Heat Pump - Is it working or is it just rubbish?

Olinda99

NedS said:

Olinda99 said:

Can anyone advise on the best way to set a heat pump when going away for an extended period in the winter?

I am assuming what you would do is just to set the room thermostat to say 14 degrees or whatever and leave everything else alone?

The most efficient way would be to set the flow temperature as low as possible and leave it running, but depending on the size of heat pump, heat loss of your house and outside temperatures, that may still provide more heat than you'd ideally like, so a room thermostat set like you say sounds a reasonable option. We also turn the DHW off whilst away.

One consideration - what anti-freeze protection do you have? Glycol or anti-freeze valves? If there is no adequate anti-freeze protection in place, then you will need to leave it running to prevent freezing of the outdoor system.

not sure what anti freeze i have - the pump.is a daikin-edla09d3v3

FreeBear

Olinda99 said:

NedS said:

Olinda99 said:

Can anyone advise on the best way to set a heat pump when going away for an extended period in the winter?

I am assuming what you would do is just to set the room thermostat to say 14 degrees or whatever and leave everything else alone?

The most efficient way would be to set the flow temperature as low as possible and leave it running, but depending on the size of heat pump, heat loss of your house and outside temperatures, that may still provide more heat than you'd ideally like, so a room thermostat set like you say sounds a reasonable option. We also turn the DHW off whilst away.

One consideration - what anti-freeze protection do you have? Glycol or anti-freeze valves? If there is no adequate anti-freeze protection in place, then you will need to leave it running to prevent freezing of the outdoor system.

not sure what anti freeze i have - the pump.is a daikin-edla09d3v3

If there is antifreeze in the system, it might be detailed in the installation paperwork. If not, drain a dribble out of a radiator bleed valve and give it a taste test. Glycol will taste sweet, but is also toxic if consumed in any quantity. So spit and rinse afterwards.

matelodave

We closed ours down to around 14 degrees a few years ago when we went away for a couple of weeks in December (it was exceptionally cold that year) and it took just over two days to get the place back up to temperature again (we have underfloor heating and low flow temps). So we dont do that any more, however our programmable stats have a holiday function which allows it to be set back (although not quite as much) and then turned up the day before we return which makes it much better.

Be a bit careful though if your system has a back-up heater, if you turn it down too much then the back-up heater can kick in to stop the system, freezing. My 14 year old Daikin system has a minimum flow temp below which it wants to fire up the 6kw back-up heater - it cant because I've disabled it but there again I dont turn the system right down anymore

As mentioned, all heatpumps are not the same nor are the controls, especially if you have external room stats so you need to understand what happens when you wind them right down

michaels

We normally run with a +1 or +2 offset on the weather comp curve.  We have just bene away for 3 days over the weekend when I think temps were between -2 and +7, I set the offset to -5 instead (the max adjustment) and the core house temp dropped from about 21C to 17C over the 3 days, I think we used about 60% off what we would have used at normal temp operation.  Unfortunately we don't have internet control otherwise I would have let it get colder and set it to reheat before we got back.  We are also limited by undersize rads which makes reheat times longer due to the restricted max rad capacity.

TroubledTarts

FreeBear said:

Olinda99 said:

NedS said:

Olinda99 said:

Can anyone advise on the best way to set a heat pump when going away for an extended period in the winter?

I am assuming what you would do is just to set the room thermostat to say 14 degrees or whatever and leave everything else alone?

The most efficient way would be to set the flow temperature as low as possible and leave it running, but depending on the size of heat pump, heat loss of your house and outside temperatures, that may still provide more heat than you'd ideally like, so a room thermostat set like you say sounds a reasonable option. We also turn the DHW off whilst away.

One consideration - what anti-freeze protection do you have? Glycol or anti-freeze valves? If there is no adequate anti-freeze protection in place, then you will need to leave it running to prevent freezing of the outdoor system.

not sure what anti freeze i have - the pump.is a daikin-edla09d3v3

If there is antifreeze in the system, it might be detailed in the installation paperwork. If not, drain a dribble out of a radiator bleed valve and give it a taste test. Glycol will taste sweet, but is also toxic if consumed in any quantity. So spit and rinse afterwards.

Ours is blue if that helps but not sure it is always coloured.