Warm plinth: water and electric. The principle of operation, installation, manufacturing with their own hands. Do-it-yourself warm water plinth: photo and video instructions How to make a do-it-yourself warm electric plinth

Invisible, efficient, comfortable heating. A very attractive combination of features. A warm floor immediately comes to mind for many. And rightly so. But this is not the only heating method that meets these characteristics. There is also a warm plinth. The system is easier to install, most of it is available for maintenance at any time. So a heating baseboard should also be considered as an option for invisible heating.

Warm skirting system: what is it

Heating baseboards or baseboard heating are not new in the field of heating. The idea was proposed at the beginning of the last century, but due to the complexity of implementation and high price, it was almost forgotten. With the development of technology, the complexity has become lower, but the price is still high. It is this, in the main, that deters potential users.

The main difference of this system is the non-standard form of heating devices and their unusual location. Heaters are long and low, located along the perimeter of the room at floor level. The heaters are covered with a long decorative strip that looks very much like a plinth. When installed, they replace the usual plinth. Therefore, such a system is very often called a "warm plinth". This system is very good for panoramic glazing - it can be no higher than the frames, so it is completely invisible. She is no worse in ordinary rooms - she is not visible at all.

Types of warm plinth

There are two types of warm plinth: electric and water. Electric warm plinth is different in that each heater is independent and can work separately. They can be installed in case of lack of power of the main heating - as an additional one, in case of cold weather. Installation is simple, but it works efficiently, is invisible, does not dry the air too much.

There is a water warm plinth. This is one of the subspecies of water heating, that is, all heating devices are connected into one system. It can be either the main (only baseboard heaters) or an additional type of heating (together with or radiators).

Heating pad device

In any case, the warm plinth looks like this: these are two copper tubes, which are located at a distance of 7-15 cm from one another. To increase heat transfer, vertical plates of aluminum and brass are put on the tubes (they cost a little less, but the heat transfer is slightly lower) or copper (more expensive and warmer option). From above, the finned tubes are closed with decorative covers made of extruded aluminum. Aluminum was not chosen by chance - it transfers heat well. So the heated lid itself radiates heat.

There are air holes at the top and bottom of the lid. Cold is sucked in through the lower ones, heated comes out through the upper ones. So it turns out that heating comes from three sources:

Such a triple heat source contributes to the fact that the room heats up quickly, and the location of the heating elements around the perimeter contributes to uniform heating of the air throughout the volume.

Advantages and disadvantages of baseboard heating

What is the difference between heating using a warm baseboard? Warm air is taken from the heating element up along the wall, heating the wall. As you move up, the air gradually cools down, then falls down, but not along the wall, but in the center of the room.

As a result, it turns out that the warmest air is at the bottom along the perimeter of the room. The warmest object - other than heaters - is the walls. Also, warmer air is located near the floor. Rising up, it cools down and at the level of the head it is a little colder. The difference is small 1-2 degrees, but it is this distribution of temperatures that is better for a person's well-being.

Uniform distribution of heat over the entire area and volume is one of the most important advantages

Heating with a warm baseboard is inertial. It is impossible to unequivocally attribute this property to advantages or disadvantages. There are both positive and negative points. Minus: until the walls warm up, the room is cool. Therefore, such a system is good only for permanent residences and is completely unsuitable for summer cottages. The positive point is that when heated, the walls work like a large stabilizer - they maintain the temperature at the same level, giving off the accumulated heat if necessary. Such a large heat accumulator will help to hold out for some time even if the heating is turned off.

The advantages of heating systems with heating skirting boards include their efficiency. After the walls are heated, the boiler consumes a minimum of fuel - only to maintain the temperature. And such modes, as a rule, are more economical. But this applies to any inertial heating system, so this cannot be considered a special advantage of a warm baseboard.

Warm plinth assembly a little closer

There are skirting heating and undeniable advantages. The first is one of the few systems that provides uniform heating. Even the corners are always warm. The second is the most inconspicuous system that easily fits into any interior. With all this, heating devices are easily accessible, the system can be repaired at any time.

It has a warm baseboard and a clear drawback - a high price. This is due to the fact that copper and aluminum are used to increase heat transfer, and they cost a lot.

Types of heating skirting boards

The baseboard heating system can be of two types: with electric and water heaters. At the installation stage, a system with warm water baseboards is more complicated (requires a collector or beam connection), but during operation it is more economical. Electric warm plinth is mounted quickly - you just need to fix the heaters to the wall, immediately after installation it is ready for use. But heating costs, like any electric heating, are high.

