The main change is what the heat load calculation sees on the other side of a building element. A bathroom wall to a colder hall now counts in the bathroom, so you size its loops on the output that bathroom really needs. A semi-detached or terraced house and a flat in a block are calculated against the neighbour, and a floor over a passage against the outdoor air. The constructions, windows and doors you use in many projects are saved once on your account, in "My library".
Below is also what you will see in a project you already have, and everything else that changed since early September.
New features
Partitions to other heated rooms
Until now the only type for a partition between two heated rooms was "Internal floor (heated)", always calculated as if both sides were at the same temperature. There are now three types for it: "Wall to another heated space", "Floor over a heated space" and "Ceiling under a heated space". On the other side you pick "Another heated room" from the new "Heated" group and enter its temperature. An empty field means the same temperature as this room, so no loss.
The loss through such a partition goes into the room's load (EN 12831-1:2017, § 6.3.1.3, Formula (3)). That is the figure underfloor heating sizes the loops from, so a bathroom beside a colder hall gets the output it really needs. It does not go into the building's load (§ 6.3.1.2, Formula (2)), because the heat stays in the home. The heat source, which you size on the building's load, is not made bigger by internal partitions.
When the other side is warmer, the partition is a gain, not a loss (§ 6.3.2.5, Formula (10)). A hall between warm rooms can therefore come out at 0 W or below. Its card in the result then says "No heating needed", and heat pump sizing and underfloor heating take it as a room with zero load.
Partitions to a neighbour's flat or building
The same "Heated" group holds two spaces behind a neighbour's wall. You pick "A neighbour's flat in this building" for a wall, floor or ceiling to another flat and enter its design temperature. You pick "Neighbouring building (semi-detached, terraced)" for the wall to the other half of a semi-detached house or to the next house in a terrace. Both count in the building's load (§ 6.3.1.2, Formula (2)).
You do not type a temperature for the neighbouring building at the wall. The calculation takes the project's annual mean outdoor temperature on the other side, never below 5 °C (EN 12831-1:2017, § 6.3.2.5, Table 7). You enter the mean once, on step 2 "Building", in the "Annual mean outdoor temperature" field, which appears when the project has such a wall. With the first such wall the element dialog asks for it straight away. Without it the calculation does not run, and the list of items to fix shows where to enter it. The PDF report prints both figures among its parameters: the mean you entered and the temperature taken for the neighbouring building.
No element in the "Heated" group gets a thermal bridge supplement (the note under Formula (7)).
Floors over outdoor air
The new "Floor over outdoor air (passage, overhang)" type is for a room over a passage or an overhang. The loss through such a floor is calculated as transmission straight to the outside, at the design outdoor temperature and with no path through the ground (EN 12831-1:2017, § 6.3.2.2, Formula (6)). You enter the area and a U-value or the layers. A U-value from layers uses a floor's surface resistances (EN ISO 6946). If the room has underfloor heating, the underfloor module counts the loss through this floor the way it counts a floor on the ground: as a downward loss the loop covers from below.
My library
The wall, roof, floor and ceiling constructions and the windows and doors you use most often are saved on your account, in "My library". You open it from the menu on the left, under Algo AI. Its entries are there to pick in every project: on step 4, "Envelope library", and in a room's element dialog. Picking an entry copies it into the project, so a change in the project leaves the library as it was.
An account without an active subscription holds 5 entries in the library in total. An active subscription lifts the limit, and a report does not change it. If your subscription lapses, every saved entry stays.
Algo AI reads your library and answers questions about it. It adds, changes or deletes an entry only when you ask it to, and you can undo each such change with "Undo" in the conversation. Every step of the module is described in the heat load calculator guide.
The building load and the sum of rooms
On the result screen the large figure is still the building's load, the one you size the heat source from. When the sum of the rooms differs from it, one line under the room breakdown reads "Sum of rooms X W · Building Y W · difference Z W" with the reason - the wind counted for each room on its own side, or partitions to other heated rooms, which count in the room's load, not the building's (EN 12831-1:2017, § 6.3.1.2, Formula (2)).
The PDF report says the same. Under the chart it lists "Total (cover page)", the room summary ends with the same line of sum, building and difference, and the "Room loads and the building total (for the installer)" box explains why you size the heat source on the cover figure. Rooms with such partitions are marked with an asterisk in the summary.
Splitting an underfloor heating section into a grid
A large section no longer has to come out as narrow strips. In the section drawer, "Split" picks the cut lines itself, so a square living room can come out as a grid of loops. The arrow beside it opens "Choose the split": a grid of up to 4 x 4, drawn in the shape of the room. Hover a cell and you see how many loops it makes and how long each one is, and whether the split is ready, the loops come out too long or too short, or the manifold runs out of ports.
The drawer also separates notes from advice: "NOTES" say what is wrong, "ADVICE" says what to do about it.
Sign in with Google, and two-step verification
You can create an account and sign in with Google. An existing password account connects to Google in Settings, under "Security". That is also where you turn on two-step verification: when you sign in, alongside your password or Google account, you enter a code from an app on your phone, and you get backup codes in case you lose the phone. Two-step verification is optional.
