CALCULATION PROGRAMME GIACOKLIMATOOL

Objectives of the GIACOMINI Calculation Programme

The GIACOKLIMATOOL calculation programme for Giacoklima floor systems is a very practical and
immediate instrument for the technician, even if he is not familiar with information methods of calculation.
GIACOKLIMATOOL has been developed on the basis of UNI-EN 1264 standards, by paying attention in
particular to the superficial temperature constraint, which must not be higher than 29°C in residential
zones; however it is possible to have zones with higher superficial temperatures, for example in fringe areas
or in rooms such as bathrooms or similar.
GIACOMINI has developed a tool, that allows different options as a daily experience. The necessary
starting choices are as follows:
Only heating or a heating and cooling system?
Is the control of the flow temperature made with fixed point, or with an electronic system which allows the
adjustment of such temperature to the external climatic conditions?
Is the installation planned with more modern and sophisticated controls.

It deals, as you can see, with questions relative to market choices.

The Programme presents different options where the technician will recognize his specific need.
Programme Opening

After starting the Programme, a screen appears. At the top you can see the following options:
Project Print Utility Info

Project
It allows creation of a new project or recovery of a project already saved.
The selection “New” leads to two further options:

1- “Giacoklima control” (with electronic balancing system)

This concerns
only heating
heating and cooling
heating and cooling PLUS, i.e. with electronic additions included
2- “Thermostatic control”
This is the typical case of the manifold R557, i.e. with a system that keeps fixed the value of the
temperature of the flow water; the adjustment of the rooms is made by zone thermostats and by
electrical actuators such has R475, R476, R478, R478M, R479, R479M on manifolds.

An easier explanation comes from a practical example. For this reason the following notes report a project
example with Giacoklima regulator and Floor Heating system, and an example with thermostatic control.

Calculation example with Giacoklima

The data of the example are visualised on the following reproduced pages.
General considerations:
If you effect a modification on any point of the programme, this has to be confirmed with a click on the
symbol v. If you wish to cancel the operation, click on X.

After choosing press Enter and you will see a menu on the upper bar. Just follow it in sequence

The first window “Customer Info”

contains the information to be introduced about the Project itself.

Fill in the page, then click on the icon of “General Data”.

“General Data”

The programme proposes some of the most popular concretes and coverings. Choose the desired solution
and select the relative thickness.
Diameters and pipe types can be selected from the menu which opens by driving the push-button; you can
select also the type of insulation panel and manifolds.
Referring to the maximum length of the circuits according to the diameters, the following table is
recommended:

pipe diameter Maximum length of the ring, in ?T on the ring

meters °C
16X1,5 – 16x21 mm 80 5
17x2 mm 80 5
18x2 100 5-8
20x2 mm 120 5-8
The next page concerns the introduction of the rooms. The programme is( colloquial) ??? and you have only
to insert the required data for each box. Use TAB to proceed from a box to the others.

• N° is the number assigned to the room

• Room description
• Level : indicate which kind of level (for example ground floor, first floor, etc.)
• The ambient temperature is the one desired for the subject room
• The required area refers to the entire room
• The peripheral area is the one where you can lay the pipe with reduced pitch, if necessary, by creating
the thermal perimetrical barrier. In the calculation, this area is subtracted from the total area of the
room.
• Insert the required thermal load, calculated according to the national technical standard.
• For mixed hot and cold operation, you must consider that for the cooling systems, the floor emission
does not exceed 40% of the corresponding heating emission. Therefore for a floor with a ceramic
covering, with a maximum obtainable power of 40 W/m2 in cooling, you have to effect the calculation
for a corresponding thermic emission of 100 W/m2 in heating, that is probably higher than the
necessary emission but it concerns the ambient adjustments.
• The choice of the covering type, if different from that one chosen in “General Data” is made by a click
on the box under the words Covering, on the its right part. An arrow push-button appears and it opens a
window that allows the choice of the covering chosen.
• Place the covering thickness into the box “Thickness”
• The distance between room and manifold “ManDist” is to be indicated as simple distance between
manifold and the beginning of the room. The programme will then calculate the flow and return
distance.
• Proceed like this until all the rooms to be calculated are finished.
At this point, if the sign (v) is visible, tick off with the mouse, otherwise proceed directly to the next
page called

“Flow Temperature”

the screen presents the different circuits with an identifying index ID. An arrow is placed automatically
on the less favourite room.
Click on the choice “optimum T” on the top of the screen at the right, the programme chooses
automatically the optimum conditions of the installation, finding out which water flow temperature can
satisfy the requirements of the less favourable circuit, by using a defined pitch of 150 mm.

