I’ve now been and asked for a quote from 3 big box UFH companies in the UK for the planning and design of our heating system. They have all come back with designs with many zones (10+) in some instances, for a home with only 5 habitable rooms!
The house will be a highly efficient SIP with MVHR, heat pump etc, yet even after telling them this, they still insist on designing systems clearly engineered for higher temp boilers.
Does anyone know of a design service that actually understands modern practice of low-temp open-loop heat pump design?
Could you be mistaking loops (usually not more than 100 metres of pipe each ,which can all connect to the same manifold) for zones? I have 5 loops connected to one manifold in a single zone system in a 75m2 bungalow.
No, you’re right to ask, but one quote I received had 11 thermostats! So I can only assume they wanted to control them as separate zones. But yes, I do understand the physical limits of the pipe runs and that 1 zone can have many loops in it!
I had a similar problem in the past. I had a “suppliers design” with 4 thermostats. Your 10 seems over-kill.
My supplier argued it was for better household control, even when it was an open single zone system design. In the end, I had to instruct the supplier to provide a single thermostat in the hallway. The control was at my risk.
I then manually “adjusted” the flow to the rooms via the manifold flow valves in the winter season to better reflect the way the house actually heats up in the day/night. I used mini temperature sensors to check room temperatures during my calibration period. I was able to drop the upstairs bedroom temperatures to ~19C with the other rooms set at 21C. My house is a 2 bedroom plus study.
It’s a compromise and may not be the answer you seek, but it was the only way I was able to manage the situation. You are right to push back on the cooky cutter approach…
Good luck!