Surface heating and cooling – green technologies in construction

Hydronic low-temperature surface systems that use floor, wall and ceiling surfaces as sources of space heating and cooling have been around for many years. When they first emerged in civil structures, they became a hallmark of modern construction and luxury. Today, these systems are a common standard and can be found not only in detached houses and multi-family buildings, but also in shopping malls, sports centres, temples, or even in warehouses or manufacturing buildings.

The increasingly stringent environmental restrictions and climate policies designed for switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources are making surface heating and cooling one of the best and most efficient ways to maintain indoor climate comfort. Choosing this technology for space heating and cooling is sensible also by its energy efficiency, operating convenience, and failure-and- maintenance-freeoperation.

Because of the need to permanently install the surface heating/cooling system components within the building partitions or walls, the best practice is to plan the system properly already at the stage of building design engineering. This does not mean that existing structures cannot benefit from the advantages of surface heating or cooling. Thanks to the continuous development of this heating technology domain, there are many different products and ready-made solutions available on the market today that are sufficient to improve the energy efficiency and standards of legacy buildings.