Harness the sun, heat the home.

Skirting Board Heating for Solar Systems

ThermaSkirt is an optimised low-temperature emitter for solar thermal arrays and solar PV integration. By turning your entire room perimeter into a highly conductive aluminium radiating surface, it captures and distributes the low-grade 35–45°C heat generated by the sun, displacing your reliance on grid electricity and gas. BSRIA testing confirms 48% output retention at 40°C flow temperatures, compared to approximately 30% for conventional panel radiators.

The Surface Area Equation

Solar thermal evacuated tubes on your roof are excellent at pre-heating a domestic hot water cylinder or thermal store. On a bright spring or autumn day, they can push the buffer tank up to 40°C. The problem is extraction: if you pump 40°C water into a standard steel radiator, the metal barely feels lukewarm and the room stays cold. The temperature difference between the emitter and the room (the “delta T”) is simply too small for a small radiator surface to emit meaningful heat.

To heat a room at 40°C flow, you need an immense surface area. Wet underfloor heating achieves this by using the entire floor slab. ThermaSkirt achieves it by using the entire perimeter of the room. A typical living room has 12–15 linear metres of skirting. That's 12–15 metres of continuous aluminium radiating surface, capturing every available watt from your solar thermal buffer.

Independent BSRIA tests confirm that at 40°C flow, ThermaSkirt BM2 delivers 44W per linear metre, enough to heat a well-insulated room entirely from solar energy without firing your boiler at all during the shoulder months (March–May, September–November).

ThermaSkirt-e and Battery Storage

The growth in domestic solar PV and home battery storage has created a new heating paradigm. Homeowners want to dump excess, free solar electricity into heating their homes rather than exporting it to the grid for 4–5p/kWh.

ThermaSkirt-e (our 240V electric version) allows you to do exactly this. By hardwiring the aluminium skirting boards into dedicated circuits managed by a smart PV diverter (like the myenergi eddi), you can automatically route excess solar power directly into heating your living room or home office. The aluminium profile acts as a fast-acting heat dump, turning zero-carbon sunlight into instant radiant warmth at zero marginal cost.

Mix Wet and Electric for Maximum Efficiency

Many solar homeowners achieve the best economics by combining both ThermaSkirt products. A typical setup: ThermaSkirt H2O on the ground floor connected to a heat pump or gas boiler via the solar thermal buffer, and ThermaSkirt-e upstairs wired to a PV diverter to soak up excess daytime solar generation.

This hybrid approach means the ground floor benefits from the heat pump's high COP for bulk heating, while the upstairs bedrooms are heated entirely by free solar electricity during the day, prewarmed and comfortable by the time the family heads upstairs in the evening. The systems operate independently, so there's no complex integration or shared controls.

What Does Solar-Powered Heating Actually Cost?

The running cost depends entirely on how you source the electricity. Here's a comparison using current UK energy prices.

Prices based on typical UK tariffs as of 2025. Actual costs depend on your tariff, solar array size, battery capacity, and consumption patterns.