Penrith Baptist Church

Hydronic Floor Heating

The Facility

The Penrith Baptist Church is located at Caddens (Clairmont Meadows), NSW, Australia. The new facility was built in 2014 and includes a café, a number of rooms and a 250-seat auditorium.  It is specifically located in a community location to offer a local feel as opposed to being placed in the centre of town.

The Issue

In Penrith, the winter temperatures can average as low as 5°C and is recorded to occasionally fall below zero, which would lead to the indoor temperature of the church dropping to unacceptable levels at peak church times. To avoid people feeling cold and uncomfortable, the parish decided to install hydronic underfloor heating in the auditorium.

Implementation

Devex Systems installed a hydronic system in the topping slab with insulation placed between the structural and topping concrete slabs to ensure faster warm up times and less energy waste, controlled by a DEVIreg 330 thermostat. This installation was done at the time of construction to allow for easy connection to the floor heating system.

Hydronic floor heating is a great option for large, open areas and works well under hard floor coverings such as marble, stone, slate, polished concrete and all varieties of tiles. The Baptist Church has a polished concrete floor surface with XPS100 (100mm thick) thermal insulation between the slabs.

In-topping-slab and in-screed hydronic heating involves the laying of extremely durable piping on top of the structural slab. The pipes can be laid in a concrete slab or sand/cement screed bed of at least 50 mm in depth and can be covered by a suitable floor surface. The extruded polystyrene foam (XPS) insulation under the heating pipes ensures that the system will be faster acting than an in slab system. This system radiates heat from the floor upwards creating a comfortable, gently heated environment with no draughts, dust or noise. The heating is controlled using floor sensing thermostats that regulate the hot water to the pipe circuits.

Results

Devex Systems met on site with the Pastor and his wife on a cold winter’s morning after the system had been commissioned.  The thermostats were controlling to 31°C on the floor surface, which was good when the auditorium use is for an average of only 3 hours.  Normally the floor surface would be set by the user to a temperature which is a few degrees lower.  The Pastor and church goers were very pleased with the comfortable outcome.