The address your client sees on reports and forms is set separately, in your Profile, in the "Business contact email" field, so a personal Google address never reaches a client. Signing in is smoother too: the sign-in and registration screens are simpler, nothing flickers on the way back from Google, and you land straight on Start.
Improvements
- Ready-made constructions with their sources. In the construction dialog, "Ready-made construction" opens a catalogue of typical layer build-ups and of older elements known by their U-value. You search by name, material or maker and narrow the list by building period, construction, insulation and WT 2021. The materials' λ values come from the makers' declarations and technical sheets, and a note under each construction's name says where its values come from. Ready-made windows and doors come from the same catalogue.
- A room's building elements as rows, in one dialog. The "Envelope elements" section on step 5 shows each element as a row: a type icon, the name, and under it the area, the U-value and the windows. The "Add an element" plus in the section header and the pencil on a row open one dialog with the construction, the figures in this room, and the windows and doors on one screen.
- Windows from another element, and an element in another room. You can copy windows and doors from another element and duplicate an element into another room.
- A room with no elements to calculate. A room that borders nothing colder is marked with "This room has no elements to calculate". Only its ventilation is then calculated, and a note goes into the result and the report.
- Back, the island and Next in every wizard. The wizard's bottom bar in the heat load calculation, heat pump sizing, heat recovery ventilation and the client form has three parts: a square "Back" button, a glass island in the middle with the module settings, the step number and the items to fix, and "Next" on the right.
- A result that is not there yet. Until there is a result, every module's result step shows a sample result under frosted glass, and in the middle what is still missing. The button on each row takes you to the right step and field, and a separate button asks Algo AI about the missing data.
- The "?" help in a small dialog. The "?" beside a field or a section opens a small dialog in the middle of the screen on a laptop, and a drawer from the bottom on a phone, which you close by swiping down. "Ask Algo about this" hands the topic to Algo AI.
- Algo AI replies in the language of your last message. Write in English and the answer is in English, even with the app set to Polish.
- Algo AI follows a request through. Instead of instructions on how to enter something, it proposes values and does the part of the task it can do, and a short "yes" makes it go ahead rather than stop. Files you attach stay with the conversation for follow-up questions until you switch conversation or project or reload the page, so you do not upload a drawing twice. You can remove any of them. In the heat load calculation Algo AI sets the new building element types and what is on the other side the same way the element's card does.
- Underfloor heating warns about a wrong plan scale. When a drawn room or section is over 200 m², "Check the plan scale" appears with a "Check scale" button that opens the calibration. A scale mistake that turns a 20 m² room into a 2,000 m² hall no longer passes without a warning.
- Upload an underfloor heating plan as DWG or DXF too. On the module's start screen, the "Guide" link opens the module guide in a new tab.
- Announcements no longer pile up on a new account. An account that has not started work yet sees pending announcements under the bell, and in the pop-up only once it has. The announcement window now has "Skip all" and "Back".
- The English app without Polish leftovers. The warnings in heat load results are in English, the PDF report and the downloaded file no longer carry the Polish acronym in their names, and heat pump sizing shows costs in PLN. The English heatalgo.com site now opens the English registration screen. If you pay in a currency other than the złoty, your purchase history shows the amount taken from your card and the złoty amount it was converted from.
Fixes
- Minus signs in fields that take negative values. The temperature on the other side of a building element and, in heat recovery ventilation, "Discharge above the intake" were dropping a typed minus. Every field whose range goes below zero takes it now, and on a phone such a field has a "±" key, because the iPhone's decimal keypad has no minus.
- The app behind an ad blocker. Behind Brave Shields or uBlock the app could fail to load, because a filter blocked one of its files. Its files now have names the common filter lists leave alone.
- The revisions clock after buying a report. If the first PDF generation in an unlocked project failed, the clock for revisions and new versions started anyway. It now starts with the first file you actually download.
- Element names in the heat load report. The PDF report printed "Floor above unheated space" and the old internal floor as technical names. Every building element type now has its own name in the report.
- A supply run in a narrow corridor. A dragged underfloor supply run in a narrow corridor no longer folds back when you release the mouse. It stays the way it looked while you dragged it.
What you will see in an existing project
When you open a project, the heat load calculation runs again. In almost every project the result stays the same, and three things look different:
- "Internal floor (heated)" is now called "Floor over a heated space". Its other side is "Another heated room" with no temperature entered, which means the same temperature as the room. It is the same element with no loss under a new name, so the result does not change. If it is really a ceiling over the room, change the type to "Ceiling under a heated space".
- Windows and doors larger than the element they sit in now stop the calculation. Until now the net area of such an element was set to zero without a word and the calculation carried on. Now the list of items to fix shows: "The windows and doors in this element are larger than the element itself - correct the sizes."
- A room can come out at 0 W or below, when it gains more heat from warmer neighbours than it loses. Its card in the result then says "No heating needed", and heat pump sizing and underfloor heating take zero for it, not missing data.
Questions about any of this?
Visit the help center or write to us straight from the app: open the account menu and choose "Email us". We usually reply within 24 hours.