ClimaCool Heating/Cooling System from Wavin RCS Makes Temperature Control of Concrete Ceilings a Matter of Minutes

Targeted at further reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions, European Directive 2002/91/EC calls for a clear improvement in the “entire energy efficiency” of buildings. By January, 2006, the Directive is to be translated by all member states of the European Union into national legislation that treats a building as an overall energetic system. This will require new heating and cooling concepts. The ClimaCool CCW system from Wavin RCS offers architects and their clients, today, an innovative as well as integral solution for comfortable heating and cooling ceilings at minimised energy consumption and reduced system costs.

The ClimaCool CCW system was specially developed to create a heating/cooling system for concrete ceilings with a temperature control that reacts in minutes. The key benefit of the system is the combination of extremely efficient heating and cooling in one single system. Typical competitive systems in this field follow the principles of core-activating the concrete ceiling, resulting in very inert control behaviour. For these reasons, the traditional core-activated concrete ceilings can only meet the basic load of the required heating temperature, thus demanding an auxiliary heating system. In contrast, the pre-fabricated ClimaCool CCW heating/cooling modules feature pipes with smaller diameters that are integrated into the concrete ceiling very close to the ceiling surface. In this way, the air in a room can be heated or cooled, as needed, within minutes, without sacrificing the advantages of the storage mass of the concrete ceiling in stationary operation.

Comparative measuring has shown that ClimaCool CCW offers a cooling capacity of 80 W/m2 at a mean cooling water temperature of 17.5°C and a room temperature of 26°C. This is more than twice the capacity of common core-activated systems, and has a particularly beneficial effect between the summer and winter seasons, when there is often a need for heating in the morning and then for cooling by noon. A heated ClimaCool CCW concrete ceiling with a surface temperature of 24°C can be cooled to below 20°C within far less than 60 minutes – a fraction of the cooling time required with a core-activated system. The fast reaction temperature control ideally meets the individual heating and cooling requirements in offices while eliminating the need for a radiator heating system.

In addition, ClimaCool CCW requires unsurpassed short installation times on site. For 400 m2 of active ClimaCool CCW ceiling surface, for instance, the actual construction work will only need to be interrupted for approx. 8 hours, in contrast to approximately 18 hours for typical core-activated concrete ceilings.

The ClimaCool CCW ceiling modules are manufactured by Wavin RCS tailored to the specific shape and size of each ceiling. They consist of pre-fabricated pipe registers with PB pipes of 12 x 1.5 mm in size and oxygen-proof according to DIN 4726 and ISO/CEN 10508. A supporting rail clip ensures the proper position of the pipes at a distance of 10 cm to the ceiling surface, and can also carry the load of the lower reinforcement of the ceiling. A tread-on steel wire mesh protects the registers from mechanical damage. A protective tube with a ceiling duct element serves for connecting the modules.

“Heating and cooling ceilings will become the preferred solution for commercial buildings with high indoor heating and cooling loads,” says Josef Steiner, Technical Director for Wavin RCS. One major reason for this is the continuous improvement of the thermal enclosure of buildings, reducing the heating requirements to a range of 25 to 50 W per square meter of utilised indoor area. At the same time, the technical equipment in rooms such as offices results in a thermal increase of 15 to 30 W/m2. Therefore, efficient cooling is gaining importance. In spite of this, approximately 80% of all new office buildings are still being equipped with radiator or floor heating systems.

“The large-surface, even heating and cooling of ClimaCool CCW also brings ideal

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