@peterr 

that usage looks reasonable.  If you look at page 10 Section 3.7 and referenced sections, there is quite a lot of scope to get the energy monitoring settings wrong.  

https://library.mitsubishielectric.co.uk/pdf/book/Ecodan_FTC6_PAC-IF071-3B-E_Installation_Manual_BH79D843H02#page-10-11

Kev

@kev-m 

Yes, I am not unhappy with that usage.  Will have to see how it goes over the next few months, but it looks as though it's working out cheaper than our old LPG heating.  I suspect I will have to increase the cold end of our compensation curve slightly, it's currently at 43C for 0C ambient, and we dropped a degree or so in the lounge when it got down to -2C last week.  

I am going on a course next week on using a FLIR camera to measure heat loss, which will give me access to free loan of a camera, so I can start looking for any areas where insulation is lacking or we are leaking heat.

Our system uses method 2 in the manual for monitoring energy, or at least it should do because we have 2 elec meters and a flow meter, so it should be accurate.  I am expecting the engineer coming next week to sort it out - if not I shall go digging!

Cheers,

Peter.

@peterr for comparison our usage was as follows:

Actual meter reading - total kwh for Nov: 1514kwh

Estimated use in NOv before asap based on previous readings: 540kwh

Estimated ASHP in Nov based on above: 974kwh

Melcloud reported usage of ASHP in Nov: 1221kwh

So still quite a margin of error but smaller than yours. And relieved that margin of error is that Melcloud seems to be over estimating. 

Couldn't set weather comp up last night as water supply was off (hoping this doesn't mess with the system) so left it alone. Home again at weekend will have a go then.

@rv3 

Do you have the MMSP package?  We have 2 electricity meters and a heat flow meter specifically to measure our usage and delivered energy.  One elec meter measures the direct consumption of the tank booster heater, and the other is in the ASHP itself to measure its consumption.

From the manual that Kev linked to above, there are 2 different methods for measuring consumption.  Method 1 is just a guide, and uses internal calculations to estimate usage, method 2 uses the external meters and is the more accurate method.  I suspect that our installers fitted the meters for method 2, and then left the unit using method 1, with some incorrect settings for the calculations.

Good luck with the weather compensation - it seemed daunting when I first went to set it up, but in the end I found it fairly simple, although I am still fine tuning it at the cold end of the curve.

Finally managed to get our installer out to have a look at our system last Thursday, only for the "engineer" to turn up and tell me he wasn't their to look at the MMSP problem, just take a photo of the meter in the ASHP and balance the rads!  He told me he would "tell the office" that there was an MMSP fault and they'd get in touch!

At least I finally have the necessary paperwork from the installer to complete our MMSP application, but that is the only thing that their visit achieved.  The "engineer" wandered around the house for about 30 minutes, fiddling with valves, then pronounced the radiators balanced and left (unfortunately I was on the phone at the time).  His "balancing" now means that we have two radiators not getting properly warm instead of one, and he left the radiator on the landing switched off completely 😡.  Suffice to say I am not happy and they will be getting another call.  I could probably do it myself, but I don't see why I should. I paid for a working system to be installed, and it still isn't working properly.  If they don't sort it promptly I will be getting somebody out who can and sending them the bill along with making a formal complaint to MCS.

One other plus point from the visit, is that I have now been able to accurately see how much power the ASHP has consumed since install, and I know for certain that the MelCloud data is wrong.  The meters read 1187kWh consumed since Oct 19th, with a delivered heat of 3668kWh.  This gives an average CoP for the last 7 weeks of 3.1 and an average daily consumption of ~24kWh.

After several fruitless voicemails and emails, I finally got fed up and had a go at balancing the radiators myself last weekend.  Funnily enough, with a few hours of fairly minimal effort, we now have a full set of warm radiators.  They probably still need a bit more tweaking, but at least the house is now comfortable throughout - my office, which is in one of the roof rooms is sitting at a fairly consistent 21C.

For the last month or so we have been running in Weather Compensation mode.  I would like to try switching to auto adaptation, but, from my own observations and the odd bits of information that I have managed to extract from the installer, I don't think it will be possible at the moment.  It looks as though the installer has modified the firmware for the controller, so that the Room Temperature (Auto Adaptation) mode is actually just Room Temperature, with a fixed flow temp of 50C.  They have also linked the two heating zones so that you have to select the same mode of operation for both - according to the manual you should be able to  set them to operate in different modes.  I would also like to experiment with having the UFH running in Weather Compensation, with Auto Adaptation for the rads, but I can't because of the way in which the installer has crippled the controller.

