Buildings are an important part of everyone’s daily life. Improving their energy efficiency is essential to achieving decarbonization goals. In fact, about 60 percent of the residential sector’s energy consumption is used each year to provide air conditioning for the more than 26 million occupied homes in Italy. Maintaining indoor comfort is closely linked to the efficiency and decarbonization of energy consumption in the residential sector.

Air-conditioning systems play an important role in this area, not only from the point of view of efficient heat transformation, but also in terms of heat diffusion in the environment. Among the most widely used technologies in new homes, or in the case of major renovations, radiant systems are widely used, a technology that deserves to be thoroughly evaluated in order to fully exploit its potential.

To study the thermal phenomena associated with radiant floors, RSE carried out theoretical and experimental research, examining in its EFFE laboratory in Piacenza two types of specially made low-thickness radiant floors. In particular, low-thickness radiant floors exhibit a faster response than traditional radiant floors, which is useful for more accurately tracking changes in a home’s thermal needs. Both radiant systems were constructed with self-leveling screed with different conductivity values in order to experimentally compare their performance.

The performance of the two radiant floors was determined and compared by evaluating their heat fluxes, efficiencies and useful effects through a special experimental campaign. The analyses were supported by finite difference thermodynamic models for a greater understanding of the thermodynamic phenomena involved. The research activity made it possible to assess that an increase in the thermal conductivity of the radiant floor screed of 23.7 percent led to an average increase in the thermal energy transferred to the environment of 4.9 percent, a result lower than expected.

The study also made it possible to develop a simplified theoretical model that allows the thermal behavior of a radiant floor to be evaluated in various configurations, both in steady-state and transient regimes.