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Why Are Hydronic Ducted Fan Coils So Hard to Source in the UK?
I’m running into a brick wall trying to source concealed / ducted hydronic fan coils for a whole‑house renovation, and I’m hoping others have navigated this already.
We’re installing UFH throughout, and the plan was to pair it with hydronic fan coils in the principal rooms to provide sensible cooling during warmer months. I’m specifically looking for ducted units that can sit in riser cupboards for easy access — not the wall‑mounted “radiator‑style” fan convectors.
So far, the search has been frustrating.
- Daikin Applied haven’t been responsive.
- Very few UK suppliers list ducted hydronic coils at all.
- The only brand that consistently appears is Mega Wave Energy, which doesn’t inspire confidence without broader market presence.
- Major resellers appear to be from mainland Europe.
A couple of heat pump installers have told me to “just go with AC”, but that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid. The whole point of the renovation is to stay as low‑carbon and low‑energy as possible, and adding split AC units feels like a step backwards — more refrigerant, more embodied carbon, more running cost, and more kit to maintain.
I’d prefer to stay with a single hydronic system for both heating and cooling, but the lack of UK availability for ducted fan coils is making me question whether this is realistic. I’m keen to avoid AC for environmental and cost reasons, but I’m struggling to find a reliable supply route for the equipment I actually want.
If anyone has:
- UK or EU suppliers for ducted hydronic fan coils,
- brands worth looking at beyond the usual suspects,
- or experience running hydronic cooling successfully in a UK retrofit…
…I’d really appreciate your input.
You could try under kitchen unit coils such as https://www.plumbworld.co.uk/myson-kickspace-500-hydronic-plinth-heater-with-grille-103137-1261277?utm_source=organic&utm_medium=shoppingfeed&utm_campaign=googlebase&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22942933411&gbraid=0AAAAAD_lDOggKrCkLMlZk6jAC7EU5YefM&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmunNBhDbARIsAOndKplMIOzMlSSMX1BZbCdBlCxnjHKvsgMG0FLWeorUtregxocbNrbRfMkaAvSHEALw_wcB
We have a 1kW version in the kitchen and if the oven has not been on in very cold weather then we flick it on. It makes a huge difference to the house comfort. Ours is always on the summer fan setting because it’s from boiler days and will automatically stop when the flow temp is below a value (guess 45C) which is not what you want on a heat-pump circuit. I’ve never looked for a ufh/heat pump version.
It’s the ideal quick supplemental heat solution.
2kW + Growatt & 4kW +Sunnyboy PV on south-facing roof Solar thermal. 9.5kWh Givenergy battery with AC3. MVHR. Vaillant 7kW ASHP (very pleased with SCOP 4.7) open system operating on WC
Why do you specifically want ducted? Is the ductwork already in place?
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
Posted by: @nettechieUK or EU suppliers for ducted hydronic fan coils,
We have installed Jaga Strada fan-assisted units which work well with our ASHP and provide light cooling in summer.
They are conventional rads but Jaga also manufactures a Briza model that is designed for in-wall or in-ceiling installation.
https://jaga.com/ex/radiators/installation-in-a-wall-recess/
Note also that you can get the Stradas without a casing and we have 3 of these installed at the bottom of built-in bookshelves in our living room.
These are all made to order (in Belgium) and supplied to me by GoGeothermal.
Mitsubishi Zubadan 14kW with Mixergy 210l DHW in 220m2 barn property. 24 solar panels = 9kWp with GivEnergy 5.0kW Hybrid inverter and 19kWh GivE batteries. Jaga Strada fan-assisted rads throughout. Landvac vacuum glazing/triple glazed windows.
Here in France fan coils are pretty rare for residential so when I contacted distributors they simply didn't want to talk to private individuals lol
Thus you can get fan coil units at acceptable prices from the usual suspects in Spain and Portugal, like amifrigo and climamarket. Watch out for the warranty though, it may or may not exist as some manufacturers simply refuse to warranty export products. So don't buy heat pumps from these websites unless you like fixing it yourself.
I ended up buying them used "like new" from the demolition of a large store so that's also a way.
Notes if you want to cool your house with cold water:
- It is a lot more flexible than refrigerant AC since you don't need refrigerant pipes and the associated regulatory headaches
- All pipes carrying water below the dew point will attract condensation and drip unless they are vapor tight insulated which is an annoying and time consuming job. It must be done perfectly. Otherwise condensation will drip, this will rot your house.
