They offer many of the same things as traditional houses but flats offer radically different approaches to heating and cooling. With the latest statistics showing that more than 25% of all new homes in the UK are flats is it perhaps time to assess what this means for pipe insulation?
A boiler in every home or one hearth?
From an urban design perspective high density accommodation is particularly attractive because agglomeration means that the overall energy use is far less than it otherwise would be. This is certainly the case when it comes to heating systems.
In traditional dwelling houses each home has its own dedicated boiler that satisfies all of the heating and hot water demand. This method is also seen in many flats due to the flexibility of the approach.
Larger heating systems are, however, inherently more efficient than smaller ones, especially when the heating demand becomes large enough to make combined heat and power (CHP) systems viable. It often, therefore, makes sense therefore to pursue a single heating system for multiple dwellings.
Implications for energy saving
When each flat has its own boiler the pipework carrying heated water throughout the apartment complex is minimised. It may even be that there is no heating pipework outside the thermal envelope of each flat.
In such a case the justification for installing pipe insulation is weaker than it might otherwise be. This is because modern flats are so good at retaining heat and, since the energy is only “lost” when the heating system is in operation, most – if not all – of the heat “loss” can be considered “useful” because it’s heating the flat.
Additionally such an arrangement is likely to make use of modern boiler technology progressing in line with trends seen in conventional housing. That is boilers designed to operate at lower temperatures. These boilers present fewer opportunities to save energy by insulating pipework because they use less energy to begin with.
When flats benefit from economies of scale
A complex of flats or apartments that make use of a central plant room with risers carrying the heating system throughout the building has slightly different considerations.
The first difference is that the pipework running in risers is in an area that doesn’t need to be heated. This means that insulation on these pipes inherently presents a greater energy saving potential when compared to insulation on pipework inside an individual flat or apartment.
A second difference can be found in the size of the pipes in the risers which must be large enough to deal with a much greater volume of water before branching off into smaller pipes that supply the heating to each individual flat or apartment. Space around these smaller pipes can be very tight, creating a practical impediment for pipe insulation.
Standards & Guidance
When it comes to pipe insulation, BS EN 12828 – the British and European standard that defines how to design and install space heating systems – doesn’t actually distinguish between individual housing units and multi-storey flats although the differences outlined above will influence the insulation thicknesses required.
Source: Kaimann UK · Copyright image: Adobe Stock
