@caroline2000 Do not despair, 9 times out of 10 it is a case of so cloce but so far. Often with minor adjustnents to the equipment and the way you opperate it, it is not a boiler, if you try to opperate it like a boiler, you will fail.

What unit is it? I may be able to help with the programming.

@caroline2000, as Brendon has stated, it's not all doom and gloom, and you can get these systems to work more efficiently. We use a lot of electricity, but at least the house is warm and snug – having said that, it took us two winters to figure out where we could improve and tweak things. There is a definite learning curve to heat pumps. A lot of it comes down to settings and getting your support bits (TRVs, thermostats, etc.) to perform better.

Hopefully Brendan can help you figure out some of the programming/setting issues.

• @heacol we’ve not actually got our heating on yet!
• We’ve had to have tiles reset/replace on the floor and need to have the heating off......it’s going on on Tuesday I any help with setting etc would be much appreciated!

@caroline2000 No problem, I will need a full description of your heating system, from the heating system emmitters number of pumps and where they are and the control system you have installed. Without the propper information, I cannot help. If you list it here, it may help others.

Right....heating is on!

No idea really how to explain this....

Ecodan 14

Controller next to tank - 300L? (EHPT30X). Situated in hallway (centre of house) with underfloor heating manifolds - 2 boards of 5 circuits?

There are thermostats linked to each circuit - Heatmiser?

Underfloor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs...there’s only 1 thermostat upstairs on landing, but 6 rooms up there? Each radiator does have a temp controller on.

Theres 2 other smaller tanks - one red and 1 white?

Pump is outside - about 6m away?

@caroline2000 You need to set the controller to run on a weather compensation curve of about 20 Deg C flow temperature at ambient 18 Deg C and 45 deg C flow at - 3 Deg C External.

Either remove all the actuator heads on your manifolds or turn all your thermostats up full if you want to try before altering, Set all your TRV's to 3.

This will make the house much more comfortable and reduce the running cost. It will not be the best it can be without altering some pipework and removing some of the pumps.

Thanks......

When you say turn thermostats up to full? Do you mean temperature on the wall thermostats? So not on timed?

This is what’s control is set at when I’ve turned it on?

Also What pressure should red tank and UFH be running at?

Here is an update of our system for the year so far (Ecodan 14kw ASHP + 500l Unvented Cylinder in 420M2 property).

I've reduced the time that the secondary return runs for the morning and evening period and it seems to have cut the hot water costs quite a bit (I made the change mid August and the September and October numbers compared to last year are much better).

I've settled on keeping the flow temp at 40 and it seems to work nicely at the moment.

Posted by: @caroline2000

Hi all,

We have an Ecodan 14Kw ASHP - House is 2 storey 286m2

We have underfloor heating downstairs and oversized radiators upstairs.

We have thermostats all over!

Issues

It’s using 18-22 thousand KWh annually and it’s costing us a fortune

The house doesn’t really feel warm

The heat pump is situated at the rear of the house but seems very noisy - not sure if this is normal - hadn’t really thought about the noise when it was installed - stupidly

Any suggestions welcome

Hi Caroline, 

How are you measuring the annual consumption of the ASHP?

We have the same ASHP as you and our house is roughly 420M2 and we consume around 14,500 kWh for heating and hot water using the melcoud estimated energy consumption.

@caroline2000 Your high temperature is fine buy the low needs to come down to about 20 at 20 Deg C. The thermostats must be at about 30 deg C and no timers. The thermostat is just a switch like your light switch, it has no effect what so ever on the heat pump. The red tank should read between 1 -2 bar.

When you activate weather compensation on the controller, there will be an up and adown button (I think +5  to -5 )this moves the curve up and down. Leave it like this for a few days, if cold go up 2 deg or if hot go down but leave it for a couple of days to settle down. Once you have it right, it should keep the temperature in your house very steady.

Finally my install is done!  11.2kw Ecodan ASHP. 10 radiators spread over a 3 bed detached 2 story house. 250L DHW cylinder. Controlled by Heat Miser Neostat V2 wifi.  The house is toasty warm since commission yesterday afternoon, lovely.

However……… The ASHP doesn’t turn off.  The controller (photo 3) will show the water heating and when reaching the set 50c will stop. It will then switch over to the heating. The problem is as you will see from the last two photos, the room is at 23c, the stat is not calling for heat because at this period of time the temp is programmed at 21c but the CH can clearly be seen as on and the ASHP is running.

I’ve shut the system down and restarted, no change.  Had my shower thus dropping the DHW to 42c so the switch to heating the water occurred as expected but then, even though the room is above the required and set temp, it switched over to heating as shown above. Overnight between 2200 and 0500 the CH setting is 16c but will just keep going.  Before calling the installers tomorrow morning is there something obvious I’m missing?

@morgan 

Hi Morgan,

It is difficult to say for definite, not being there and able to interrogate the controller.

From the photo's it would appear that your controller is set to operate on the weather compensation curve, which if the parameters have not been set correctly may be causing a problem. Try changing the FTC6 controller from weather compensation curve control to either room temperature or flow temperature control as detailed on page 34 of the FTC6 manual.

Another possibility is that one or more of the DIP switch settings are incorrect, and the FTC6 controller does not know that the thermostat exists, or it is taking the wrong action. Try increasing the thermostat setting above the present room temperature and see if this stops the ASHP. Have a look at page 25 of the FTC6 manual for details.

It would appear to be another fine example of installers not correctly commissioning a system before disappearing rapidly into the sunset.

Let me know what you find.