Planning for change#
Don’t assume that in future your heating should warm people the same way it does now. Often we are trying to heat the air when we should really be thinking in terms of making the people warm. This is especially true in buildings that aren’t used that much or where it’s difficult to keep the warm air from leaking out.
You need to think ahead about what to do when your heating fails, because otherwise you will be trapped into the same way of doing things. Figure out now which you should be doing, heating the air or heating the people, keeping in mind that you could do a bit of each. For instance, you might use space heating to take the worst of the chill off the air, with locally controlled “on-demand” radiant heating top up on comfort when it’s needed. The top up heating might be for anyone who wants it, only for vulnerable groups, or only used in very cold weather.
The more you heat the people instead of the air, the less you need to worry about expensive ways of keeping the warm air from leaving the building.
If your space heating system will fail soon, you should plan urgently how to replace it and expect major changes in a relatively short time. Otherwise, you don’t have to make all of your changes at once. For instance, if you think you should be heating the people, you could install some radiant heating in just one area to start. Or you could install it throughout a space, but keep the gas boiler in place until you are sure that you don’t need it in extreme weather. If you discover it’s necessary, then it would be time to plan for changing it to a small heat pump, keeping an eye out for a good time to install the under-floor heating if that’s what’s best for your premises. It depends on the circumstances and what grants are available when. We have to be pragmatic in our approach to making change.