One of the most inconspicuous heating systems is a warm (heating) baseboard.

Heating device with water warm plinth

The system of water plinth heating differs only in the non-standard form of heating devices. The key components do not differ from the standard ones: you need a hot water boiler, a collector assembly and a pipe system with which a warm baseboard is connected.

There is also a combined warm plinth - with an electric heating element and pipes for the coolant

Please note: the optimal operating mode of the system is low-temperature. On the supply 40-50°C, on the return about 5°C lower. Therefore, it is necessary to select a boiler or build a system based on this. If the boiler is gas, the best choice is condensing. When installing any other, the system requires a heat accumulator and / or a mixing unit - to reduce and stabilize the temperature.

Connection method

There are features in the choice of connection method. Serial connection of all baseboard heaters in the room is inefficient: until the coolant reaches the last ones in the heater branch, it will cool down greatly and they will remain cold almost all the time.

For a water heating skirting board, a beam system is used: devices are connected one at a time or in pairs. To do this, a collector node is built into the system, to which pipes are connected that go to heating appliances. The disadvantage of such a system is the high consumption of pipes. After all, two pipes go to each device (or a small group) - for supply and return. The pipe consumption is much higher, but the heat distribution is more even and the system itself is more reliable. Why is it more reliable? If pipes or radiators in one group are damaged, all others work normally.

Mounting Features

When installing water plinth heating, pipes are usually hidden in the floor. Laying them along the walls will not work, as the place is occupied by heating devices. That is, the installation of warm water baseboards is possible only at the repair stage - you will have to raise the floors.

Special polymer pipes are recommended to be laid in a screed - they are not subject to corrosion and have low heat transfer, that is, heat loss during transportation of the coolant will be small. But since the availability for repair of these systems is low, you need to take high-quality goods from well-known manufacturers, and this is not cheap.

Electric warm plinth

The electric warm plinth externally differs from the water one only in the presence of terminals for connecting the power supply. The rest is the same view. These are two tubes with aluminum/brass/copper plates fixed perpendicularly. A heating element is located in the lower tube - a heating element, wires for connection are laid in the upper tube.

It is much easier to install and connect an electric warm plinth. You just need to fix it, stretch the wires and connect them to the terminals. To maintain the set temperature, a thermostat is built into the system, which turns the heaters on and off. The use of thermostats is desirable, as it optimizes work - saves electricity.

Installation is really simple, but you need to connect an electric warm plinth to a dedicated line with a properly selected circuit breaker rating and copper single-core wires of the appropriate section. So in this case, repairs are also required - it is customary to lay the wiring in the wall, and for this you need to do it, that is, break the walls.

Installation of a water warm skirting board system

Installation of an electric warm plinth is very simple: we fix it on the wall. Everything, the system is ready for operation. It remains to plug in the sockets. The main thing is to be correctly calculated, standing. This is the main problem in the case of using an electric warm plinth. Water is much more difficult to mount. Everything must be assembled into a single system, and this is not easy.

Calculation of baseboard heating

A complete thermotechnical calculation of heating is a long and complicated matter. The size and geometry of the room, the material of the walls, floor, ceiling are taken into account, the degree of insulation of all structural elements, including windows and doors, is taken into account. In general, the calculation is quite difficult. Therefore, most often they take the average figure, which is derived from the analysis of many calculations.

It is believed that 100 W of thermal energy is needed to heat one square meter of a room with medium insulation. That is, to calculate the power of a warm baseboard, you need to multiply the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe room by 100. Get the required figure. That is how much (and preferably more by about 20-25%) should give in total all the elements of a warm baseboard.

For example, the area of ​​the room is 18 square meters. For its heating, 1800 watts will be needed. Next, we look at how much heat is emitted by one meter of heating. A water heating skirting board can work in different modes, depending on the mode it emits a different amount of heat. The table above shows data for one of the systems. For example, let's take the heat output of one meter of warm plinth from this table (other manufacturers may have significant differences).

For example, the system will operate with a supply temperature of 50°C. Then one running meter produces 132 watts of heat. To heat this room, you will need 1800/132 = 13.6 m of warm plinth. When ordering, it is better to add a margin of 20-25%. This reserve is necessary so that the system does not work all the time at the limit. This time. And also in case of abnormal cold weather. This is two. So, with a margin we take 17 meters.

