Set the heat pump correctly

Hello dear forum community,

For several months now, we have been living in our single-family house (150 m² living space). We have underfloor heating everywhere and heat with a brine-water heat pump (supported by heat recovery of the exhaust air system).

Because we have a photovoltaic system on the roof, we decided against a second meter (peak/off-peak) and let the heating run on the "normal" meter to use as much self-produced electricity as possible.
Therefore, of course, I do not have an exact overview of the heating consumption. At current subzero temperatures (-10 to -12°C), our daily total consumption is about 30 kWh.

With that said, I would like to know if I can optimize any settings of the heat pump to possibly reduce consumption.
Hydraulic balancing was done after commissioning; we have thermostats in every room (scale: 1-5).
The heat pump has an outdoor sensor; I can adjust the heating curve and the so-called parallel shift.

Initial values were: room temperature: 20°C, heating curve: 30°C.

On the web, there are instructions for adjustment. They say: open all thermostats fully (to exclude interfering factors) and flatten the heating curve just enough to still reach the desired temperature.

But: should room thermostats always be set to the highest level? Then I couldn’t regulate upwards if I feel like it!?

What room temperature should ideally be reached at level 3? 20°C? Then the heating curve at 30°C would probably be pretty correct. But then the actuators must constantly close the valves and "throttle" in this way because otherwise it gets too warm—and the heat produced is not used optimally? So better reduce the heating curve and open the room thermostat wide (5 in the bathroom, 4 in living rooms)?

I am grateful for any tips!

Best regards
James

Which room temperature should ideally be reached at level 3? 20°C? Then the heating curve at 30°C would probably be quite right. But then the actuators constantly have to close the valves and "regulate down" in this way, because otherwise it becomes too warm – and the generated heat is not used optimally? So better lower the heating curve and turn the room thermostat up high (5 in the bathroom, 4 in the living rooms)?

With that you are asking the wrong question. From my point of view, the right question is: "Which room temperature do we want to achieve?" You are in your own single-family house. You don't have to care whether the standard specifies 20 degrees for living rooms – do you feel comfortable at 20 degrees?
Our comfort temperature is 24 degrees in the living room. Since this is the warmest room, I have set the thermostat there to 25 (it goes up to 30) and then adjusted the heating temperature at the heat pump accordingly. This was a process over several days for me, since it makes a big difference for us whether the sun is shining or not. When the sun shines, it quickly becomes too warm; when it is cloudy all day, we have "only" 22 degrees in the living room – then I can, if necessary, turn it up to "30." But with the inertia of the heating system, this usually doesn’t help – but you feel better :o

Hello James,

I’ll make it a little easier and think this will help with your problem. We also had some initial difficulties adjusting the heat pump. Until a friendly service heating technician gave us the following tip during maintenance:

Choose a reference room. For us, it’s the bathroom, which the technician recommended. It also makes sense since you like it warm there after showering or bathing. Set the thermostat in this room to full power. The rest adjusts based on this room. Afterwards, the heating curve and all other thermostats can be set as desired. We are doing very well with this.

Of course, another room can also be used as a reference.

Best regards from the HB-Blog

Take a reference room. For us, it is the bathroom, which the technician recommended to us. It also makes sense, since you like it warm there after showering or bathing. Set the thermostat in this room to maximum. The rest then adjusts based on this room. After that, the heating curve and all other thermostats can be set as desired. We are doing very well with that.

I also have problems with setting the heat pump. Therefore, your suggestion is very good and basically simple. I will also try it that way. Thank you very much ;)

I also had my difficulties with the setting. I tried it in the bathroom as well and it worked well. Then I had the right temperature in all rooms.

My tip: The heat pump controller should and can take over the regulation of the flow temperature depending on the outside air temperature. The existing room thermostats should ideally take on no function, meaning they should be fully open, except in rooms that are not or only minimally heated. In those rooms, the room thermostat may be used to limit the room temperature. The settings for this are in most cases: Level 1: frost protection Level 2: 15-18°C Level 3: 18-21°C Level 4: >21°C Level 5: fully open, no regulation. The actual temperatures achieved depend on the brand and the spatial arrangement of the sensor. It is important that the heating curve with the settings for slope and curvature matches the characteristics of the building and that the flow temperature is always at the value the house requires to achieve 20-22°C room temperature. And: Are you aware that a 1°C higher room temperature results in a 7% increase in energy consumption?