How best to set up my Heating Schedules

Your heating setup should suit your household’s needs and strike a balance between comfort and efficiency. This guide explains how to configure your schedule, optimise Homely to meet your needs, and understand the costs and efficiencies of different settings.

Heating Scheduling

Heat pumps operate differently from traditional gas boilers. They are designed to run for longer periods at lower temperatures, unlike gas boilers that operate in short, high-intensity bursts. This means that setting your heating schedules requires a different approach for optimal efficiency.

Key Points:

• Low and slow: Maintaining a lower temperature consistently is generally more efficient. Turning the system off completely won’t save energy, as it will have to work harder to bring your home back up to temperature.

• Keep the heat in: During the winter months, keep windows and doors closed as much as possible to reduce heat loss and prevent the heat pump from entering setback mode.

By following these tips, you can help your heat pump operate more efficiently while keeping your home comfortable.

Guiding Principles

Smart and Standard mode customers  

For customers on a fixed tariff, the key settings to focus on in the app are the target temperature of the home and the schedule for when heating is needed. We recommend setting your schedule based on when you are most likely to be at home, ensuring a comfortable environment when you need it.

Important to note: If you are using Standard mode, it may take some time for your home to reach the desired temperature after your scheduled heating period begins. To accommodate this, consider starting and ending your heating schedule slightly earlier than when you actually need heating.

Smart+ mode customers

As a Smart+ customer on a time-of-use tariff, Homely can help you maximise savings by scheduling your pre-heating during the cheapest electricity periods. This approach helps your system run more efficiently and reduces energy costs. However, we understand that these cheaper periods may overlap with the times you want your property to be warm. In such cases, it’s important to prioritise comfort over preheating. There are a number of options when configuring your heating to balance taking advantage of lower cost electricity periods while still maintaining comfort.

Below is a guide on how to set your schedules and toggles in the Homely system to optimize your heating production with an indication of their associated efficiency and comfort levels.