PLANNING AND INSTALLATION BY DELTASOLAR > OUR MATERIALS
DELTAFLUID ADDITIVE
We provide our customers with our additive "DELTAFLUID" to add to the insulating interstice made with sand and cement that normally covers our circuits. The additive is provided with a table of instructions that explain how to obtain the correct mix and how to correctly place the slabs. This addictive is used to improve the thermal conductivity and the features of the insulating interstice without having to add too much water, which could cause cracks.
MANIFOLDS
The various circuits of a house depend on a manifold and are provided with valves to independently set each room’s temperature, in a manual or thermostatic way. It is therefore possible to have different temperatures in different environments at different times, as well as exclude the rooms that are not used.
FLOOR INSULATION
Generally a 3 cm layer of insulating material is enough. It has to be placed on the slab to concentrate both the heat and the refrigeration towards the floor. There are different insulating materials that can be used according to the environment.
PERIMETER STRIPS
Perimeter strips are used to insulate the floor from the walls and to compensate the dilatations of the floor. Normally they are placed together with the insulating panels of the background by placing the strip between the insulating material and the wall. The floor feels like it’s afloat and the perimeter strips, being soft, allow the slab to adjust without problems keeping the floors from applying pressure on the walls.
SPECIFIC EQUIPMENT
Each circuit is traced and custom installed thanks to our specific elastic moulds. To lie the pipe, our technicians use specific equipments, such as articulated carts. With these techniques it is possible to avoid to apply tension on the pipe, and therefore it is possible to obtain, with a precise installation, a uniform temperature and to guarantee a very long life-span without any problems.
PIPE STAPLES
Our patented system is characterized by the possibility to place the pipe staples without any kind of bond.
Clamping systems are essentially two:
A) The staples are screwed onto a background made of insulating panels;
B) The staples are applied on specific guide rails with reduced insulation (for the particular cases).
Both of the solutions allow to have the maximum thermal exchange: the staples keep the circuits detached from the insulating material, and therefore this unique system allows the pipe to exchange 100% of heat. The screed fully surrounds the pipe even in its lower part, and make the slab more resistant.
Even in the bathrooms we can place the correct amount of piping, going around the fixtures or the drain pipes. Our patented staples don’t put the pipes under any kind of tension because they can adjust themselves by rotating, thus allowing a precise installation in any circumstance.
FEATURES OF DELTASOLAR PIPES
Deltasolar pipes are made in reticulated HDPE with thermal memory and anti-oxygen barrier. This material is considered as the most durable for thermal systems, and it was also chosen to make the external sheath of high-voltage cables and phone cables placed under water.
Acknowledged by international institutes that check the quality of used plastic materials, our Deltasolar pipes are much better than others made in polypropylene, polybutylene and their byproducts. Aside from decreasing the heat conductivity coefficient by half, these materials – often used by other companies – undergo a sudden aging; this doesn’t happen to reticulated polyethylene used in our systems.
THE MATERIAL
At Deltasolar we have always wanted to choose the best materials possible for our radiant floors.
For such systems a high importance lies in the life-span, the fact that they are maintenance free, the resistance to chemical substances that are in the water such as chloride… There are several materials used for radiant floors’ pipes, but Deltasolar has chosen the one that has proven to be the best: PEX-b, or reticulated HDPE with thermal memory and anti-oxygen barrier.
IT WON’T ENCRUST, IT WON’T CLOG
The surface inside the pipe is extremely smooth, so that the substances in the water won’t be able to adhere to the walls, which is what happens with other kinds of pipes, in particular the metallic ones.
For this reason, our pipes can be used also in those areas where there is a lot of limestone in the water without risking to get encrusted or clogged. The worst that can happen is to have a very thin ferric layer that doesn’t create any problem to the piping.
COLOR
Due to commercial purposes, there are several colored pipes for radiant floors. Our choice has always been to use pipes whose color is the natural color of the material used, without any chemical addition.
This choice leads to two advantages:
1) The inspection devices that verify the pipe while it’s being produced can easily identify problems in the material, and therefore the defective parts are immediately discarded.
2) Since the pipe is semi-transparent, it is possible to see very easily if there are any air bubbles in the water while the system is being filled up or tested.
NO JOINTS
We have chosen to avoid joints in the piping of our radiant floors; this choice guarantees an optimal security and a long life-span. Our pipes start and end from the manifold: the only joints are therefore visible, hidden by the manifold’s painted hatch. We use joints only when a pipe is accidentally damaged, after the system has been installed. If this happens, the position of the joint will be written down on the blueprints of the system, because if after thirty or fifty years there is a leak, it will surely be a leak from the joint, not from the pipe.
DILATATION
Deltasolar’s pipes dilate in a way that is different from the common metallic pipes, and it doesn’t create any problem with the flooring. Reticulated polyethylene pipes have a dilatation rate that is higher than that of steel; however, the warm water circulating in the system slightly softens the pipes, and therefore there is no pressure applied on the slab. An auto-compression effect takes place, avoiding damages to the floors: it is evident that it is necessary to follow correctly the instructions given by Deltasolar’s technicians.
Just like in any other floor, the variation of the temperature leads to a lateral dilatation towards the walls; for this reason it is necessary to place a perimeter strip in between the walls and the slab.
THERMAL MEMORY
It is a feature of reticulated polyethylene pipes used for Deltasolar’s pipes. The pipes are heated at a temperature of 134°C in order to remove any kind of deformation they might have. At this temperature, the pipe becomes transparent and regains the original molecular shape.
PIPE INSPECTION
The pipes we use for our systems are designed specifically to be used for radiant floors, and they are inspected according to the European Norms.
In particular, these are the checks that are performed:
1 - Inspection of the raw material
2 - High reticulation rate
3 - Dimensional features analyzed through ultrasound devices and the capability to withstand high temperatures and pressures.
Each coil of pipe produced specifically for Deltasolar has to undergo two pressure tests: a short one at 28 atm, and a longer one at 5 atm. After the system has been installed, Deltasolar’s technicians run a further test with air at a pressure of 5 atm.
TESTING
It is performed with pressurized air, and with micrometric balance of the circuits using flux-meters and manometers; afterwards the slab is placed. Air is chosen instead of water because air molecules are smaller and allow to easily find potential leaks occurred after the testing phase.