Most efficient way to run underfloor heating

dllive

Thanks @matelodave .

I only noticed the drop in pressure becuase I had to bleed a towel rail, and the tutorial said I should check the pressure gauge, and thats when I looked at the video I posted above. Obviously I had to top the pressure back up again once I had bled the radiator.

matelodave

Have a shufti at this if you want a bit more info on monitoring. John Cantor has been into heatpumps for many years and is a bit of a guru (although he's not ever so good on Youtube). but this video gives you some more info on monitoring heatpump performance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyO5ZG8WfBY and here is the site with all the kit https://openenergymonitor.org/

dllive

Thanks, Ill watch this later after dinner!

dllive

Hi @matelodave . Hope youve had a good christmas/new year!

Can I float something by you? Last week my mate said that the most efficient way to have the heating is the TRVs turned up full and set a lower temp on the stat.

At the moment I have the TRVs set to about 2; and in my office (where I spend most of my time) its 3. I have the stat set at 20 degrees from 6am - 7pm.

Where do you stand on this? Low TRVs and stat set at 20 degrees; or TRVs turned-up full and stat set to ~17 degrees.

Or does it not make much difference? What I want to mitigate against is generating more power than I need. 

Reed_Richards

Are you sure you did not misunderstand what your mate said?  In the room with the thermostat it is normal to have the TRVs set to Max (or not to have TRVs) so they don't interfere with the operation of the stat.  The only reason you might not do that is if your heating system is badly balanced and the rest of your house stays too cold but that would be a kludge instead of balancing the radiators correctly.

The temperature you set your thermostat to should be the temperature you want that room to be.  Simple as that.

The TRVs in the other rooms are there to stop those rooms getting too hot, whatever you think "too hot" to be.   This is important if the output capacity of the radiator is larger than the room requires or if you want to save money by turning down the TRV on a room when it is not in use.     

trevjen

We moved into a 4 bed new build in April that is all electric with piped underfloor heating and radiator upstairs all supplied by an Air source heat pump which is a Grant Aerona 3
I am having great difficulty trying to set the heating and hot water to run efficiently and economically. Some sources say leave the ashp running 24/7 and control with room stats and some say only run all day and not at night they also say having water heating on during the night uses more electricity as air is colder ?
I cant seem to get a happy medium where the house is warm and water is always hot. it is costing us around £300 per month in electricity far more than the same size new build we moved from with gas and electric with gas boiler.
Can anyone advise the correct way to set this thing to run as economically as possible please?

QrizB

trevjen said:

... Can anyone advise the correct way to set this thing to run as economically as possible please?

 I've replied to your thread on the same topic.

With current energy prices even a correctly-set-up ASHP will still be around twice as expensive to run as an equivalent mains gas system.

At a guess you'll need around 10000kWh/yr of electricity for CH, DHW and other purposes. That will currently cost £2200/yr. Spending £300/month in the winter isn't unreasonable.

dllive

Hi. 

Regards the radiators upstairs, I have them all at about 2 on the TRV (becuase I hardly go into those rooms). In whichever room Im in at the time (either my bedroom at nights; or my office during the days) I turn the TRV up to 5.

If I go away for a day or two, am I better to reduce the TRVs to 2 and leave the heating on; or turn the heating off?

If I leave the heating on, but the TRVs reduced to 2, the stat is always going to try to heat up to 19 degrees. So perhaps Im better just to turn the heating off?