One of the founding partners in an Exeter based heating company has opted to make use of OMNIE’s latest and most advanced underfloor heating system during the refurbishment of his own home along with two other products from the extensive range.
Jack Butt set up DC. Plumbing & Heating seven years ago with business partner, Michael Clapp and has built up a strong reputation working with builders doing high end refurbishment and new-build projects across Devon and Cornwall. The MCS registered firm has completed numerous commercial as well as residential projects where the OMNIE underfloor systems have helped them to optimise the performance of air source heat pumps.
Jack’s own home is a 1960s semi-detached, three-bedroom house that is being completely stripped out and refitted, as well as having a ground floor extension constructed. Connecting the various zones of the new TorFloor 2 system to the building’s heating circuits, one of OMNIE’s six branch manifolds has been installed in a utility cupboard.
Jack Butt commented: “As with the original TorFloor which we’ve used extensively in our work over the years, TorFloor 2 offers ease of installation: avoiding the need to lay a separate chipboard deck across the floor joists. Being able to install a panel, which has the routed grooves ready to receive the heating pipe, is a real advantage and also represents a low-build solution which can be very important in retrofit situations; while it’s also a fairly speedy process. As well as the TorFloor 2 we are also going to be laying OMNIE’s Staple system within the new extension which is still being built, while the existing parts of the ground floor will have ULTIMATE 2 laid over the prepared substrates.
We have in the past also fitted the company’s Zehnder MVHR and different controls for a whole- house system. Whatever we are doing, we always find OMNIE’s sales and technical people very helpful.”
While many in the industry believed that the original TorFloor panel represented the optimum in terms of integrating underfloor heating pipes into a quick-to-install structural flooring panel, UK based manufacturer OMNIE has taken both the practicality and the performance to a new level with the introduction of TorFloor 2®.
The new generation TorFloor 2® evolves from the market-leading TorFloor ® predecessor by adding a 6mm thick chipboard upper panel with pre-foiled aluminium heat diffuser. Crucially both panels feature matching routed channels to perfectly align around the 12mm water pipe, while the printed upper face clearly indicates the pipe’s position and the points where screws can be safely fixed.
Not only does this arrangement greatly reduce the risk of the pipe runs being accidentally damaged when floor coverings are installed or replaced, but the location of the routed channels places the warm water pipes closer to the surface: delivering faster warm-up times.
This design means that an output of 50 W/m 2 can be achieved with a flow temperature of 41 0 Centigrade, making TorFloor 2® ideal for coupling with the air or ground source heat pumps offered by OMNIE, while a 50 0 Centigrade flow will raise the output to 84 W/m 2 .
