NATURAL CLIMATE SYSTEMS IN RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS

Residential buildings include existing and new single-family houses, apartment buildings, individual apartments, and residential complexes. 

According to law, most of the energy required for heating buildings should be generated from renewable sources, for which compression heat pumps are predominately used. The efficiency of compression heat pumps, also known as air/water heat pumps, depends on the required system temperatures. The lower the system temperature, the higher the efficiency of the heat pump. The following general rule applies: a temperature decrease of 1 °C saves 2 to 4 % of energy.

The maximum supply temperature should not exceed 35 °C, as the desired efficiency of the heat pump is no longer given in case of outside temperatures of less than 0 °C.

At a supply temperature of 35 °C, the natural climate ceilings by ArgillaTherm generate an average surface and/or radiation temperature of 30 °C. This is owed to the optimum system structure and the highly conductive base material, the HUMID modules. By this, all solid objects inside the room are heated very quickly with an energy of 30 °C. Depending on the surface texture and location, they are heated to 22 °C – 26 °C within a short period of time.

For comparison: Floor heating systems are very slow and generate an average surface and/or radiation temperature of approx. 24 °C at a supply temperature of 35 °C. Conclusion: The surface temperatures are identical, however, the natural climate ceilings only require a fraction of the time.

With regard to temperature regulation in residential buildings, aside from heating in winter, more emphasis has been put on the protection against overheating during summer. A good building shell is not sufficient here, as the temperatures in summer continue to rise. Ultimately, active cooling is required, which is basically already provided. The heat pump can cool the heating water in summer and the radiant ceilings are perfectly suitable for room cooling.

However, there is a significant issue with this. Area systems cannot regulate the room air humidity, which leads to a quick increase of the humidity ratio in particular when cooling buildings, and ultimately causes the shut-down of the cooling process. Central ventilation systems are required to delay this, as the high air volume will carry away a certain share of the humidity to be discharged. Cooling is ensured without interruption on approx. 80 % of the cooling days, from a dew point of 20 °C or more, the fresh air supply has to be dehumidified additionally. This consumes a lot of energy; compared to the actual energy costs for cooling that corresponds to an addition of approx. 60 %.

With the natural air-conditioning systems of ArgillaTherm, the HUMID modules take on the humidity management. Central ventilation systems are therefore no longer required!  

Central ventilation systems are not required to discharge CO₂ and pollutants to a sufficient extent. The necessary air volumes can be easily moved by decentralized ventilation systems or natural ventilation, i. e. through windows.

Mainly the water-operated ceiling system is used as system option for heating and cooling. The electrical ceiling system for heating purposes only is also a viable solution, as the central energy generator and the complete piping can be omitted here. Additionally, this system is completely free of maintenance and repair costs and has a service life that is three times longer than that of a heat pump. However, the decisive factor for the utilization is that the required energy quantities inside the buildings do not surpass 35 kWh/m² per year.