All in all, I am not best pleased with installer at the moment.  They just haven't bothered to try and understand what we want from the heating system, but seem to be trying to force us into their "one size fits all" solution.  Let alone the fact that they just haven't made any effort whatsoever to try and resolve the issue with our MMSP.  Nor do they seem prepared to share with me any details of exactly how the system has been configured.  I have therefore started down the road of their complaints procedure.  I have given them an ultimatum of letting me have a substantive response detailing how they are going to resolve the issues by 07/01/2022, otherwise I will get somebody else in to sort it out and send them the bill.

On the plus side, the house is warm, and we are no longer burning litre after litre of LPG to keep it that way 😀 

Posted by: @peterr

After several fruitless voicemails and emails, I finally got fed up and had a go at balancing the radiators myself last weekend.  Funnily enough, with a few hours of fairly minimal effort, we now have a full set of warm radiators.  They probably still need a bit more tweaking, but at least the house is now comfortable throughout - my office, which is in one of the roof rooms is sitting at a fairly consistent 21C.

For the last month or so we have been running in Weather Compensation mode.  I would like to try switching to auto adaptation, but, from my own observations and the odd bits of information that I have managed to extract from the installer, I don't think it will be possible at the moment.  It looks as though the installer has modified the firmware for the controller, so that the Room Temperature (Auto Adaptation) mode is actually just Room Temperature, with a fixed flow temp of 50C.  They have also linked the two heating zones so that you have to select the same mode of operation for both - according to the manual you should be able to  set them to operate in different modes.  I would also like to experiment with having the UFH running in Weather Compensation, with Auto Adaptation for the rads, but I can't because of the way in which the installer has crippled the controller.

All in all, I am not best pleased with installer at the moment.  They just haven't bothered to try and understand what we want from the heating system, but seem to be trying to force us into their "one size fits all" solution.  Let alone the fact that they just haven't made any effort whatsoever to try and resolve the issue with our MMSP.  Nor do they seem prepared to share with me any details of exactly how the system has been configured.  I have therefore started down the road of their complaints procedure.  I have given them an ultimatum of letting me have a substantive response detailing how they are going to resolve the issues by 07/01/2022, otherwise I will get somebody else in to sort it out and send them the bill.

On the plus side, the house is warm, and we are no longer burning litre after litre of LPG to keep it that way 😀 

Hi Peterr,

There appears to be a strong smell of bovine excrement emanating from the direction of your installer. I doubt whether your installer would even know where to start when it comes to modifying firmware, it is more likely that they have failed to correctly configure your system.

If you would like to share some details about your system, how it is being controlled at the moment and how you would like it to be controlled, I may be able to provide some guidance.

@peterr no chance they've "modified the firmware" unless they are programmers and have decided to waste hundreds of hours for some reason. I expect they've just not put the right settings into the system

peterr,

it's probably just dip switch settings rather than firmware.  There is a lot of scope to set it up (or mess it up) as described on p25 of the FTC6 manual I linked before.

Kev

@derek-m 

Hi Derek,

I have no doubt that our installers are fluent in BS, but my comments about the firmware were my own suspicions based on admittedly flimsy bits of evidence.  Probably all stems from me assuming that an installer who boldly claims that they are "The UK's No 1 Heat Pump Installer" would have got the installation process right!

Our system is currently running in Weather Compensation mode.  The UFH is set to be Zone 1, with the rads as Zone 2. The room stats for the UFH are all set to about 23C, so that the UFH is always calling for heat.  We have a Mitsubishi Wireless Controller which is sitting in my office on the top floor, which is currently set to 21C.  The main remote controller is on the first floor landing, it is showing a set temperature of 26C, with a current temperature of 23C, although I do not believe that this actually controls anything.  If the temperature in my office gets to 22C both heating zones go into Idle mode, even though the UFH is calling for heat.

I have seen your posts on other threads about Room Adaptation mode potentially giving more stable room temperatures.  On cold nights our lounge drops a degree or so and then takes a while to get back up again, so I am wondering if Room Adaptation may be a better option, but I am not sure how it would work, given that there is no thermostat linked to the Mitsubishi controller for the rooms with UFH, so it has no way of monitoring the room temperatures.  Upstairs temperatures don't seem to drop on cold nights now that I have balanced the rads - my office was at 21C when I went downstairs last night and it was still at 21C this morning, and it got down to -3C here overnight.  The compensation curve that I have got set therefore seems to be about right for the upstairs, but isn't quite right for the lounge.

I am wondering if I can configure the system to use the main controller for Zone 2 (rads) and the wireless controller for Zone 1 (UFH), but not sure how this would work given that the UFH has its own stats to control when it calls for heat.

Thanks,

Peter.

@batalto @kev-m

On reflection I think you're probably right - the installer just hasn't set things up properly.

I just haven't quite summoned up the courage to take the cover off the controller yet to see what the DIP switches are set to!

Hi @peterr 

There are ways of controlling two zones. Let me read through the manual and get back to you.