How to heat an apartment in the off-season. How to heat an apartment with an air conditioner
Heating for the home
Do you live in an apartment, cottage or house with central heating and you feel cold in the off-season until you turn on the heating? Do you have to install additional oil heaters or other convectors?
Have you noticed how they "unwind" the electricity meter? And the feeling of comfort leaves much to be desired - stuffy, stale air, the room does not warm up evenly ...
And you must admit that heating an apartment during this period is difficult and costly!
What to do?
The proposal to use electric heating seems absurd. Current heaters consume an incredible amount of electricity! What wiring needs to be done to make it last?
The optimal solution to the problem is EINT heating systems (electric infrared low-temperature panels).
Advantages of EINT panels
There are a number of points that distinguish our products from competitors. Our panels:
- They do not burn oxygen and do not create convection, because they heat up to only 60 * C, thereby creating a comfortable stay in the room.
- Do not take up space in the room! Their thickness is only 15 mm and they are attached to the wall, and do not stand in the middle of the room, weight is from 1 kg to 5 kg (if necessary, it is easy to remove to the balcony, behind the closet, etc.).
- Fire and explosion proof! They can be left unattended, do not require additional maintenance.
- Minimum electricity consumption! The power of one heater is from 105W to 600W. Any wiring will withstand such a load.
- Warranty period of operation - 5 years!
The off-season is the most inconvenient and uncomfortable period for us. Until recently, the sun was warming on the street, and with great pleasure we hurried to hide in the coolness of our apartments. With the onset of autumn, the situation changes radically. I don't want to rush home anymore. Despite the fact that it is dank and slushy outside, there is no particular desire to return to a cold, uncomfortable apartment. Until the heating is turned on, we, residents of city apartments, have only to dream of comfort. How to heat your own apartment without heating becomes a “fixed” idea, with which we rush about until hot water burbles in home batteries.
As the heating season approaches, most of us can endure the situation by trying to find different ways to keep warm in our own home. Another thing is when there is a small child in the house and it is critically impossible to allow a sharp decline in the off-season. The saddest situation is for those apartment owners who do not have heating in the house for technical reasons, and the imminent onset of winter does not bode well. But you should not despair. We live in an age of modern technology and great opportunities. Today, there are many options to heat your cold home in the absence of heating. Everyone can solve such a problem if they show ingenuity and desire.
It's cold in the apartment - finding a solution to the problem
The natural reaction of a normal person to cold is to find a way to keep warm. Even under the condition that we live in apartment buildings and sometimes we do not have the technical capabilities to fully express our imagination in this matter, we have plenty of strength and means at our disposal. Do not panic. The accumulated practical experience will tell you how to solve the problem. In addition, today there is a fairly wide choice of technical means for heating residential premises.
The most acceptable heating options in the apartment are as follows:
- electrical household heating appliances;
- autonomous gas heating.
Of these options, the first two are the simplest and quickly give results. It is enough to show a little ingenuity, skills and invest a certain amount of money. The last third option, which involves the installation of a gas boiler for autonomous heating, is associated with formal difficulties. Getting permission to install a gas boiler in an apartment when the house is connected to a centralized heating system is quite difficult. The problem is being solved for a long time, so with the onset of winter, such an undertaking will have to be postponed until later.
When the situation with the rapid cooling of the apartment due to a decrease in the temperature of the atmospheric air is repeated from year to year, zealous owners should think about how to increase the thermal efficiency of their homes. In order for the apartment not to cool down so quickly, to keep the heat accumulated over the summer longer, it is necessary to take care of the insulation of the apartment.
For reference: Long counted! Elementary measures for warming a city apartment: sealing cracks in window openings, installing seals on windows, vents and doors can increase the thermal efficiency of your apartment by 15-20% at once.
Having enough funds, you can think about radical warming of the apartment. Sealing and insulating interpanel seams, creating foam or mineral wool fur coats on the outside of your apartment panels will provide a tangible effect.
Measures for warming the apartment will provide you with reliable protection in the cold season from hypothermia in residential premises. The money invested will pay off, both morally and psychologically, already at the first frost on the street.
There is electricity in the house - this is already a real way to salvation. Many of us, if not the majority, in the off-season, when the batteries are still cold and it takes a long time to wait for the official onset of the heating season, resort to the help of electric household heaters.
Important! If household electrical heating appliances are used intensively, it is necessary to have appropriate wiring. The internal electrical network must be designed for an increased load, which increases significantly when electric heaters are turned on. Install a residual current circuit breaker that will monitor the condition of your wiring and prevent short circuits in the network.
