UPDATED: Air Source Heat Pumps/Air Con - Full Info & Guide, is it cheaper to run than mains gas?

richardc1983

zeupater wrote: »

Hi Richard

I've would say that the logical location would be in a 'non-living' area such as a hallway so that other intermittent heat sources (body temperature, TVs, cooking etc) don't skew the readings and affect the heating level/pattern - it should also be in an area without other thermostatic controls so that the reading isn't overridden and the rest of the house is overheated .... going even further, wherever the wireless thermostat is located, it would make sense to leave it there.

HTH
Z

Its currently in the bedroom upstairs for some reason as in the hallway it was never switching off and that was with it set at 18C. I am going to tell them to bring it back down and leave it in the hallway with that radiator TRV fully on.

The other radiators have been doubled up or oversized but the hallway is still the old single panel radiator. The installation company have said that it didn't need to be oversized as it would put enough heat out to warm that area! This I think is absolute rubbish as the flow temp is so much lower and a hallway is usually a cooler place.

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

.... going even further, wherever the wireless thermostat is located, it would make sense to leave it there in order to maintain consistancy.

HTH
Z

As discussed many times, wherever the thermostat is situated is always going to be a compromise.


However leaving it in one place would IMO negate the purpose of a portable wireless thermostat.

[Deleted User]

Our wireless stat for the rads is in the hall. Obviously the ufh has it's own stat. Trial and error dictated the hall was the best place.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

As discussed many times, wherever the thermostat is situated is always going to be a compromise.


However leaving it in one place would IMO negate the purpose of a portable wireless thermostat.

Hi

I agree regarding the compromise, but it really depends on the design of the heating system.

As you know, we have a log burner which provides a considerable proportion of our heating. Taking a portable thermostat into an area heated by the logs would immediately shut the heating down. Taking the unit into the kitchen when cooking would shut the heating down for a while ... we have a dedicated TV room off the lounge which tends to require little (/no) heating when there are a couple of people and the TV switched on, another example of the rest of the house being forced to cool .... a closed bedroom with a couple of people in it will be naturally warmer than one of the same size with a single young child .... and of course, there are many other examples.

If you have a single thermostat with separate TRVs it's actually the TRVs which are zoning the heating, the main thermostat is simply managing the nominal heat level, therefore I would maintain that moving a wireless thermostat around is akin to re-zoning an already zoned system which is very likely to confuse both the heating system and the homeowner.

As you know, low temperature input systems (such as ASHPs) have slow heating reaction times and are most efficient when run at as low a flow temperature as reasonably possible, which would logically mean for long periods. I would have thought that the efficiency curve of the heat-pump would not only be related to continuous flow temperature, but also on duty (could do with an expert (/installer) to confirm this), therefore cycling the unit to react to the temperature changes caused by moving the remote thermostat could reduce the operating efficiency more than simply using the more normal temperature setback facility (overnight etc.) ...

I'm no expert on this, but it really seems to make sense, after-all, wherever the thermostat is and whatever it's set to is just a nominal value .... 16C in the hallway could easily mean 20C in the bedrooms and 22C in the lounge, but that's what the TRVs are there for ..

HTH
Z

matelodave

The best place to put the thermostat is in a room where people or equipment don't really affect it. It needs to be a room where there is a radiator that's being heated by the system (with the TRV fully open). The hall is a good place - just make sue that it's not to near the front front door, too close to the radiator and ideally not on an outside wall.


For the system to work properly the radiator should be large enough to actually heat the hall. If the rad is to small then the hall won't get warm enough and the stat wont turn off which means that the boiler or heatpump will run continuously.

In which case it will cost you more than it should. If the room rads are correctly sized then the trvs should control the room temperatures even if the hall never gets hot enough.


The thermostat temperature should be adjusted so that the rest of the house is about right and so it does turn on & off as the hall gets heated. Try setting it at 16 degrees and leave it for a day or two to see how the rest of the system behaves, if that's not enough then turn it up one degree and see what happens but give it a couple of days to settle. Likewise tweaking the stat, fiddling with the timers and having a go at the flow temp all at the same time just confuses you and the system.
Do one thing at a time, change setting in small increments and give them a day or two to see what happens (its a good idea to write down the settings and what the result was). You can also take electricity meter readings to see what effect changes have on your consumption. It's worth checking the outside temperature as well because you are trying to balance the heat input to the house against the outside temperature.


Have a look at this site http://www.imeasure.org.uk/ you can input your meter reading every week (ideally on the same day ant roughly the same time) and it will help you see how well your heating system tracks the outside temperatures. It will take a month or so of readings for it to establish your normal consumption - it's obviously not as accurate as if it was just recording the heating consumption but after a few weeks it tries to average out your baseload.

lovesgshp

Yes the stat should go in a area like a hallway. There are also other considerations though, depending on your system. i.e.: is is external temperature controlled only, or with a room temp override?
It can get to a very confusing situation, as we had one client overide the external sensor to give priority to the internal unit and then wondered why his electricity bill went up by over 20%.
You also do not need to set the disinfection cycle so frequently, if you have the DHW set at 50C, and you use a lot of hot water. Mine here is set at 48C, with disinfection every 30 days. Still alive after 8 years!!!

JackMar

ASHP are noisy and double the expense of gas central heating - avoid at all costs

richardc1983

lovesgshp wrote: »

Yes the stat should go in a area like a hallway. There are also other considerations though, depending on your system. i.e.: is is external temperature controlled only, or with a room temp override?
It can get to a very confusing situation, as we had one client overide the external sensor to give priority to the internal unit and then wondered why his electricity bill went up by over 20%.
You also do not need to set the disinfection cycle so frequently, if you have the DHW set at 50C, and you use a lot of hot water. Mine here is set at 48C, with disinfection every 30 days. Still alive after 8 years!!!

The Samsung has outdoor weather comp that controls the flow temp. There is also an internal thermostat that you can set the inside temp with.

Hot water is at 45c with weekly disinfection? I don't know how to change the settings. She now has a surveyor I've reccomended who is used to dealing with these bad installs look into it.

pd001

JackMar wrote: »

ASHP are noisy and double the expense of gas central heating - avoid at all costs

WOW, is that right?
ok

richardc1983

JackMar wrote: »

ASHP are noisy and double the expense of gas central heating - avoid at all costs

Winner of the 2014 most useless/pointless post goes to...