Most commercial buildings are not short of heating controls. They have a building management system, zone sensors, thermostatic valves, maybe a thermostat in each underfloor room. What they do not have is the ability to say what any single room is doing right now, or to heat it only when somebody is in it.
That gap is where commercial heating costs quietly go.
A typical commercial building is split into a handful of heating zones. Coventry’s Council House, a Grade 1 listed building from 1917, was running on three. One decision covers dozens of rooms with completely different uses, orientations and occupancy patterns.
The results are predictable. Rooms at the far end of a pipe run never get warm. Rooms near the plant overheat and the windows go open. Nobody can check a room’s temperature without walking into it, so complaints get answered with guesswork.
Wireless smart valves on each radiator, with occupancy detection, give every room its own setting and let it fall back when nobody is there. Temperature and occupancy are recorded, so a cold room complaint can be checked rather than argued about, and a faulty valve shows up as a pattern instead of a mystery.
Where there is air conditioning as well, it is brought under the same control so the two cannot run against each other. More on how it works and on air conditioning and ventilation.
Coventry City Council is the clearest example of what this looks like in a difficult building. The Council House is Grade 1 listed and completed in 1917, so the historic fabric had to be preserved and extensive cabling and drilling were out of the question.
Because the system is wireless, it was not an issue. Control HQ fitted motion sensing controls across more than 250 radiators plus the ventilation and air conditioning, with the smart valves colour matched to the cast iron radiators. The installer worked around the meeting room schedule to limit disruption. It was completed in October 2021 and funded through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
The council estimated energy savings of over 60% in the first winter compared with the year before. That is their estimate rather than a metered figure from us, and the building started from an unusually poor baseline, so treat it as what is possible in the worst cases rather than a number to expect everywhere.
Two other things came out of it. Radiators at the far ends of pipe runs, which had always stayed cold, started heating properly. And the extra electric heaters people had brought in to compensate could be taken away.
Commercial buildings cannot be emptied for a refurbishment. The work is done room by room, the valves fit wirelessly with no pipework altered, and installation is scheduled around how the building is actually used. At Coventry that meant working around the meeting room diary in a working council building.
More on installation and project management, and on servicing and maintenance once it is running.
It will not fix an undersized boiler, poor insulation or single glazing. If a building loses heat faster than the system can put it back, better control will show you that clearly and in detail, but it will not solve it.
It also needs a conversation with the people who use the building. At Coventry some occupants tried to adjust the valves by hand at first and complained when that did not work as expected. It was resolved, but it is worth planning for rather than discovering.
We already have a BMS. Does this replace it?
Usually not. It fills the gap underneath it. A BMS manages plant and zones well. This manages individual rooms, which is the level most buildings have never had.
Will it work in a listed building?
Yes. The controls are wireless, so there is no cabling or drilling, and valves can be colour matched. Coventry’s Council House is Grade 1 listed.
Can it control air conditioning as well as heating?
Yes, and that is often where the quickest saving is, because it stops the two running against each other.
How disruptive is the installation?
Room by room, wireless, no pipework altered, and scheduled around how the building is used.
What sort of saving should we expect?
It depends entirely on how far from ideal the building is now. Coventry estimated over 60% in their first winter, but they started from three zones across a listed building, which is close to a worst case. We would rather look at the site than give you a number up front.
If nobody in your building can say what temperature a given room is at right now, that is the problem we solve. Book a free heating assessment and we will tell you what we would change.