Once again, we draw your attention: these are average data for some average house. And here even the height of the ceilings is not taken into account. It is again taken as an average - 2.5 meters. If you have better insulation, you will need less heat; if worse than "average" - more. In general, this method gives only approximate calculations.

How to act

The first thing to do is to draw a plan on which to indicate the length of each heater, the length of the connecting tubes. After all, the length of a warm baseboard is not always equal to the perimeter of the room. In this case, the segments of heating devices are interconnected by copper or polymer pipes. It is undesirable to use steel, as they chemically interact with copper (it is gradually destroyed).

Preparation for installation takes place long before its actual start. At the very beginning of the repair, even before the leveling of the floor, pipes are pulled from the boiler or collector unit to the place where the warm baseboard is connected. The pipes are laid, tested for integrity, filled with a screed in a filled state under pressure (working pressure in a private house is 2-3 atm, in a multi-storey building it is necessary to find out in the housing office). Then all repair work is carried out and only after the finishing of the walls and floor does the installation of a warm baseboard begin. Here is its order:

Actually, the installation of warm baseboards is not too complicated. But the tightness of the joints is important and special attention must be paid to this.

Do-it-yourself warm plinth with water - is it real? How difficult is it to make such a heating system yourself? What do you need to assemble and install a warm water baseboard yourself?

Heating with a warm baseboard is a relatively new technology that is gaining popularity. It allows you to effectively and evenly heat the room, does not require special installation costs, does not violate the aesthetic appearance of the interior. A big plus of such a heating system is that with some skills and a minimum of tools, you can make a warm water plinth with your own hands.

What is a warm baseboard

Not everyone is familiar with this technology. Heating skirting boards have started to appear on the market quite recently, but there is already a positive trend. The system is quite simple, but at the same time convenient and able to provide a warm environment not only in residential premises, but also in offices, on a balcony, attic. The main distinguishing features of warm water baseboards are atypical forms. The design consists of several elements:

1. Rear panel, which is fixed to the wall and used to create thermal protection;
2. Face plate (there are options with holes and without them);
3. Plugs located on the sides;
4. A heating device used to heat the coolant (boiler, heat pump, central heating system);
5. A heat exchange module consisting of two tubes - it is through them that water circulates.

Read also:

How to properly lay a warm floor under the tile

The design of a warm skirting board does not differ in any complexity. Installation can be performed in any type of room. It is not at all necessary that the plinth be around the entire perimeter. Sometimes it can be seen under the window, near the door. The most important thing is that in any place the design will perfectly cope with its immediate function.

Water is most often used as a coolant in a warm baseboard, but sometimes antifreeze, propylene glycol or ethylene glycol solutions are pumped into them. This option makes sense if the heating is installed in a private house, which does not need to be heated constantly, for example, in a country house.

Warm water plinth has a number of positive qualities:

• Compactness (unlike the vast majority of other devices);
• Heating is carried out evenly over the entire area of ​​​​the room;
• Ease of installation;
• The air does not dry out;
• High efficiency.

Thanks to this technology, everything is heated - floors, walls, ceilings. Accordingly, the likelihood of mold and mildew is eliminated. The skirting board harmonizes perfectly with any floor covering.

Finally, the market offers a wide range, in particular in terms of colors, sizes and shapes. You can purchase the design of the shade that will look best in a particular room.

Production of a warm water plinth

There are many options for finished products on the market, but some prefer to do everything themselves. This approach is not always rational, since you will have to buy specific materials and consumables.

An aluminum profile for wall mounting and an external trim are easy to find, as are radiator mounts. But the latter can be problematic. Often copper radiators for warm baseboards are sold as spare parts and their price does not allow savings. In this case, a home-made warm plinth will be slightly cheaper than a factory one.

Read also:

Warm electric floors: pros and cons, types and features

Instead of a radiator, you can use an ordinary copper pipe, then you will either have to supply a coolant with a high temperature, or slow down its circulation so that it has time to give off the right amount of heat.

For thermal insulation of the wall behind the radiator, it is desirable to use thermal protection with a metallized coating. For greater efficiency, it is better to install it with foil towards the radiator.

If possible, you can buy radiators without threaded connections, and weld them into a single system during installation. But at the same time, there may be a problem with connecting to the coolant line.

The installation process of a ready-made warm water plinth or a home-made one is not fundamentally different. In fact, you assemble a "constructor" from several parts.

Do-it-yourself installation of a warm water plinth

After purchasing all the necessary materials, you need to take care of the installation of the structure. Someone fundamentally turns to the masters, because they are simply not confident in their abilities and are used to trusting specialists in everything.

