Heating pumps are absolutely useless

[Suspicious Lego]

If you just have one (1) heating pump in your heating system, the temperature drops so much that it's not enough to heat apartments in winter. You citizens will get sick and die.

What's the point?

[Silent_Shadow]

You used them with above ground pipes, didn't you?

With underground pipes and a pumping station, the temperature only drops 10-20%, which makes them viable for large urban areas. If you play with pollution and seasons enabled, this is more or less required on maps with very limited building space.

[KJ]

Its just really weird that a pump station drops heat so much (no matter if over or underground), compared to just letting the pipe run through. And the system how heat is calculated is not very transparent to the user either.

[Sonic Titan]

idk i have like 3 pumping stations and my heat exchanger still working well enough

[Silent_Shadow]

The pump station does not drop heat; the pipe's distance does, especially if it is above ground.

[noirdelire]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

The pump station does not drop heat; the pipe's distance does, especially if it is above ground.

It's an old post, but do you know how much heat is lost by meter of underground pipe ?

[Silent_Shadow]

It is around 9°C per km for underground pipes and about double that for above ground pipes. Note that this is just to the next building (pump/exchanger); the "wireless" connection to buildings will lose a lot more, so minimizing their distance between buildings and heat exchangers is more important the farther you go from the heating plant.

[noirdelire]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

It is around 9°C per km for underground pipes and about double that for above ground pipes. Note that this is just to the next building (pump/exchanger); the "wireless" connection to buildings will lose a lot more, so minimizing their distance between buildings and heat exchangers is more important the farther you go from the heating plant.

Thank you.

Thus, beter to dispatch many little heat exchangers all around the city.

[noirdelire]

One more question...

What happens if I connect two heating plants to a pump, and that pump to an exchanger ?

The idea is to prepare a scale up. I want to connect first a small heating plant to my exchangers. Then when the city grow up (and when I'll have more cash) I'll connect a normal one, keeping the small for emergency purposes.

The small heating plant is cheaper, but more intersting it doesn't polute less. So, it can be placed near a town... and that means less expensives pipes.

So, if I can connect two heating plants to a pump, I can prepare all the system now and build it later.

[Silent_Shadow]

That would work, except that all buildings in the heating network consume heat, including heat pumps, exchangers, and even the heating plants themselves. The small heating plant consumes about 10% of its own heat production and so is only useful for small loads; connecting it with a lot of pumps and heat exchangers would just further use up its meager capacity.

The large heating plant should be considered the default because it is more fuel efficient (more heat/ton of coal) and it consumes less of its heat production for itself. You can also run it at a reduced capacity to limit its pollution generation and range. The small heating plant should only be built for small towns or remote buildings like police/fire stations, airport terminals, etc. because it tends to be a lot cheaper than running 1 km of pipe out to it or building a new large heating plant.

[noirdelire]

Okay. Thank you for explanation.

Within the first years, cash is realy limited. So 1km pipes are an harsh investment, and if I can avoid it, I think I'll do. But, maybe, I'll scrap all that metal later.

The normal heating plant is definitly beter.

[Silent_Shadow]

You can still build the small heat exchangers and connect them to a large heating plant with small pipes if you want to save money early on. Later you can just build another connection and heat exchanger.

[noirdelire]

Yes, that could be a solution.

I made a mistake. I put my heating plant too far away. I'm 1,5km from town, and it would be a nightmare to get closer now. It happened because I changed some things, when forgot others... and there you have it... so, what's done is done.

From the heating plant to the center of the town, it is 2km. This means +200t of steel. But after computation, the alternative is also expensive. Further into the game, it wouldn't be a big deal, I know. But at this point, it is.

I think I'll just pay the bill for my mistake, and carry out the definitive plan straight away.

[whisper]

The other thing I hate about small heating plants is how they can be paradoxically hard to staff because they take so few workers that even a minibus will fill them, and then not pick up any workers in town because there are no free jobs at the destination. I never build them anymore under any circumstances.

[Silent_Shadow]

The trick is to build stuff with them, like services or other workplaces, but prioritize the heating plant over them. This way workers always come. You can also build a station and force the excess workers off there to wait a day before checking for empty jobs again.

[joeball123]

Setting (un)loading limits and using personal cars instead of buses/minibuses on your transit route can also help avoid flooding a low-capacity workplace like the Small Heating Plant with workers.