hello karliseppel, they often say cold feet, hot head. what’s that about?
Nonsense. It’s almost purely radiant heat. The entire room is warm. When I scan the room with the digital thermometer, I don’t have much difference in temperature between head height and foot height...
are the tiles also relatively warm or do they stay cool?
The tiles don’t get as warm as they would with your underfloor heating if it were designed the same way. Ultimately, it’s a question of your house’s energy consumption or the heating demand of the room and the target temperature. The heating and its supply temperature are designed accordingly. Nowadays, an underfloor heating system is designed for a maximum supply temperature of 35°. This is below your—and my—body temperature and is therefore always "felt cold." If it feels warm, something is wrong. That’s why there are no swollen legs with underfloor heating. Just like with heat from above there’s no heavy head!
do you also have a climate ceiling in the bathroom, meaning heating from above?
Yes. Of course—everywhere. We also have the upper floor with a massive brick ceiling with heating loops. However, in all rooms with tiled floors, we decided to additionally install underfloor heating. (Bathrooms/kitchen/hallway ground floor) Not because we weren’t convinced by the system—well—we saw it on a cold winter day in a newly built house. We found it pleasant, but walking sock-footed on tiled floors that were "only heated from above" was a few degrees too cold for us. ~20/21° surface temperature is quite different than when the tile floor receives the "full" supply temperature. Also, in bathrooms, because of large unheated areas in the underfloor heating, it is often the case that you need an additional electric heater anyway since otherwise the often designed 24° in bathrooms couldn’t be reached. So we simply took the underfloor heating as an "addition" there.
is radiant heat actually more comfortable than normal convection, or do you notice no difference?
Definitely yes, it is more comfortable. But this is not a benefit of a ceiling heater, but generally of a surface heating system. Regardless of whether it’s installed in the ceiling, on the wall, or in the floor.
which manufacturer is your climate ceiling from?
It’s not really important; there are basically four systems: 1.) Concrete core activation. Pipes lie within a concrete ceiling. Advantage: statically good properties Disadvantage: the component activation is very sluggish. You can’t just "turn it off" quickly. 2.) Brick ceiling with heating elements in the brick. Advantage: typical karma stories about brick... Disadvantage: like system 1, sluggish. 3.) Brick ceiling with heating elements in the brick with a topping concrete. Advantage: I don’t know any. Disadvantage: like system 1, plus installation effort—that is the heating connections—must be done during the rough construction phase... at that point you might not even know which heating system it will be and already need a sanitary solderer... poor to coordinate, I think. 4.) Brick ceiling with heating elements in the lower plaster carrier. Advantage: very fast system, quickly heats up and gives off its radiant energy quickly. Disadvantage: not all statically possible. Max spans etc.
(5. and almost forgotten: there is also a drywall solution to plank onto the finished ceiling. That still needs good planning; the connections have to go somewhere.)
would you do a climate ceiling again?
I think so, yes. Yes, definitely, the more I think about it... yes.
what kind of heating do you have, gas, heat pump?
Air-water heat pump But the more important question is actually how much energy your house consumes. This system only works so well if you manage to heat your house with extremely low supply temperatures. According to the current energy-saving ordinance, I would recommend at least the KfW70 standard, preferably below that. Mine is still Energy Saving Ordinance 2007/KfW70. Nevertheless, in last winter at -25° outside temperature, I had a maximum supply temperature of just 27°! For a single day the gauge was just below 28... An underfloor heating could "possibly" also do that, with corresponding insulation standard of the house and low pipe spacing.
I don’t want to spread a new gospel here, but when I hear things like "hot head and cold feet"... it gives me pimples and I’m happy to report the opposite from practice.
This also has nothing to do with infrared heaters from industrial halls. Nor anything to do with ceiling heaters from the ’50s that were run with 60° supply temperature.
It is nice, pleasant, and very discreet to heat like this. Just like with underfloor heating or wall heating. However, when hanging lamps you are always sweating a bit... but eventually you get to know the procedure for it.
Oh yes, you also mentioned cooling. A whole different chapter. Where to start... I don’t have automated cooling operation. The heat pump can do it, but cannot switch automatically between operating states. Well. Not so bad, but for full luxury I might pay attention to that next time. So I switch the cooling function explicitly on when I need it. That is during hot phases in summer, when the house after 3-5 days of hottest weather slowly starts to get warm as well, also because one once again forgot to close the blinds in time. (Shading is essential! You can’t cool out what you don’t shade!!!) But usually, you notice by about 25 degrees indoor temperature that you don’t want it to get warmer. And while neighbor’s houses continue to warm up nicely, the cooling function cools the place back down nicely to a constant 23°. Much lower temperatures are not possible; the designed cooling load simply was not planned for that. The heat pump then pumps 16° cool water through the ceiling and inside it’s simply cool! Done. No drafts. No cold spots. No chills as you know from convection cooling. The system works totally quietly and unnoticed. It’s really amazing to enter a 23° cool house when it’s 36° outside. And without feeling like there is only 20% humidity in the air...
The extra cost for cooling was not very high at the time of the heat pump—I think something around 500 to 600 euros. THAT was totally worth it. The electricity consumption is really not dramatic and comparable to the heating-side electricity consumption on a "transition day" in autumn. Our place is a bit bigger and it amounts to about 10kWh(el.)/day. So about €1.80. That’s worth it to me to be able to sleep without sweating.
I can only recommend mechanical ventilation with heat recovery for that. Without it, I would NEVER build again!!! Hope it helps you a bit in your decision. If you have questions, just ask.
Karliseppel
