Heat pump circuits

pmatos

Hi,

Recently I decided to understand a bit better how things work with regards to heating in my home because I kept seeing some spikes on my smart electricity meter. My home has a Alpha Innotec heat pump and uses underfloor heating. After turning off the heat pump I noticed it was related to that.

I have a Alpha Innotec heat pump and a Luxtronik control. The manual is at: https://www.alpha-innotec.cz/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/controller-1.pdf

I think I understood what the heating curve is about but it got me confused when I noticed I actually could set up 2 heating curves, one for a Heating circle and another for a mixing circle 1. I can understand the Heating circle, since it should be the circle for domestic heating. However, I am quite confused by the existence of the mixing circle. Does anybody know what this could be for?

Paulo

pmatos

Peakedtoosoon said:

"Menu access to the heating curves of mixing circle 1 is only possible if a mixer is installed in the system and mixing circle 1 is defined as a discharge mixing circle in the system setting"

Do you have any mixing valves on the system?

Yes, indeed. However, I am still not quite sure what this means in the context of heating. I can imagine mixing valves are using for hot water, but I don't understand then why it would have it's own configuration for a heating curve.

pmatos

pmatos said:

Peakedtoosoon said:

"Menu access to the heating curves of mixing circle 1 is only possible if a mixer is installed in the system and mixing circle 1 is defined as a discharge mixing circle in the system setting"

Do you have any mixing valves on the system?

Yes, indeed. However, I am still not quite sure what this means in the context of heating. I can imagine mixing valves are using for hot water, but I don't understand then why it would have it's own configuration for a heating curve.

OK, I think I understand why I have a mixing circuit. I have a 830liter cylinder of hot water, heated to 50C, that's used for both the underfloor heating and the hot water. This means that the mixing circuit is the circuit that actually goes into the underfloor heating the the hot water in the cylinder must be mixed with cold water. But then, it feels to me like I don't understand what the heating circuit is, since what's actually used for the underfloor heating is the mixing circuit.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Sounds like the heating curve would control the boiler based on outdoor air temperature to meat the building load

The mixing circuit would control supply water temp based on return temp and boiler temp.

just a guess