One of our most challenging projects was to find out why the heating system in a new senior school had failed to heat a number of the classrooms and ancillary rooms. Not all the rooms were cold, the problem was intermittent, but did affect the main hall which required constant heat during colder temperatures to retain comfort. Another area also suffering low temperature was fitted with radiant heat panels which simply required hotter water entering temperatures than the boilers where commissioned for.
After much consultation, fixing some issues with the controls system, we recommended ceiling mounted de stratification units in the hall instead of a re design and replacement of the fan coil units.
For the radiant panels, not a simple task and one requiring a changeover of equipment, probably to fan coil units. We signed off with a recommendation that the re balancing of all radiators was the only course of action to stabilise the water flow remaining after comprehensive checks to the pipework sizes and the pump sets’ specifications showed all were in order. And those were our parting recommendations to the school services team.