We use electricity. What are the possibilities
Together with the insulation of the apartment, it does not hurt to think about the possibility of equipping the apartment with a permanent source of heat in your house. Stationary apartment heating systems using electricity are the most affordable way to avoid dependence on centralized heating. Here it is appropriate to talk about underfloor heating, thanks to which the heating of your apartment will no longer be a constant problem for you. Electricity is almost always available, so you should try to use this opportunity. Now in autumn or spring, when the batteries are not yet turned on, underfloor heating will solve all your heating problems.
Warm floors are becoming fashionable and commonplace today. With such a heating system, you are not afraid of cold central heating batteries. The required power is calculated based on the area of the room and the value of the specific heat flow for the corresponding type of room.
When using electric underfloor heating, it is important to remember the following: the electrical cable must cover up to 70% of the floor in the heated room.
For the main premises, the power of the warm floor should be at least 160-180 W per m 2. For auxiliary premises, this figure is 120-140 W per 1 m 2. During the installation of an electric floor, it is necessary to take into account the effective heating area (excluding the area occupied by furniture).
For example: To heat the kitchen in a city apartment on floors 2-7, a floor heating power of 2100W will be required. It is calculated as follows:
15x140= 2100W, where
- 15 sq. m. effective heated kitchen area;
- 140 W specific heat output for kitchen heating.
Properly made electrical wiring in the house and the corresponding calculations for the equipment of a warm floor will allow you to create a comfortable temperature inside the living quarters. The economic effect in this case will be quite noticeable when compared with the costs of operating household electric heaters.
A similar power calculation scheme is used when using all electric heaters.
Emergency heating methods
If you are going to heat a living space in an apartment with the help of electricity, you should carefully consider the selection of heating devices.
We have already dealt with the electric underfloor heating, and this method is more suitable for a major solution to the problem. On the other hand, domestic electric heaters have to be used as a temporary source of heat for the cold period. Each electrical appliance has its own optimal power, calculated for the effective heating of a certain space. To date, the following types of heaters using electricity are used in the domestic sphere.
- convectors;
- infrared thermal panels;
- oil coolers;
- thermal fans.
In each case, the scope of use of the device is determined. For each room, a specific type of electric heating is suitable. True, any housing can be equipped with convectors. The only condition is to correctly and competently carry out the installation of devices in the premises.
Important! There is one factor that few people take into account when choosing heaters. It's about ceiling height. In standard new apartments, the average ceiling height does not exceed 2300-2400 mm. In houses of old construction, there are rooms with a ceiling height of 2.5-3 m. When choosing a heater, it is necessary to take into account the power at the rate of + 25% for every 500 mm exceeding the established norm.
Convectors have high efficiency, besides, they are quite economical in operation. Due to the circulation of air currents, the air in the room warms up faster. Most of the devices are equipped with an automation system that regulates the mode of switching on and off devices depending on the set temperature conditions inside the room.
Infrared heaters are represented by models with an average of 1.5-2 kW of power. Carbon heaters, as one of the varieties of infrared heat source, have two or three times less power, creating a similar thermal effect. Such heaters are best equipped with thermostatic sensors.
Thermal fans, which are now massively on sale, are designed for the fastest possible effect. Small size and affordable cost are the main reasons for their popularity. At the same time, all the advantages are leveled by high power consumption and rather high noise.
As a successful alternative to stationary sources of electric heating, oil-filled radiators can be used. The simplicity of design and their durability captivate in terms of choosing such heat sources for heating residential premises. The only drawback that is characteristic of such heating devices is a long warm-up and a lot of weight.
Using electrical appliances and equipment to heat a residential apartment due to the lack of centralized heating, you can quickly and efficiently solve your problems. In any situation, there is always a way out.
In the spring, when there is central heating in Zhytomyr, but the temperature outside is low and the weather leaves much to be desired, you urgently begin to look for simple ways to keep warm and warm your home. Real estate site Domik.ua tells about the simplest and most effective ways to keep warm during the short but unpleasant spring cold.
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is essentially a heat pump that does not generate heat, but pumps it from the street.
The average efficiency of the air conditioner is 300%, that is, for 1 kW of electrical energy spent, it gives off 3 kW of heat.
The air conditioner will quickly warm up the house - the fan at maximum speed is able to mix all the air in the apartment, and the built-in thermostat will maintain a certain temperature automatically.
oil heater
This is one of the most common and inexpensive heaters. It is mobile and lightweight - it can be placed in any corner of the house, taken to the dacha or to the office.
The principle of operation of an oil heater is as follows - inside it is filled with oil, in which the heating elements are immersed. The thermostat maintains the set temperature.
