Holiday Settings

[PhilT]

Going away soon. For a week's holiday at this time of year, how do people set their heat pump modes, temps and timings, and with what objectives in mind?

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, PhilT said:

Going away soon. For a week's holiday at this time of year, how do people set their heat pump modes, temps and timings, and with what objectives in mind?

Set the thermostat to 14°C.

 

When I lived in Aylesbury, I only felt the need to have one holiday.  Can't think of a better place to spend a week.

[ProDave]

I would leave as it is. the cost saving is not worth it.

 

Mine is controlled by 2 room thermostats and a timeclock, to make it controlable in the same way as a boiler so most people would understand it.  the timeclock has a holiday mode, but that just turns it off for a set number of days.  

[ReedRichards]

At the very least, turn off the hot water heating.  Personally, I reduce the house internal temperature setting but leave the heat pump running for heating.

[JohnMo]

I just walk away and leave everything set as is.

[Gone West]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

I just walk away and leave everything set as is.

+1

[Gary68]

15 minutes ago, Gone West said:

+1

+2

[sharpener]

I put the Evohome system into Holiday mode which turns all the room temperature eTRV settings to 10C. So far the max/min thermometers show that has not got that low. If I know the return date I can enter that too. Only real benefit is that it saves wear on the valves and prolongs battery life.

 

Then the HP gets set to Absence mode so turns everything off except for frost protection. I can use the app to turn it back on before I return. If that is earlier than expected (as above) I can still have HW on arrival.

 

If I remember I do various tricks so as not to leave a HW cyl and thermal store full at 55C which will go to waste. But these addtional complications run the risk that some vital step gets omitted!

 

If all else fails the anti-frost valves will I hope save me from a very expensive freeze-up.

[marshian]

Funny I had a little play before we went away for a long weekend normally I turn everything down to frost protection if away for a few weeks but wanted to see the impact of a set back setting - posted elsewhere

 

The plan 

 

Away for a few days - in my book that’s a good time to experiment with “setback” temps 

Turns out that the “room temp” adjustment of the weather comp curve is remarkably close to the actual room temps for the majority of rooms (like having a roomstat that works for nearly all the rooms)

20 gets 20
19 gets 19 
18 gets 18
17 gets 17

So now I have a quick and easy setback process that reduces (I hope) heatloss if away but still keeps a level of heating in the house. Interesting will be how quickly will restoring the normal result in room recovery

 

The results

Scores on the doors after a long weekend in Venice (which was equally cold as here and a tad moist some days)

For the days in Jan before we left house kWh/HDD was an average of 4.5 and pretty rock solid

For the three days were were away house kWh/HDD was 3.13, 3.18 & 3.82

The saving over the normal usage was 45 kWh over the 3 days

For the 24 hrs coming back from setback house kWh/HDD was 6.32

The cost of getting the house back to temp over the normal usage was 24 kWh

So overall a 21 kWh saving in CH or in money terms £1.07

I'll not bother in future 

This did not include the saving from not heating HW which was 12 kWh so essentially 50p

I'll continue to do that because it makes no sense to heat water that isn't going to be used

 

Gas boiler - all rads - running WC and DHWP