Wall heating with future
What a wall heating system has to do with the future? “In this case – 25 years ago – a great deal,” says the building owner. “If at the time, we had decided to install radiators and not wall heating, things would certainly have turned out differently.
In our small town, there were just two ways of heating your home: oil or wood. Gas, a heat pump and cooling were still a long way off. We looked for alternatives to floor heating and the terrible monster-sized radiators that we would have needed for such a large living space. Our brick supplier at the time told us that there was a company called Variotherm that offered a kind of wall heating system.
We drove to Variotherm and were really impressed right from the start. Variotherm planned the entire house with us and guaranteed that everything would work. It’s hard to believe, but we first moved into the cellar while we completed the ground floor. We only installed the newly developed Variotherm ModulePanels for dry construction on the attic floor years later.
Infrared image: The images clearly show the radiant heat during winter operation and the comfortable cool temperature during the summer month.
At that time, the cost of heating oil was still manageable, but when in October 2012, we began paying nearly 1 euro per litre, we knew that something had to change. We contacted Variotherm again, who had accompanied us for all those years, and they recommended that we buy a heat pump. During the summer, the house is cooled in passive mode and during the winter, the house is kept cosy and warm with one and the same system. We then bought a photovoltaic system with 8 kWp, and replaced our smelly old petrol cars with two electric ones.
“We would like to thank Variotherm for their visions for the future, and can’t imagine life without this world. In the end, our investments paid off within just a few years – not only for us, but also for the next generation”.
Specific characteristics: The kitchen block was also used for a system wall heating/cooling in order to contribute to the best possible room climate. Further more the seats of the tiled stove were covered with VarioProfile pipes and plastered. This produces comfortable radiant heat and saves costs.
Here are the facts
Before:
Here is our former consumption with oil heating and 2 petrol cars before converting to renewable energies.
3,500 litres of oil per year for
350 m² usable living space, at 0,75 € ⁄ 1 l Öl | 2.625 €
3.600 litres of petrol per year
for 45,000 km / 2 cars at 10 € / 100 km | 4.500 €
5,800 kWh electricity / household with 0,16 € / kWh | 928 €
Former annual consumption: 8.053 €
Now:
And that’s the current consumption following conversion to heat pump, PV system/8 kWp and 2 electric cars. The house is also cooled during the summer and the pool is heated if there is excess energy. We invested €32,000 in the heat pump and PV.
6.500 kWh electricity per year for the heat pump
350 m² usable living space, at € 0.16/1l oil | 1.040 €
per year at 15 kWh / 100 km
for 45,000 km / 2 electric cars at 2,4 € / 100 km | 1.080 €
5.800 kWh electricity / household with 0.16 € / kWh | 928 €
5.400 kWh were supplied by the PV system | free
2.784 kWh were fed into the grid at 4.096 ct/kWh | - 114 €
New annual consumption, incl. cooling and pool: 2.934 €
Variotherm products:
110 m2 Plastered Wall heating/cooling System Wall and EasyFlex Wall
25 m2 Wall heating/cooling for dry construction