HEAT PUMP SPECIALISTS

Infrared Heating 1st Fix

In this video we talk you through what is involved to 1st fix an infrared heating system

Hi, it’s Kev from M & E Services and in this video, I’m going to show you what’s involved in first fixing for infrared heating. So the property had electric storage heaters, there’s no gas in the village so we’re limited on options. The property came with about 3.6 kilowatts of solar PV on the roof, so instantly I was leaning towards an electric solution.

There’s a lot of hype about infrared heating, so I thought once and for all, we would install it in a property and we’re going to data log the energy usage. So we’ll check back in every three months and compare it to what it would’ve cost to heat the property with gas, which was what iwe were told by the suppliers of the infrared heating solution.

So we’re going to prove one way or another that it is or isn’t.

We were told it was easy to install. We have installed over 1100 meters of cabling in this property, and I’ve followed the supplier’s instructions on how to wire it. The wiring is extensive.

Every room has its own 16a supply from the distribution board. We have installed 8 zones in this property, so it’s not to every room because in the bathroom, the en suite and the kitchen, it’s got existing underfloor heating, we’ve tested it and as it all works, it’s pointless removing as it will cause additional costs when we’ve got sufficient heating in there.

To install the cabling we have had the floor up throughout the property and even making good and strengthening the floorboards was a bit of a task.

That brings us to the heating mats. So we have used 2.5mm tri-rated single core cabling to each end of the mat. Each mat has two cables installed as radial circuits, back to the control cupboard. We call it a control cupboard because it’s going to be like one when it’s complete as you will see in the next video in this series.

The mats are really light. The single core cables are crimped onto each side of the mats. We performed resistance tests before and after to make sure that all connections are sound.

The next job will be the plastering. So the next stage and the next video, will show the plastering work. So basically the plasterer will bed each track and then skim finish.

We have lined out each track, because we have heard stories that the plasterer when he’s plastering can easily have the mat can go off track. And if you’ve got several in a room, tyou will simnply run out of room and everything will not fit as intended.

We have chalk lined grids for the plasterer to use as a guide to keep the mats straight, so it’ll be perfect. Every light fitting, anything on the ceilings, smoke alarms etc, its all got to come down and you can cut the mat in, to allow for this. And as long as you cut the mat with a sharp stanley blade, you can cut a hole of about 75 mm diameter. However, we haven’t had to go that big to get over the cabling.

Then there is the wiring to the thermostats. You need to wire in 2.5mm twin and earth to the stats. We have run 2no cables, one will carry the permanent live (N+E) and the other will carry the switch live (N+E) back to the control cupboard. There’s one stat per zone. We labelled every cable as we installed it, this will make it easier when you second fix.

So that’s it really, a hell of a lot of work that’s all we will say. We spent about six days, with two of us in here and we’ve got to this stage, this included removing the old electric heating, light fittings and smoke alarms.

We are looking forward to getting the plasterer started now. We have now to complete the controls cupboard and we have got to install a separate consumer unit in for all the power cabling and then we can data log everything.

We will post the next video around the plastering work and the final video we will show the finished job and will be testing the system.

Any questions about infrared heating, please feel free to contact me.

Kev

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