Latest technical guidance for members

Professionalism is at the heart of the CIPHE’s mission and, as part of this, the Institute’s technical advisory team is constantly working to ensure its members stay up to date on the latest technical guidance for plumbing and heating design and installations.

A key tool in achieving this is the Plumbing Engineering Systems Design Guide (PESDG) series, and in recent years the team has been working on new additions to focus on low-temperature, low-carbon design and solutions to help members – and your customers – address the urgent need for action to decarbonise our heating and hot water needs.

In January, the CIPHE launched the very latest in this series, An Introduction to Low-Temperature Hydronic Heating Systems. Supported by a webinar for members, this new guide will help members ensure their work meets the building regulations Approved Document Part L, updated in 2022, which states that newly installed systems must operate at <55°C, and <45°C where heat pumps are used.

The new guide is 264 pages long and packed with detail to help installers and heating engineers plan and design every aspect of a new system with confidence.

Critical updates

Mike Maskrey, the CIPHE’s training manager, is the author of the new guide and worked on it in consultation with the Institute’s lead technical consultant, Paul Harmer.

Mike says: “The CIPHE PESDG is one of the CIPHE signature books that has been around for some 50 years. The last time it was updated was over 20 years ago. Since then, plumbing has changed. The onset of climate change and the development of modern technologies in the fields of plumbing and heating have meant that the PESDG was looking old and out of date.

“Three years ago, it was decided to bring the PESDG into the modern world and the upgrading of this vital work began. It was decided for each chapter to be released as a brand-new book rather than have all the chapters in a single volume. This is proving to be the correct approach, since the in the old book, the heating chapter was 60 pages long, and our new hydronic heating guide is over 260 pages. It just shows how things have moved on.

“The second reason we felt a new heating guide was needed can be traced back to 2022. In June 2022, Building Regulations Document L: Conservation of Fuel and Power was updated. This document all but eliminated the installation of heating systems with a flow temperature above 55°C in new-build properties and refurbishments. Moreover, where a heat pump is the heat generator and the property is a new-build development, the flow temperature must not exceed 45°C.

“Document L advocates a fabric-first approach, whereby reducing heat loss from the building will lead to a reduction in the energy required to heat it. This approach has led to a more detailed assessment of how we calculate the requirements for the heating of buildings by hydronic systems, for example sizing heat emitters with a lower mean water temperature that could be as low as 45°C.”

The new guide is the ideal accompaniment to the Level 3 Low temperature heating and hot water qualification and the CIPHE book of nomographs, which is integral to the qualification.

All of the CIPHE guides can be purchased at special members-only prices through the CIPHE shop.

What’s inside

The new guide covers:

• Part 1: Heat loss from buildings
• Part 2: Sizing heat emitters
• Part 3: Domestic hot water systems
• Part 4: Heating system design
• Part 5: Sizing the heating system pipework
• Part 6: Sizing the expansion vessel
• Part 7: Controls for low-temperature hot water heating systems
• Part 8: A basic introduction to underfloor heating systems
• Part 9: System commissioning and balancing
• Part 10: British Standards and other useful information