What is heating? Why heating is needed?

The question "what is heating" at first glance seems banal or even strange. After all, every schoolboy knows what it takes for heating, what is heating and when it is most relevant. Nevertheless, there are still people who do not fully understand the essence of such a concept as heat loss and their inevitability.

The first heating system was a fire in the cave of an ancient man. With the advent of fire, people realized that with the cold can only fight heat from the fire, and with the advent of the first so to say housing in the form of caves or tents - began to actively work on the conservation of this heat in their homes. These were the beginnings of such a fashionable nowadays human activity, as energy saving. With the resettlement of man in the cold latitudes of the heating system was improved, the home was warmed up. The "assortment" of heat sources, from straw, wood and gas to the energy of the atom, of the sun, of infrared radiation, is expanding exponentially to this day, and the assortment of materials for insulation is expanding in parallel.

What prompted and prompted such a rapid development of human thought and for the sake of which man has invested so much of his intellect and invests in this direction of his activities in the heating? The answer is banal and simple - it is the usual cold and the man's original desire for comfort and warmth in his home, as now it is customary to say, to a good microclimate in it, to comfort. And now there is another stimulus - the exhaustion and constant rise in the cost of traditional heat sources.

As you know, any room is intended for protection from the environment with its atmospheric phenomena, low or too high temperature, the effect of wind and sun. There is a room that, too, everyone knows, with external protections - windows, doors, walls, roofs, floors, ceilings, and the like. Each of these protections has its own properties and the ability to keep or pass heat. When there is any source of heat in the room and we want to maintain a certain temperature in it, and the temperature outside the room is much lower, then the heat through the external protection, due to the temperature difference, goes outside. And the bigger this difference, the greater the amount of heat left the building. This, in fact, is the heat loss of the room. Heat losses can be reduced by improving the quality of the external protective materials or increasing their thickness, but such an improvement or increase has a certain economic and thermophysical limit of expediency. External protection should "breathe" - to absorb and pass outside the moisture and gases. Heat losses are irreversible with any thickness of protection or their quality, but firstly, in addition to heat, a person needs fresh air, and secondly, in its life itself provides heat, moisture and various gases. Actually, heat loss due to the removal of exhaust air from the premises is a significant fraction of the total heat loss and this will not go away anywhere.

Heat losses and heating

Consequently, the main task of heating - to compensate for all heat loss of the room to maintain its optimum temperature. Expressing in the scientific heating - is heating the premises of the building in order to compensate for heat loss in it and maintain the appropriate temperature parameters.

The work of heating is characterized by a certain periodicity during the year and the variable nature of the power consumption of the heat source. It depends, above all, on meteorological conditions and the climate of the area where the heated building is located. Obviously, with the decrease in the temperature of the outside air, the amount of heat coming through the heating should increase, and with the increase of the temperature of the outside air and the influence of solar radiation - on the contrary, decrease. And if in ancient times a man could burn firewood in fire, or extinguish it, to pour coal or peat into a furnace if necessary, then modern heating systems allow the process of regulating the supply of heat to the premises in an automatic mode, depending on the temperature of the outside air.

The variety of types and heating systems is today evident. The technology and equipment of heating systems are developing very rapidly, and this is primarily due to economic factors.