Such a heater will be one of the best options for heating a small apartment for several days.
fan heater
A fan heater is a heating device that quickly heats up the air flow blown through the heating element, directing it in the right direction. In addition to the advantages of fan heaters, there are also disadvantages - its operation contributes to the combustion of dust and oxygen burnout.
Infrared heater
Infrared heaters do not heat the air, but work by transferring heat that falls on a person, objects and walls surrounding him.
Such heaters are small in size and weight, but create a risk of burns and consume a large amount of electrical energy.
In addition to the methods presented, it is possible to heat a room without spending money on the purchase of various appliances and without using large amounts of electrical energy.
Oven = fireplace
You can turn on the oven and open the oven so that the heat comes out and heats the room.
Thus, the kitchen will be filled with warm air and the people in it will not freeze. It is worth being careful with gas and the "aggressive" heat of the oven, which quickly burns the oxygen in the room.
Plastic windows
If you switch plastic windows to winter mode, they will let less cold air into the apartment, therefore, the room will be a little warmer.
To do this, you need to adjust the fittings on the window frame, as indicated in the instructions. This technique will help protect the room from sudden gusts of wind and noticeable drafts, but in winter mode, the seal on the window frame will wear out quickly, so it is not recommended to keep the window in winter mode all the time.
Hot water bottles
If you collect hot water in plastic or glass bottles and put them in bed, you can create a kind of heating pad in the bed. The bed will warm up, and it will be much more pleasant and comfortable to fall asleep - the legs will not freeze and the body will not overcool during sleep.
Do you know why every September you are forced to freeze in your own apartment, like manna from heaven, waiting for the central heating to be turned on? The fact is that in Russia there are regulations according to which heating can be started only after the average daily temperature for five days in a row does not exceed 8 degrees above zero.
In theory, during this time, apartment buildings should not yet have time to cool to a critical temperature. By the way, it is 18 degrees above zero. The thermometer can drop even lower - but no more than three degrees. Only when the temperature in your apartment drops below 15 degrees, the utilities may have problems. In you, they can start even earlier - many can get sick even at a 20-degree temperature, not to mention a colder room.
Most often, tips on space heating are relevant for the night time, when the temperature in the apartment drops to the minimum values per day, and we cannot actively spend time in order to warm up in this way. However, freezing in your own apartment at night due to the turned off central heating radiators is completely optional. AiF.ru knows at least five ways to raise the temperature in the apartment, so as not to come down with the disease in anticipation of the start of the heating season.
Air conditioning
To heat the apartment in the first way, we need an air conditioner. For some reason, many people forget that the air conditioner can perform not only its direct function - to cool the room, but also act in a completely opposite direction - to heat the air in the apartment.
In most models, it is enough to simply set the temperature with the control panel above the one that you observe in the apartment at that moment. The air conditioner will automatically begin to drive warm air around the room, warming it. In some cases, you will have to look into the manual (if you saved it) or look for instructions for the air conditioner on the Internet - you have to turn on the special heating function that should be in your device.
electric heater
The most common way to warm up in a cold room with the central heating turned off is to turn on an electric heater.
The two most familiar types of electric heaters are the fan heater and the oil heater. The first, however, is not suitable for night time: it is too noisy and not designed for long-term use. The second operates on the principle of a conventional radiator, only it is not water that is heated in it, but special oil. It takes a long time to warm up a room, but modern oil heaters are perfectly safe to leave overnight.
Recently, mankind has invented several more types of electric heaters. The first of them is an electric convector: cold air, passing through a heating coil, heats up and exits from the top of the device. But such heaters also have disadvantages - they are quite bulky, like oil heaters, by the way, and relatively expensive.
The most modern heaters are infrared and carbon. They work on the same principle - a lamp that emits infrared rays heats people and objects without heating the air. But for a night vigil, such a heater is also hardly suitable - a lamp, even IR, even carbon, emits a fairly strong glow and will interfere with sleep.
Bathroom
The third way to raise the temperature in the apartment is very simple. To use it, just open the doors to the bathroom. During the day, we would also advise you to take a hot bath, but at night its heat will not be enough - the water will quickly cool down, giving up all the heat, and will become useless.
The meaning of open doors is that the temperature in the bathroom is a priori several degrees higher than throughout the apartment. This happens thanks to the hot water riser, which acts in the same way as a central heating battery. That's just for the summer no one turns it off. Not the last role in heating the bathroom is played by a heated towel rail, which also remains hot 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
Of course, you won’t heat the whole apartment like that, but it’s still possible to raise the overall temperature by 1-2 degrees using this method.
Electric heating pads
In the second half of September, in the evening in your own unheated apartment, one more electrical appliance will help to warm up - a heating pad. Typically, heating pads have a medical function and are used to warm up some part of the body that needs heat therapy. But they can also be used for other than their intended purpose, if the situation forces.
