Nearly every enterprise must heat its premises in the winter. However, not every heating is suitable for every room.

Commercial enterprises or manufacturing companies with large halls, for example, need to examine to what extent heating is necessary. It might prove useful to heat a small administration area with its own heating system or one separate heating circuit instead of keeping the whole hall at a moderate temperature.

Also the choice of the correct fuel can contribute to lower the energy costs for an enterprise. However, it is even more important to reduce energy consumption because energy that is saved need not be bought.

Which fuels are suitable for which purpose?

The users of a heating should be able to influence the system only via a central person (custodian). If the heating is constantly changed, energy consumption rises.

The following points can be realized immediately:

• Measure the room temperatures and consider possible  
  reductions (see Usage/user behavior).
• Check whether over-temperatures are ventilated via windows (on a regular basis).
• Adjust radiators to ensure that heat is distributed evenly in the entire enterprise.
• Examine the thermal insulation of the walls, windows and doors and consider necessary measures (see Heat requirements of buildings, Building shell).
• Analyze the costs of your heating supply.

These measures are long-term:

• Improve the thermal insulation of your property. 
• Install thermal windows. 
• Separate heated building parts from unheated parts. 
• Use turning doors or automatic doors in place of simple sliding or swinging doors. 
• Plan a wind catch and use it as an additional showcase or sales room. 
• In production companies, examine where usable waste heat is released. 
• Use fuels that are available economically. 
• Integrate ambient energy and solar heat into the heating. 

Prospects:

By improved thermal insulation and ever more energy-efficient products, considerable energy can be saved and energy costs can be lowered significantly. Constantly rising energy costs should induce you to orient your amortization calculations not for the moment but to the future.

Source: Austrian Chaber of Commerce