- Never ever send the chilled water into your UFH or you will have condensation under the floor
- Motorized valve actuators do not like to have condensation in them, so they tend not to last very long unless special precautions are taken: put them on the return, use longer stalks to keep the motor warm, etc.
- Due to water freezing at 0°C you can't cool with sub zero water, which means the fan coils have to be huge, and I do mean absolutely enormous, compared to an AC unit which may actually cool the heat exchanger below 0°C and thus get away with a smaller heat exchanger.
- Dehumidification is more important than cooling. 25°C with high relative humidity is unbearable, but with low relative humidity it's fine. In dry air, sweat evaporates easily which cools your body. Air conditioning is about dehumidifying as much as it is about cooling. Just cooling the air without dehumidifying (as done by "cooling" UFH) keeps the absolute humidity constant but relative humidity increases, thus sweat doesn't evaporate, and it feels like a cool damp swamp. Not recommended. Therefore any "cooling" unit which doesn't have a condensate pipe coming out isn't that useful. You have to route the condensates to the sewer, preferably using gravity.
- Air carries very little heat by volume. Thus to move some useful amount of heat, you need to move a ridiculous amount of air. This tends to make noise and waste power. The smaller a fan is, the faster it has to spin to push the same amount of air. So you can have small and noisy, or large and quiet, but not small and quiet.
Thus you have three choices:
A non ducted unit, which has no airflow restriction, but it's in the room besides you, so you will hear it directly.
A ducted unit with tiny ducts like 200mm, which will need a powerful fan to move enough air through the ducts, so the fan has to work hard, it is noisier, so it needs a lot of soundproofing, which further restricts flow, wash rinse repeat, and you need an aeraulics engineer to check your flow.
Or a ducted unit with properly sized ducts (ie, large enough to crawl through) but then you need space for all that stuff.
What I'm going to do with my pile of fan coils is mount them in a non-living space, sucking air from a room and blowing it into another, which should create cool air circulation through the whole house. The living spaces are several rooms away, so hopefully the noise should be attenuated after passing through the entryway and corridor. I haven't done it yet, so... grain of salt and all that. But I did try the FCUs, they're Panasonic FD30, and they're very quiet.
Posted by: @bobfluxA non ducted unit, which has no airflow restriction, but it's in the room besides you, so you will hear it directly.
Our experience of two UK summers with the Strada fan-assisted rads in a barn in Herts is that they reduce bedroom temps by around 5C on a hot day with OT around 30C provided we keep the cooling on and bedrooms closed up during the day. Emitter size is 1200mm wide.
We run the flow at 17C which avoids condensation. The fan units are very quiet and cause no disturbance even during the night.
The Jaga website has loads of performance data on their products for both heating and cooling.
Mitsubishi Zubadan 14kW with Mixergy 210l DHW in 220m2 barn property. 24 solar panels = 9kWp with GivEnergy 5.0kW Hybrid inverter and 19kWh GivE batteries. Jaga Strada fan-assisted rads throughout. Landvac vacuum glazing/triple glazed windows.
Posted by: @nettechie@jamespa We are doing a deep renovation with new joist, ceilings etc so makes sense to hide everything away and have a ducted system.
OK
Ducted warm/cold air is unusual in the UK. We had it in a house I lived in in the 80s, it was dreadful. Perhaps others had a similar experience hence lack of popularity. The fundamental problem is the amount of air you need to move (because of the low heat capacity) but for a very low loss house with mvhr I can see it could make sense.
If it's a deep retrofit why not hide fancoils in ceiling/floor, connected hydronically but blowing air straight out. The wall mounted (mitsubishi) one I have also cones in concealed version. Made in Italy by climaventa. Italy seems to be the epicentre of the fancoil market!
This is just a long way to say sorry, I can't help!
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
Yes, I was initially thinking of hiding the units in the ceilings, however I wanted to get access to them to clean the filters or if there was ever a need to carry out maintenance. So hiding them would be an issue and I don't want ugly access panels on the ceiling. The duct runs would be short, I was thinking of placing these units in riser / store cupboards on each floor which are centred in the house and have short duct runs out from each unit into the rooms, not whole house ducting.
The units will be primarily used for cooling, I agree Italy seems to be the main market where you can get these items. Seems I might be out luck with this and whilst I wanted to avoid AC, it might be the only option I'm left with.
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