But, in fact, there is nothing difficult in doing the installation yourself, without having any experience in carrying out such work. Of the tools you will need a hammer, wire cutters, adjustable wrenches, a drill. Now you can proceed with the installation of a warm plinth. The whole algorithm of work is divided into several stages:

1. Measurement and installation of pipes. Cut off the length that is needed from the distribution device to the node connecting to the first structure. Pipes should not be closer to the floor than 5 centimeters. The protective tube must always be at the top. Experts do not advise to withdraw from the corners.
2. Installation of an aluminum profile. It is fixed with a self-adhesive tape, even a schoolboy can cope with such a task.
3. Radiator mounts installed. It's also pretty easy to do. The step between the fixing elements should be more than 0.4 meters. Further - after determining the connection points, clips are attached. Using a drill, holes are created for the dowels, after which the clips are fixed.
4. Copper pipes are connected to plastic. To do this, resort to the usual methods, using bushings, gaskets and nuts. It is recommended to remove the brass plates at the joints. They are dismantled with the help of wire cutters, but then they will not interfere with the fixation of the radiator in the clip. The last design is advised to loop.
5. Now you need to put an aluminum case on each section. It is desirable to provide reliable insulation on the inner sides of the covers. The installation of the covers themselves is carried out taking into account the type of skirting board. There are models when it is necessary to simply snap into place, sometimes the method of fastening with screws is used.

Often, to design an optimal heating system, it is required to use the smallest heaters in size. At the same time, their efficiency should ensure the normal maintenance of the temperature regime in the room. One of the ways out in this situation can be the use of a warm skirting board.

This design is a small height heating devices that are installed at the bottom of the wall.

Despite its relatively small size, this type of radiator has a number of important advantages:

• Compactness. It will harmoniously fit into any room due to the presence of external decorative panels of various configurations and colors.
• Uniform heating. Since the structure is installed along the perimeter of the room and the lower part, the convection of air flows occurs simultaneously throughout the entire volume.
• Ease of installation. To install a warm baseboard, it is enough to provide a coolant supply (water heating) or a place to connect to the mains (designs with a heating element).

But despite all these advantages, there are a number of significant disadvantages:

• If there is a lot of furniture in the room that stands against the walls, there will be little free space for installing a warm baseboard, and the heating efficiency is reduced by an order of magnitude.
• Relatively high cost of factory models. The vast majority of them are made of copper, which significantly affects their price.

To solve the last question, you can try to make a warm baseboard yourself.

Design

Structurally, this heating device should consist of several elements.

1. The back panel, which is necessary for installing heating elements and protecting the wall from thermal exposure.
2. Heating element - . Their dimensions are usually 1000 * 40 * 160 mm. In this case, the number of heat exchange plates should be maximum.
3. External panel with slotted holes for air circulation.
4. Decorative side and swivel caps.

The average power of the factory installation is about 240 W, i.e. for a room with a perimeter of 18 m (20 m²) and an average ceiling height, the maximum power of a warm baseboard will be 4 kW, which is more than enough for efficient heating.

However, for the independent manufacture of such an analogue, it is necessary to make a lot of effort and money, which in the vast majority of cases will exceed the cost of buying a factory-made copper plinth. The main problems are as follows:

• Optimum power rating in copper construction is achieved by a large number of heat exchanger plates. Moreover, their soldering occurs in such a way as to ensure tight contact of the plate with the copper tube. This is the only way to achieve efficient heat transfer.
• Production of a decorative casing that would provide normal air heating and at the same time be resistant to thermal shocks.

Is there a way to do this at home? Alas, the efforts to repeat the construction of a warm copper plinth will not be appropriate. Let's consider an alternative.

Alternative

The main task when designing a warm baseboard on your own is to achieve good heating of the room with a minimum height and width of the structure.

Since it is impossible to make copper radiators with your own hands, it is recommended to use copper pipes, but without plates. Their diameter varies from 10 to 20 mm. The most effective size is 16 mm.

They are installed along the entire perimeter of the room at a height of 6 cm from the floor level. For better heat transfer, a strip of reflective foil is attached to the wall surface. A steel box can be used as a protective case. Inside the resulting structure, you can install a heater. As an example, you can see a photo of a home-made warm baseboard.

