Village Halls

If you are involved in looking after halls and similar community buildings please visit our new dedicated Village Hall Heating website.

The challenge with village hall heating

Village hall heating has unique challenges. Usually older buildings (with poor insulation) comprising of a main hall with high ceilings and adjoining smaller ancillary rooms with more standard ceiling heights.

More often than not the existing village hall heating is a convection based system. This is generally ineffective at heating large spaces with high ceilings as most of the warm air rises into the high ceiling void, only when this air cools does it descend towards the floor where the occupants feel the benefit. These convection currents also draw in outside air through the leaky doors and windows creating unpleasant cold drafts and cooling the hall.

Village hall heating requirements

With a wide variety of activities, both active and sedentary taking place in village halls the heating system needs to be flexible enough to accommodate the varied heating requirements throughout the day. For example, a Bridge Club will require a higher room temperature to feel comfortable than a fitness class.

Village hall heating systems need to be effective at evenly warming the premises (no cold spot), easily controllable and economic to run and that is where infrared comes in.

Infrared heating solution

Long wave infrared energy generated by the Etherma EZ heaters and LAVA Basic DM infrared panels travels inertly through the air, dissipating as heat upon contact with people and surfaces thus creating a comfortable, all-round radiant warmth at lower air temperature. The Etherma EZ heaters are ideal for heating larger spaces like village halls or sports halls, whilst the LAVA Basic DM are suited to the ancillary rooms with lower ceilings.

Infrared heat takes only minutes to reach comfort temperatures, so energy is never wasted in prolonged warm-up times. If external doors are opened, allowing cold air to enter the building, radiant heating will recover comfort temperatures in just a few minutes.

Infrared is also particularly good for the building. In contrast to convection heating where the moisture held within warm air condenses when it meets a cold surface increasing the likelihood of mould, wood rot and salt damp or flaking paintwork; infrared warms the surfaces of objects without warming the air. As a result the relative humidity in the air remains low and when the air meets a warm surface, condensation does not occur.

Village hall heating product range