Heat Interface Units (HIU) are an integral part of a community heat network or district heating system serving multi residential accommodation & providing effective control of heating and domestic hot water to individual apartments or houses. The units offer ultra-safe well-known technology using only low pressure heating water in apartments.
Community Heating Networks use a single energy centre to distribute heat via a primary pipe network throughout the building. Each individual property uses an HIU to connect to a secondary network of radiators or underloor heating and provide instant domestic hot water via a plate heat exchanger or stored hot water via a cylinder.
High rise apartments and other mulit-occupancy buildings are increasingly being designed with community heat networks as they eliminate gas supplies and flues within residential sections of the building and allow for a variety of central heat sources, including renewables (CHP, biomass, heat pumps. solar). Community heating networks can operate on a 3 pipe system of primary flow and return and boosted cold water supplied to each dwelling.
Many HIU's are twin plate units that provide heating and instantaneous domestic hot water and maximise space efficienc, however marrying an HIU to a hot water cylinder is a popular alternative. Stored hot water can provide better flow rates in multi-outlet situations and will provide hot water in emergency situations where there is a problem with the community heat network.
DHW Diverter valve on twin plate units ensures that when DHW is demanded, all primary heat is allocated to DHW production. When demand is satisfied the diverter reverts to space heat. This has minimal impact on the occupant's comfort.
OSO's technical department can advise on specification and system design. We can manufacture bespoke HIU's to meet your design requirements. The OSO HIU units offer reduced annual boiler servicing cost over individual boilers.
All Connexion HIU's are fitted with a standard M-BUS Ultrasonic Wired Heat Meter, with wireless option available. These can be connected to a Master Reader to collate metering information on the M-BUS network.