Effective operation of such a design is possible only if several conditions are met:

1. Minimum temperature difference between pipes. In this case, the resulting thermal radiation will be more efficiently reflected from the wall surface. To do this, it is desirable to install an individual circular for a warm plinth, which will increase the rate of passage of the coolant, thereby reducing the temperature difference between the heating pipes.
2. If a copper screen is used as a decorative panel, then it is best to solder the pipes to it. In this case, the efficiency of the system will increase significantly.
3. When using a heating element as a heating element, it is necessary to provide insulation of the pipe surface from the screen, i.e. contrary to the previous recommendation, the pipe should never be welded to the copper panel.

• Width - 3 cm.
• Height - 15 cm.
• Distance to the floor - from 6 cm.

Otherwise, everything is determined by the parameters of a particular heating system. For the best result, competent calculations of specialists are required.

The history of the emergence and improvement of home heating designs is rooted in the depths of centuries. Today, there are many ways to create a comfortable temperature inside residential premises.

These are central heating radiators, mobile electric heaters, air heaters, underfloor heating and much more. Among all this variety, you should pay attention to such heating devices as a warm baseboard, electric and water warm baseboard. In this article we will try to convey to the reader the concept of what a warm baseboard is.

The principle of operation of warm skirting boards

The essence of the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bheating with warm baseboards is that the heating system is located around the perimeter of the room near the floor. The heated air in the convector slowly rises along the walls. Due to this, the entire volume of the room warms up.

Such a system of warm plinth, equipped with a thermostat with a temperature sensor, maintains a constant air temperature inside the room, does not form condensation on the glass of window frames, and prevents the appearance of dampness and mold on the walls.

Heat from convectors will not affect furniture

Warm baseboards practically do not take up much space. Despite the high power indicators, furniture and other interior items can be safely placed near the convectors. The surface of the convectors does not heat up to a dangerous temperature level that causes burns.

The trading network offers for sale systems of warm skirting boards of two types. This is an electric skirting board and a warm water skirting board. Consider each heater.

Electric warm plinth

How to make a warm plinth with your own hands, powered by the mains? Having skills in working with electrical engineering, you can assemble an electric warm plinth quite independently.

The heater consists of two horizontal copper tubes. The power cable, covered with silicone insulation, passes through the top tube. A tubular electric heater is threaded into the lower copper tube. The whole system is controlled via an air temperature sensor by a thermoregulation unit.

Heating element - conventional heating element

When the temperature inside the room falls or rises, the heaters periodically turn on and off, thus ensuring a constant temperature regime.

They purchase a set of warm skirting boards based on the calculation of the length of the heaters, rotation angles and other related elements. The heating element itself is a tubular electric heater (TEH), enclosed in a copper sheath.

In turn, a copper pipe is threaded through a body of ribbed thermal reflectors (radiator). Electric heating modules are produced in several standard sizes. Depending on the length of the electric heater, its power changes, as can be seen from the table:

From heating elements of different lengths, installation of a warm plinth is possible on any area, any configuration.

Installation of electric plinth

Install the heating element 3 cm from the wall

Only a person with extensive experience in electrical work can assemble his floor electric heater by hand. Calculate the dimensions of heating elements, make radiator nozzles, install connecting cables is a very difficult and responsible job. Therefore, it is easier to buy ready-made heating elements for warm skirting boards.

When a heating set of skirting boards has already been purchased, they begin preparatory work.

Knowing that the heated skirting board should not heat the walls, but the air, the fasteners are made such that the heating electrical elements are at a distance of at least 30 mm from the walls. The plinth must be 140 mm high.

Mount the electric heater in several stages:

1. I install the mounting box at a height of 4 - 6 cm from the floor. Lead the power wires to the junction box.
2. At a convenient height, a switch with a thermostat is mounted on the wall.
3. A protective tape 3 mm thick is glued to the walls over the entire height of the plinth.
4. Markings are applied to the walls for mounting under heated skirting boards.
5. Drill holes for dowels in places where fasteners should be installed.
6. Screws are screwed into the dowel through the technological holes in the brackets.
7. A thermal heating module is hung on the installed brackets.
8. Connect the modules with electrical wires in parallel.
9. A residual current device (RCD) is connected to the system.
10. Connect the air temperature sensor.
11. Make control inclusion of an electroplinth. If a malfunction is found, fix it immediately.
12. Install the skirting board.

The lining of the plinth is made of enameled metal panels or plastic. The cladding should not reach the floor surface by 20 - 30 mm. There are horizontal slots on the top of the panels. This design provides a constant movement of air masses from the bottom up. The lining of the plinth, in addition to its function as an air duct, plays a protective role against accidental mechanical influences.