In most modern electric heaters, which are present in the assortment on the shelves of pharmacies, there is a special temperature controller. By setting it to the minimum value, you can create a completely comfortable atmosphere in bed that will allow you not to freeze on a September night.
Do not despair if even the minimum value in the electric heating pad is too hot for you. The heating pad can be placed not on its traditional place under the sheet, but on top, on the blanket. In this case, it will give you less heat, which will partially go into the atmosphere, and you will not experience overheating.
Carpets and crevices
It is worth noting that we ourselves, even at night during sleep, produce a fairly large amount of heat. In order to heat a room exclusively on its own, it is necessary to minimize heat loss.
First of all, they occur due to the presence of cracks. If you do not have plastic windows, then you will have to glue their perimeter with a special insulation that will not allow cold air to enter the apartment through the cracks, and warm air to seep out. The same applies to the front door - its perimeter should also be glued with a special insulation.
Also, cool surfaces have a big impact on the temperature in the room. First of all, this applies to the floor and glass on the windows. To prevent the air in the whole room from being cooled by window panes, it is better to curtain the windows with thick curtains at night, which will cover almost the entire space from the cornices to the floor. This will keep some of the cool air between the window and the curtains, preventing it from getting into the rest of the room. All this is due to the low degree of thermal conductivity. Thanks to the same property of dense fabric, you can keep the heat in the room by covering the floor with any carpet.
Most apartments located in cities are connected to central heating. This brings both its convenience and inconvenience at the same time. The owners have a lot of wishes that they cannot realize due to special restrictions. In this article, we will tell you how to get around them by absolutely legal methods.
When heating an apartment from central heating, we encounter the following inconveniences:
- It is impossible to mount the radiators that you want. In fact, you are limited to two models: cast iron and bimetal. But there are also aluminum, copper-aluminum, steel, design and others.
- It is not always possible to hide the pipes and they run outside. This design spoils the modern interior.
- Do not use a water floor system.
There is, of course, a significant plus - you do not need to make a boiler room. But how to combine the possibilities of central heating of an apartment and at the same time organize everything the way you want? There is a solution!
How to put any radiators?
The coolant in central heating has special impurities that adversely affect many models of radiators. Therefore, they are not put in apartments. In fact, in order to solve this problem, it is necessary to make sure that instead of the CHP heat carrier, there is our ordinary water.
For these purposes, it is necessary at the place where the central heating risers enter the apartment.
A heat exchanger is a device that removes heat from one source and transfers it to another source. Simply put, this is our intermediary, who will simply take the heat from the CHP and transfer it to our own heating system inside the apartment.
What are the benefits of a heat exchanger?
- Performs the function of a boiler, by removing heat
- Allows you to create your own heating system inside the apartment with its own coolant and pressure.
- Allows you to implement any heating options
The use of a heat exchanger has its drawbacks:
- It crashes periodically. Requires dismantling and flushing
- In addition to the heat exchanger, it is necessary to mount an expansion tank, a pump and related fittings.
By installing a heat exchanger, you can mount any radiator system: beam, two-pipe and others. You can hide the pipes in a screed. You can use any pipe materials without worrying that they will become unusable. You can use any brand of radiators.
Heating the apartment through the floor
An example of the layout of a water-heated floor
If you want to do it, then you can’t do it directly in any case for the following reasons:
- The pressure in the central heating is quite high. Not every underfloor heating pipe can withstand such a load for a long time.
- The coolant temperature is much higher than what we need. You will feel overheated and uncomfortable
- The CHP coolant will also negatively affect the service life of underfloor heating pipes
How, then, to provide your apartment with underfloor heating from central heating? Still through the same heat exchanger. Everything here is similar to a radiator heating system, with the only difference being that the heat exchanger must be calculated taking into account the use for water floors.
Keep in mind that installation of water floors in an apartment is not allowed everywhere. Sometimes it is prohibited by law. Please check this in your region.
Heating in the off-season
Quite often a situation arises when the apartment is quite cool, but heating has not yet been given. What to do in this case?
You can mount an electric boiler separately and use it in the off-season. And when they give central heating, open the heat exchanger and warm yourself through it.
In fact, the same method can insure you against sudden accidents at a thermal power plant. Although this rarely happens, it does happen, and you always have an alternative source of heating.
Outcome
As you understand, just one device gives you many advantages when heating an apartment. Of course, the system becomes a little more complicated and becomes more expensive. Also, the heat exchanger requires periodic maintenance.
So it's up to you to decide. If you want it to be your way, then put the heating through the heat exchanger and you will enjoy for many years.