Run mini-split heat pump heads at different temperatures

energy efficiencyheat-pumpmini-splitzoned-heating

I vaguely remember the contractor who did maintenance on our ductless heat pumps two summers ago telling us not to set the thermostats of the two small heads that share an outdoor unit to different temperatures.

My memory is that there was something about the outdoor unit's inability to adjust the amount of work it's doing that made such an arrangement bad. I haven't been able to find any confirmation of this online though.

Am I making this up, or is it really good advice?

It's a two-story house, 900sqft.
(not counting the basement, where we occasionally use a radiant/oil space heater to keep the pipes thawed.)
The whole downstairs has a single double-wind heat-pump head with its own outdoor unit.
Upstairs the bedroom and office each have a head with piping out to their shared unit.

The reason I'm stressing about this now is because, with both of us working from home every day, we've been mostly-closing the door of the office so we can have that one room ~10F hotter than the rest of the house during the day. (The difference is large enough that we're not much worried we'll forget and leave it overnight.)

Best Answer

It's complete BS. If that was actually a problem, then the system wouldn't let you do that.