ᐅ Fine-tuning of underfloor heating in a newly built home under warranty? First occupancy

Good day.
Maybe someone here can give me some practical advice.
I will soon be moving into a new condominium (KfW70 standard, pellet heating, underfloor heating, solar collectors for hot water) in a multi-family building.

Is the heating system usually properly adjusted from the start, or is there initially a kind of basic setup?
I won’t need heating for the first few months until autumn. Also, the heating isn’t running at the handover. So I don’t even know if the underfloor heating works at all or if it’s correctly adjusted.

Since I’m not an expert, I don’t know if—assuming it is adjusted—it is actually set up correctly.

Does adjusting the underfloor heating fall under warranty? Or can the heating technician charge me for that service?

And is it okay to ask the heating technician or the general contractor for a "heating/setting curve"? I could then have a heating specialist take a look at it.

Many thanks
erika

So most likely there is only one main setting after calculating the heating demand.

You won’t get more than that because that’s basically how underfloor heating works... even if it’s not necessarily efficient.

Everything else, such as hydraulic balancing, adjustment to your living habits, etc., is up to you, and whether you do it or not is your choice.

To my knowledge, hydraulic balancing has been mandatory for new buildings since 09/2015, at least according to the energy agency. This is regulated here:
DIN 4701 / 10
VOB/C - DIN 18380 sections 3.1.1 and 3.5.1

Furthermore, hydraulic balancing is basically pointless for underfloor heating with individual room control, except perhaps in the case of multiple circuits per room.

Yes, it is definitely mandatory, but the question is to what extent it is actually carried out. As I already mentioned, the process usually works like this: an engineer calculates the system and provides the heating installer with the results, for example: Circuit 1 - 5 turns or 0.5 L/min (0.13 gal/min), and Circuit 2 - 10 turns or 1 L/min (0.26 gal/min).

This setting is then applied and serves as a rough adjustment to achieve the required temperatures.

However, an efficient heating system is something different... the initial rough hydraulic balancing is only the first step. After that, it is important to observe the system's behavior and fine-tune it, which falls into the scope of personal preference.

Tom1607 schrieb:
By the way, hydraulic balancing in a radiant floor heating system with individual room control is pointless.

You probably mean it that way, but on the other hand, an efficient heating system is quite the opposite.

The sentence should therefore read: "Individual room control is pointless in a hydraulically balanced radiant floor heating system."

@Mycraft: I agree with you that individual room control is pointless in a properly designed and balanced underfloor heating system. However, there are two main obstacles: 1. Individual room control is mandatory (bureaucrats decided this again due to lobbying), and 2. installers usually increase the spacing between the pipes and raise the flow temperature to the upper limit to meet the energy requirements. But customers usually focus on the price and choose the cheapest option (which leads to higher costs during installation due to longer pipe lengths and possibly more heating circuits). Very few people understand the relationship between flow temperature and pipe spacing...

Tom1607 schrieb:
1. The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is mandatory

Well, not exactly... you can always be exempted from that requirement.

Tom1607 schrieb:
2. Typically, heating engineers increase the spacing between pipes and raise the flow temperature to the upper limit in order to achieve the desired energy output

Not really... it depends on the individual case, and not everyone cuts corners in the wrong places.