I'm researching into the performance of heat pumps in houses, particularly into retro-fit. Received wisdom is that heat pumps, because they don't don't produce high temperatures like boilers, are not so well suited to heating with wet radiators, but the occupants of my heat-pump-running houses seem reasonably happy with their kit. So I would like to run some simulation of dwellings with lower temperature distribution to compare UFH with rads to see how much extra radiator you need to compensate for the lower temperatures and compare that with what's actually installed.

I am reasonable knowledgeable of IES VE, and don't think that that package can do this simulation. I am looking at ESP-R but at the moment can't see whether that will do it. Any suggestions? It may be that use of pure-ish physics might get me some answers, but the actual physics of radiator output is not simple either....

Thanks in advance

Bob Irving

Thanks for this. IDA ICE looks very nice, but the fact that they don't quote prices on their website means it's probably damagingly expensive...... The people at Strathclyde seemed to think that Esp-r will do what I want - just a case of whether my sanity will survive it.......

Bob