Work related to the supply of electricity to the plinth, connection to the electric meter, installation of a thermoregulation system is best entrusted to a specialist.

Installation of a warm plinth provides complete electrical safety. The places where the wires are connected to the contacts of the modules are closed with heat shrink tubes. The tubes protect the contact surface from moisture. For more information on installing a warm skirting board, see this video:

Despite protection from moisture, experts warn that electric heaters should not be installed in rooms with high humidity.

Water warm plinth

Most often, such systems are installed in private homes.

Do-it-yourself assembled warm water plinth can create special comfort in residential premises. If you look at the water plinth from a constructive point of view, then we will see compact "stretched" modules in length.

For the installation of a skirting water heating system, private households or public institutions are most suitable. The necessary conditions for the installation of warm skirting boards are the presence of a gas boiler and central water supply.

In some cases, boilers operating on solid and liquid fuels are used. You will also need a reserve tank (water tower) to replenish the water level in the heating system.

Skirting convectors with a water coolant are installed along the perimeter of the room. Modular liquid electric heater can be of various lengths. In the corners of the room, the modules are connected with special corner elements, which fill the fully heated perimeter of the room. Thanks to this placement of skirting boards, the room warms up more evenly than when heating with conventional water radiators.

If you decide to install a hydronic baseboard heating system connected to a central heating system, you will need to obtain permission to install this equipment from the relevant utility companies.

Otherwise, you may be fined and forced to dismantle the heaters.

Water converter design

Hot water pipe connected to gas boiler

The design of the plinth is quite simple. The upper pipe, as a rule, leaves the gas boiler system, passes through the entire perimeter of the heated area and passes into the lower return pipe. The lower pipe returns the cooled coolant to the gas boiler.

The pipelines are built into the housings of the finned heat transfer devices. Due to the ribbed structure, the heat transfer surface increases many times, which significantly contributes to the active circulation of heated air masses.

To install a warm water heating baseboard on your own, you must have sufficient experience in installing plumbing equipment. Telling below about the features of installing a warm water skirting board, we turn to just such people. This will help when choosing a particular heating system for your home.

The principle of operation of water plinths

The principle of heating a room with a liquid converter plinth is no different from heating with other devices.

Cold air enters through the bottom groove of the plinth body.

Passing through the heat exchanger, hot air slowly rises, evenly spreading throughout the entire volume of the room.

According to the laws of physics, the cooled air masses go down, thereby displacing the heated air up. Continuous circulation of the medium evenly heats the entire room.

Installation of skirting water heating system

In construction supermarkets, you can always purchase the ready-made system of water heating for skirting boards that you need. With even a little experience in plumbing work, you can easily make a warm plinth with your own hands. For more information about heating with a warm baseboard, see this video:

After the appropriate marking of the mounting points of the brackets and their installation, the fluid modules themselves are mounted (see above the installation of electrical skirting boards). Unlike electric heaters, the installation of liquid modules requires careful control of the tightness of the pipeline connections.

It is better to entrust the installation of the heating system of skirting boards to specialists.

Testing of installed skirting boards

Air molecules are much smaller than water molecules. Practice shows that checking the tightness of connections is more effective by creating a high pressure of compressed air inside the pipelines.

With the help of a compressor, an air pressure of about 5-6 bar is created in the pipes of the warm floor. All connections are covered with soapy water.

Bubbles will appear where leakage occurs. Leaks in the connections are eliminated and the entire system is re-tested for tightness.

Skirting boards

The structure of the water skirting boxes is no different from the lining of electrical modules. The boxes are usually made of thin enameled iron.

Manufacturers, meeting the wishes of consumers, make skirting board cases of various colors. Basically, the assortment is dominated by cases of white color or with a surface imitating precious woods, natural stone or genuine leather.

The popularity of baseboard heating is gradually growing. It is characterized by extreme compactness and is not striking when compared with classical heating systems. Let's see how to make a warm plinth with your own hands and what you need for this. Some sources claim that the system will only have maximum efficiency if it is assembled by a specialist. But in reality this is far from the case. The main thing is to have a set of tools and straight arms with you.

What is baseboard heating

It is possible to install baseboard heating with your own hands - there is nothing complicated about it. But before we give information on installation work, it is necessary to understand what a warm baseboard is and how it works. We will also talk about the varieties of plinth heating equipment.

