Hot plant room

[Benpointer]

We have just moved in to our now build and it is all running at a very comfortable 21ish degrees... except for our Plant/Tech room, which is persistently running at 26-27C despite having no dedicated heating as such. 

 

There are reasons of course.  In the plant room are:

• 27kWh of battery storage.
• 12kW inverter
• 300l HW cylinder
• The internal unit of a Panasonic 9kW ASHP
• The manifolds for 16 UFH loops
• Zenhder Q350 MVHR unit

 

Many of the UFH pipes run from the manifold under the plant room floor and I don't believe they were well insulated, so that may be the biggest cause of the heat in that room.  

 

The plant room does have an MVHR extract valve, so some of that heat is being extracted and exchanged to the fresh air coming in to the house.

 

The room itself is 1.8m x 2.9m and an average of 2.2m high and is insulated to the same standard as the rest of the house of course.

 

Two questions: 

1. Should we be worried?
2. What might we do about it?  (I have been thinking about putting down a thinn insulating floor just to lessen the heat gain from the UFH pipes.)

 

Anyone else have similar issues?

 

 

[-rick-]

Sounds like a really successful build if this is the main worry after moving in!

 

Not an expert but the little plant room that I have (boiler, cylinder, consumer unit with a few electrical bits) is similar, gets a lot hotter in summer. 27C isn't really going to worry electronics etc.

 

I'd monitor over summer and if you find the room getting about 35C or causing other problems then may be worth doing something but 27C doesn't warrant much concern in my book.

[JohnMo]

A lot of heat generators in a small area, the 16 loops if not insulated, would make the room hot, battery, inverter and cylinder will all add to it.

 

Summer will be hot, running cooling via UFH should offset the heat some what.

[Iceverge]

Congratulations on moving in. 

 

You could borrow a thermal camera and check what the worst offenders are. 

[Tony L]

Sorry, I can't help with this, but I must congratulate you on moving in, having completed your build so quickly.  You're an inspiration to us all.  & thanks for documenting your progress on here too - it's a real help to those of us who are not there yet.

[-rick-]

12 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Summer will be hot, running cooling via UFH should offset the heat some what.

 

And if you try to insulate these pipes the cooling effect in the room would reduce which might be a negative...

 

6 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

You could borrow a thermal camera and check what the worst offenders are. 

... because I'd expect the heat sources to vary over the year. Winter will be the heating system, summer will be the solar electronics working flat out.

[Nestor]

Same size plant room here. No UFH fitted. It's 25.5C now but nothing is on.

We use it as a drying room with a kitchen maid attached to the ceiling.

I did consider putting a vent in the door to utilise the excess heat.

 

Ecodan 300 litre HW cylinder.

Consumer unit.

UFH Manifold and wiring centre. Not in use as we have not needed to heat the lg floor.

PV diverter.

Has MVHR extract.

 

You have a lot of kit in one room so 26C-27C to be expected.

 

Congratulations on moving in.