An innovative floor heating application -Transfer of excess heat between two building zones

The performance of an innovative floor heating application is explored. A two zone building is studied; one zone is frequently overheated due to intensive solar gains while the second zone is essentially unaffected from incident solar radiation. The aim is to explore the possibility to simply extract excess heat from the overheated zone. The idea is to transfer extracted heat through the hydronic floor heating pipe to the second zone; hence, the heat demand for the second zone is decreased. Simulation results yielded a reduced indoor air temperature in the warm zone. The most prominent improvements in thermal comfort were found during night time. Furthermore, the total heat supply was slightly reduced by actively transfer heat between the zones. It can be concluded that the potential to substantially reduce the total heat demand is not found. The duration of heat extraction in the overheated zone is also quite short.