The warm plinth, which we will make with our own hands, is a modern heating equipment with a minimum size. Already from one name it is clear that it is intended for installation in the plinth area. Here, compact radiators are used, resembling skirting boards in appearance, only of a larger size.

The very principle of operation of baseboard heating is interesting. It is convection, that is, the most ordinary natural convection works here. And the equipment itself is a compact convector heaters. These heaters work as follows:

A huge plus of warm baseboards is that they warm up not only the air in the room, but also its walls.

• Skirting convectors heat the air inside them, as a result of which it rises;
• Rising along the walls to the ceiling, warm air displaces colder air masses from there;
• The colder and denser air that has descended is sucked into the convectors and heated to go up again.

After some time, the room becomes noticeably warmer, because the air circulation covers the entire volume.

Warm baseboards differ from conventional radiators in that the warm air coming out of them sticks to the walls, gradually heating them up. After a while, they will stop pulling cold. Separately, it should be noted that the air near the floors will be almost as warm as in the middle of the room - thanks to this, users will not have the feeling of freezing feet.

If you are going to make a warm skirting board with your own hands, you will save money in the family budget. There is nothing complicated here, and any special or expensive tools are not needed for installation. And the efficiency of self-installation will not suffer a bit. But you will get at your disposal an extremely compact and almost imperceptible heating.

Varieties

In this review, we will tell you how to make a warm skirting board with your own hands. But before that, you need to decide what equipment will be used to heat the premises. Skirting heating can be water or electric, and the choice of a particular system depends on the availability of certain energy sources. Water systems are powered by boilers of any modification, and electrical systems need a reliable power supply.

Water heated skirting boards

Do-it-yourself installation of hot water skirting boards is a complex process. The system should turn out not only effective, but also airtight so as not to flood the floors and neighbors (if any). Water plinth heaters are small-sized convectors. The basis for their manufacture are non-ferrous metals - copper and aluminum. The pipes passing inside are made of copper, and the radiators are made of aluminum.

A non-ferrous metal bond provides equipment with maximum efficiency and heat dissipation. By the way, to increase the power, water convectors are made double-row - they are thicker, but more powerful.

When installing warm skirting boards with your own hands, you need to mark the contours - one or two contours for each room, depending on its area. The maximum recommended length for each loop is 15 meters. Accordingly, if the perimeter is larger, it is recommended to divide it into two circuits. Convectors in separate directions are connected in series.

To ensure uniform heating, a distribution manifold is installed in the system. Each circuit is powered by a separate pipe with a tap - if anything, the coolant supply can be shut off without affecting other circuits. This feature can come in handy in case of an emergency.

When installing a warm water plinth with your own hands, it should be remembered that the operation of this equipment in centralized heating systems is dangerous - convectors may not withstand water hammer or high pressure, which will lead to their destruction. In order to protect the heating from damage, an intermediate heat exchanger is installed in the system. As a result, an independent heating circuit is formed in an apartment with central heating, taking heat from the heating plant.

Electric warm skirting boards

Making an electric warm baseboard with your own hands is much easier than installing water radiators. The whole point is that this equipment is powered by the mains and does not require a coolant supply. Electric skirting convectors are similar in design to water appliances, but instead of copper pipes, heating elements are located here. They are the source of heat.

Skirting electric convectors can be equipped with built-in thermostats. But the easiest way to control each circuit is with an external thermostat. If necessary, consumers will be able to implement a remote control system via GSM networks or via the Internet.

Advantage and disadvantages

Now you know that warm baseboards can be water and electric. Let's now look at the pros and cons of baseboard heating, after which we move on to the do-it-yourself installation process. Let's start with the positives:

• Compactness is the most important advantage of a warm skirting board. The miniature dimensions of water and electric skirting convectors make the heating system almost invisible;
• Uniformity of heating - unlike traditional convector heating, warm skirting boards heat the premises more evenly. The air temperature near the floor covering is about the same as in the middle of the room;
• The possibility of heating premises for any purpose - warm skirting boards are mounted in children's rooms, living rooms, kitchens, office premises, as well as on covered balconies and loggias;
• The possibility of heating rooms with panoramic windows - baseboard heating will prevent the penetration of cold air into the room and ensure the fight against the formation of condensate.

In addition, warm skirting boards can work in conjunction with any other heating devices, such as wall convectors.

Key disadvantages:

When planning the installation of baseboard heating, make sure that the furniture does not interfere with the movement of air flow.