The choice “With Peripheral Area” works only if in the previous screen the peripheral area of a room
has been inserted. In this case, the programme visualizes a zone marked in red, where the data of the
circuits destined to the( peripherical)?? zone are underlined in the same way as the data concerning the
living room, described below, are underlined.

The choice “Without Peripheral Area” does not foresee the peripheral area or the fixed pitch at 15,
but only the residence area, i.e. the total area of the room inserted into the “Area” field.

The water flow temperature can be varied by moving the track-bar with the mouse. By varying this
temperature, you can appreciate in( real)?? time the changes on the circuit results of the separate
rooms.

This operation allows the visualisation of the water temperature, whose circuits are able to satisfy the
heat requests.
Choose the flow temperature that you wish to use, then confirm the selected definitions by pressing the
key “Confirm”.
The bright push-button placed on the “Integr.” column indicates if the project conditions have been
satisfied and how much the eventual heat contribution is, which is necessary for the integration of the
heat requirement.
This requirement is indicated by the red colour of the “Led” placed on the box. Also the circuit lengths
and the resulting loss of( charge)?? are reported on the tables. This information is very useful, because
it allows evaluation of a modification to the circuits maximum lengths, and of the pipe diameter, if
necessary.

Therefore the push-button “Confirm” on the middle of the page upper part has to be pressed only when
you are sure that you have no other modifications to the input data and you work out of the
“Optimum Temperature” conditions.
Otherwise, the programme takes the conditions corresponding to “Optimum Temperature” as
Default.

Page “Manifolds”

The programme presents on the right screen the room list, as they have been inserted into the previous
screens. At this point select “NEW” manifold, giving it a name or a reference.

Table

The circuits that appear on the box, up on the right, can be moved to the left through the push-button
“<<MOVE” by combining every circuit with a manifold.
This is a very practical choice, defining the most logical and convenient steps, by grouping the pipes
according to the zones concerned.
The programme does not allow illogical installation, such as the connection of circuits of different levels
to the same manifold.
The option “Type” allows the choice of manifold. The window “Manifold” opens automatically and here
you select accordingly

Before closing, you must click on “Confirm”.

A very important function is the “Circuits Optimisation” at the bottom, on the left of the screen.

This push-button allows the opening of a window:

Up, on the right appears the availability of the pipe coils for the diameter and the pipe type selected.
By selecting through a tick the coil types (for example 240m and 100 m), the programme optimises their
use and it indicates also how many meters of pipe are unused. This optimisation can be done either for
each level, or for the entire installation. In this case, the use of the pipe is still more optimised. The
boxes at the bottom of the screen allow to evaluate the quantities and the percentages of unused pipes
(surplus).

ELECTRONIC CONTROL

This window handles the ambient adjustment with zone thermostat and electrical actuators, the
electronic adjustment by means of the Giacoklima regulator and boiler manifold with relative mixing
valve and regulation motor.
After the selection of the required products (for example ambient thermostat summer-winter, electrical
head with micro-switch, manifold with 3-way mixing valve R296, motor for mixing valve R296 and
Giacolklima regulator), the request through the push-button at the bottom on the left “Quantity
Calculation” provides the relative data.

The next screen concerns the Giacomini catalogue for entering other products from the price list into the
list of materials.
 It is possible to effect the search of the product to be added either by description or by part number. Fill
in the part number or the description into the appropriate push-button, then search by means of the
appropriate push-button. At this point, on the first table you will see the products which correspond to
the criteria of your search. Once you locate the product, you can add it to the second table
“ADDITIONAL PRODUCTS” by means of the key “INSERT”.
In this table, it is possible to modify the quantity of the product just added into the appropriate box.
These additional products will then appear with all necessary project products, on the print of the
estimate, that we will examine later.

At this point, the project is finished. Let’s see the prints that can be supplied:

• Technical report with all data provided from the calculation

• Estimate with list of materials for the project realization and the price in €. For the addition of other
components, first select them from the price list on the principal tools bar of the programme.
• Terms of contract. As default the programme chooses the condition “Without prices” if you don’t
click on the option “With prices”.
• Optimization: it resumes the circuits optimization by giving a work sheet, where the installer can
clearly see the pipe quantity for each circuit, subdivided for the coil length, according to the
indication provided during the calculation.
• Labels: this option allows to apply drawings on the labels, with the data relating to the circuit (room,
pipe meters, pitch) and it can be used for the indications if you don’t want to draw the circuits.

Thermostatic control system

The development is identical to the one just described; this solution concerns installation without control of
climatic compensation, for this reason the choice of the R557 manifold cannot be changed. It deals with a
system that does not allow the cooling and the thermal load can be limited to the real values necessary for
the heating, without additional load to cover the refrigerating requirement.
While developing the calculation it is not possible to open or modify that windows which are not compatible
with the fixed point system.