Underfloor heating as a cause of fire

Introduction. The relevance of the topic, addressed in the article, is backed by the fact that modern heating systems, such as the underfloor heating, remain potential sources of fire, despite the improvement in their designs. The purpose of the study is to identify the causes of fires that occur in the process of operation of modern heating systems “Underfloor Heating”; to analyze and generalize the conclusions made by the fire safety experts in respect of the heating systems analyzed in the article. Materials and methods. To assess the flammability of the infrared film underfloor heating, an experiment was conducted by the experts: the process of underfloor heating was simulated under normal environmental conditions at room temperature. Results and discussion. The experiment has shown that the floor covering, made of the material capable of accumulating heat, is the most dangerous one, although its small area prevents its disconnection from the thermal sensor. When dismantling the construction, the co-authors found out that the foil insulator had been melting in the area of maximal temperatures. Over the course of seven hours of operation, the temperature exceeded 120 ºC, and after that the odor of products of thermal decomposition of a synthetic product appeared. Conclusions. Despite all the features of advanced underfloor heating systems, their automated operation and transformation, they remain potentially flammable. Modern underfloor heating systems can take fire both as a result of violation of the fire precautions in case of non-compliance with the requirements for the operation of heating devices, and as a result of overheated film heaters located under the floor covering.