• When installing warm skirting boards with your own hands, you should consider the arrangement of furniture. The thing is that by blocking the plinth area with a high cabinet, this section will lose its effectiveness;
• Skirting heating not compatible with built-in furniture- it covers the installation area;
• High electricity consumption - true for electric warm skirting boards. Tariffs "on the light" are very high, so the monthly costs will be very impressive.

But the compactness and efficiency of baseboard heating more than covers all its shortcomings. Let's now see how to install a warm skirting board with your own hands.

Do-it-yourself installation work

We have come to the most important section, which will tell you how to make heating from warm skirting boards with your own hands. First, let's deal with water equipment.

Installation of water warm skirting boards

To install a warm water plinth with our own hands, we need:

• Collector with taps;
• metal-plastic pipes;
• Water plinth convectors with decorative covers and plugs;
• Thermal insulation;
• Set of tools;
• Metal or plastic adapters.

The first step is to install a heating collector and bring pipes to it that feed your baseboard heating.

First you need to install the collector and connect it to the heating system. The system itself can be powered by any type of boiler - gas, solid fuel, liquid, electric or universal. Remember that the recommended pressure in the system is 3 atm.

We continue to install warm skirting boards with our own hands - now we need to calculate the power of radiators based on the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe room. As an example, take a room of 12 square meters. m. (4x3 m) with one window. To heat it, we need 1.2 kW of thermal energy. The length of the perimeter, minus the doorway 90 cm wide, will be 13.1 meters. In total, we need 13 linear meters of baseboard heaters with a power of 100 W per 1 meter.

If necessary, you can purchase more powerful radiators and equip not all walls with skirting boards, but only some of them. This approach is useful if there are large wardrobes and built-in furniture in the rooms.

The next step in installing a warm plinth with your own hands is piping. They are laid on the rough floors, reaching the beginning of each circuit. There are two pipes for each circuit - one brings the coolant, and the other takes it. Here we also need adapters for connecting to radiators. After that, we proceed to the installation of plinth heaters.

When installing warm skirting boards with your own hands, do not forget about good thermal insulation - it fits between the walls and radiators. Next, we fasten the base to which the non-ferrous metal heat exchanger will be attached. After that, we proceed to connect the system - we fix the heat exchangers, connect them with straight or angle adapters, tightening the connecting nuts well to prevent leaks.

After you complete the installation of the contours of warm skirting boards with your own hands, it's time to check the system for leaks. The easiest option is to supply pressurized water to it, filling the entire system and drowning it out. Now we check all connections, making sure there are no leaks. If everything is normal, you can start the heating system and check it is in working order.

At the last stage, we close the radiators installed with our own hands with decorative covers (front profiles). The gaps between them and the end sections are closed with special plugs - everything here depends on the design of the selected radiators.

Now you know that there is nothing difficult in installing warm skirting boards with your own hands - you just need to ensure the tightness of all connections. If water is leaking somewhere, arm yourself with a wrench and tighten the connecting nuts. Please note that the hot coolant is usually supplied to the top pipe, and leaves through the bottom.

Installation of electric warm skirting boards

Electric baseboard heaters are mounted in much the same way as their water counterparts. Only they work not due to the hot coolant, but from the electrical network. Instead of a collector, a distribution electrical panel is installed in the system. In him it is necessary to provide for a separate circuit breaker for each circuit. For each room we will have one contour (direction).

Electric warm skirting boards are connected in the same way as ordinary electrical sockets.

Instead of pipes, we lay electrical wires - do not forget to make sure that they fit in the section, otherwise they may not withstand the load. In order to ensure the integrity of the connecting wires and extend their service life, we recommend laying them in flexible plastic pipes (when laying on a subfloor). You can also run cables along the walls, fixing them with mounting brackets.

To control the temperature, we recommend installing one thermostat for each room - separate adjustment will allow you to turn off an unnecessary circuit and save on electricity consumption. All this is easily installed and configured by hand, without the help of qualified specialists.

• Laying thermal insulation;
• We fasten the bases with heat exchangers;
• We make electrical connections;
• We close the equipment with decorative protective panels;
• We connect the circuits to the thermostats and to the switchboard.

Once again we inspect all electrical circuits, make sure that all connections are correct and that there are no protruding and bare conductors. After that, we turn on the machines in the shield and check the operation of the system.

Do-it-yourself electric warm skirting boards are much easier to install than water ones. There are no pipes and leaks, but working with electricity requires no less care. Remember that installation work must be carried out with a de-energized system - connect it only after a final check. In no case do not reach into the connected electric convectors with bare hands, as this can lead to an electric shock.

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