attracted to the walls in the room.

3. Press the left mouse button – one end of the wall is inserted. Move the pointer to the point where you want to place the other end of the wall and press the left mouse button. To complete wall insertion, press the right mouse button. A HZ label in a box appears. Later, when you want to mark the HZ, click this box.

! Definition: the spacing between HZ and wall is the spacing between the conventional boundary of HZ and the wall face. The conventional boundary of HZ runs along the outermost pipe at a distance of half of pipe spacing. For instance, if the pipe spacing is 20 cm and the distance between HZ and wall is 15 cm, then the outermost pipe should run 15 + ½ * 20 = 25 cm from the wall.

The default spacing depends on manufacturer’s guidelines. Note that proper specification of spacing is very important as it has an impact on the effective heating zone. For instance, in a room 4 x 5 m and “gross” surface area of 20 m2, the rejection of a 15 cm wide strip along the walls reduces the heated area by ca. 2.6 m2, which corresponds to ca. 13%!

Proper handling of the spacing consists not only in following the manufacturer’s guidelines in this aspect, but also in ensuring proper realisation of the heating circuits in this aspect. Error may be caused either by not taking into account the spacing in the calculations and implementing that spacing in the construction of the heating system (overstated area of HZ in calculations), or by taking it into account in the calculations and not implementing it in the construction (understated area of HZ in calculations). It is therefore essential that all assumptions made at the stage of calculations be put into practice.