Heating of a family house in Jeseník-Bukovice

The construction of a family house equipped entirely with electric ceiling heating was completed in Jeseník-Bukovice in the year 2006. The house is located on a slope and the windows of rooms which are used during the daytime offer a beautiful view of a valley and the Jeseníky Mountains.

Information about the building

The architectural design of the house is quite untraditional and therefore a heating system was designed in the spirit of this concept – one which combines high user comfort, excellent regulation options and at the same time one which is absolutely unobtrusive and which doesn’t interfere with the interiors of the rooms in any way. Standard heating methods, either in the form of warm-water elements or wall-mounted direct heating convectors, were rejected. Not only would heaters on the wall harm the appearance of the room but also the level of comfort would fail to meet the requirements of the users. Also, the glass surfaces present are not ideal for the placement of radiators. Thus a large-surface system of heating was considered from the beginning.     

As the floors throughout the whole building were supposed to be made from massive wood, which is not completely ideal for floor heating, electric ceiling heating was chosen for the heating of the family house. It is a decentralized system in which the heating in each room is regulated completely individually according to the current need and method of use. The installed ECOFILM electric heating foils, which are placed in the plasterboard suspended ceiling, are of course completely invisible and at the same time provide sufficient performance for the heating of the rooms to the required temperature. This is so-called infrared heating which does not heat the air but rather the objects and people which are located within the radiation field. The ECOFILM heating foils are placed across almost the whole surface of the ceiling and thanks to this the room is uniformly covered by the radiation. On the ground floor, where a single large area was created by combining the living room, dining room and the kitchen, the ECOFILM heating foils in the plasterboard construction were divided into three zones so it is possible to heat each separate part individually, even though it is connected to the other areas. It is thus possible to maintain the whole connected room at a lower temperature and only provide the area where the users of the house are present with the needed thermal comfort with the help of infrared radiation from the heating foils. Only radiant heating has this characteristic feature.

The large areas of the plasterboard suspended ceilings were furnished with glass fabric and a thin-layer of plaster. Not only does the intricately-structured surface of the suspended ceiling look better but also in this way the possible risk of the cracking of the joints between the plasterboard sheets is completely eliminated.   

Electric ceiling heating is installed throughout the whole house, with the only exceptions to this being the bathrooms, WC, entrance corridor and the laundry room. Ceramic tiling has been laid in these rooms, and therefore electric floor heating is installed there.   

In the bathroom and WC, ECOFLOOR electric heating mats are installed directly within the adhesive under the floor tiling; in the corridor and laundry room, the heating mats are placed within an approximately 5 cm-thick layer of concrete – this is a so-called semi-storage system. An advantage of floor heating is not only the pleasantly warm floor tiling but also the quick drying of wet tiles, which is also very practical.

The regulation of the whole system is provided via BMR central regulation. This is a very accurate regulation system which enables the setting of an individual heating mode for each room in the building. According to the set programme, the temperature at which the given room is to be maintained can be changed up to 8 times a day. For each room, it is of course possible to set different temperatures and times when the change should take place.

The house has already been in use for three heating seasons and the combination of ceiling heating with a massive wooden floor has been described by the user as very comfortable and pleasant. The fact that the user has chosen the same heating system – i.e. ceiling heating with ECOFILM foils - for the offices in the headquarters of their company also demonstrates their satisfaction with the product.

Production of the design of the heating system
Ing.V. Sláma – IVS
Dužstevní ochoz (areál Reiknechtka)
140 00 Praha 4-Pankrác
tel. 261 219 803
fax 261 215 820
e-mail: ivs.slama@volny.cz