Ideal Logic 10kW He...
 
Notifications
Clear all

Ideal Logic 10kW Heat Pump Pipes Noisy and Very Expensive to Run

48 Posts
9 Users
23 Reactions
1,102 Views
(@ajbevster)
Trusted Member Member
129 kWhs
Joined: 3 weeks ago
Posts: 21
Topic starter  

Hello, I am reaching out for some help and advice to stop me from going crazy. I shall list the issues I have in priority order. 

Background, we have an ideal logic 10kw ashp with gledhill 372 ltr hot water tank, 11 radiators, 180sqm, 5 bed house with honeywell evo home smart thermostat radiator valves. Only 3 days in and starting to go crazy. 

First day use was 100kw and averaging around 50-60kw a day. At a rate of 24p per kw I'm looking at bills in excess of £500 a month just for ashp. Radiators set to 19c and hot water 50c. 

Please tell me this isn't normal.

Secondly and more importantly, the flow pipes are extremely noisy whenever the pump is on. It can be heard throughout the house like someone is Lawn mowing up in the loft. Pipes are connected up outside of house and run through the loft to hot water cylinder in centre of house. They all look well insulated, big hole for pipes, all securely connected so doesn't sound like vibration more like pulsating pumping but flow rate is  

Lastly, our kettle won't work properly when the ashp is on. Surely this means the heat pump is trying to draw too much power? 

Please help a novice....still trying to get my head around flow rate, setpoint...how can I get the cost of running down. 

Thanks

 

 

This topic was modified 3 weeks ago by Mars

   
Quote
(@johnr)
Estimable Member Member
547 kWhs
Joined: 3 months ago
Posts: 73
 

Your system is worse than normal for something that has been very badly configured! My first thought is that you should turn up the radiator temperatures as the resulting house temperature is below what the heat pump controller is trying to achieve and consequently it is working the heat pump hard thinking that hotter water is needed to get the house warm enough. What system monitoring capability has been provided? In the absence of firm numbers, you can make a subjective assessment of the temperature of the pipes from the heat pump by touching them - over about 45C starts to be difficult to hold.

My Vaillant Arotherm+ heat pump guzzled a lot of electricity during its first day of operation, but it also made the house very hot. I went into the system settings and discovered that the weather compensation hadn't been enabled, so the heat pump didn't know when to stop producing heat. I also noticed that the circulating water made a lot of noise and reduced the speed, with no adverse effects. I have a buffer tank and have recently discovered that the minimum circulating pump speed results in an increase in the flow to the radiators as there's more time for heat transfer within the buffer tank. Some cheap digital thermometers with probes help with troubleshooting the system: https://amzn.to/4gYTRzj

If shopping at Amazon, then something to monitor the mains voltage will reveal if there's a voltage drop when the heat pump is running: https://amzn.to/4g5c4tX

This post was modified 3 weeks ago 2 times by JohnR
This post was modified 3 weeks ago by Mars

   
ReplyQuote
(@ajbevster)
Trusted Member Member
129 kWhs
Joined: 3 weeks ago
Posts: 21
Topic starter  

Thanks for your response,  that would make sense as the hot water temp is 58.5c way above what the set point is at 45c. 

So first solution would be to increase temp in house thermostats? It's on the honeywell evohome auto trv system so the temperature should be controlled by the app. My gut tells me the systems are not working together. 

It's an ideal logic air control box (in the loft) very angry with that. I've attached current readings. If anyone can advise on best settings...

 I can't change any of the heating settings on this control panel as I think the evo home ch takes priority.  

I also have no idea how to see if weather compensate has been enabled. I shall reach manual tonight. 

Would people advise to change to standard trvs?  Keep the thermostat in a sensible place and set the house temp on this whilst I await engineer? 

I wish they'd spent more time setting the system up properly.  

Advice as always appreciated

20250119 094901
20250119 094854
20250119 094846
20250119 094837

 


   
ReplyQuote



(@jamespa)
Famed Member Moderator
9586 kWhs
Joined: 2 years ago
Posts: 1746
 

Posted by: @ajbevster

So first solution would be to increase temp in house thermostats? It's on the honeywell evohome auto trv system so the temperature should be controlled by the app. My gut tells me the systems are not working together. 

They aren't working together and the evohome will be clobbering your efficiency.

Posted by: @ajbevster

Would people advise to change to standard trvs?  Keep the thermostat in a sensible place and set the house temp on this whilst I await engineer? 

Nope, waste of money.   Either remove the evohome heads altogether and sell them on ebay, or turn the desired temp to 30C on all, or almost all of them.  Then balance the rads as best you can (feel free to ask for explanation) and adjust the wc so the house is at the right temperature.   If you want you csn retain the evohomes in a small percentage of rooms, say the bedrooms. 

Posted by: @ajbevster

I wish they'd spent more time setting the system up properly

Sadly you and just about everyone else who posts here.  Unfortunately time is money!


   
ReplyQuote
(@johnr)
Estimable Member Member
547 kWhs
Joined: 3 months ago
Posts: 73
 

Posted by: @jamespa

Then balance the rads as best you can (feel free to ask for explanation) and adjust the wc so the house is at the right temperature.   If you want you csn retain the evohomes in a small percentage of rooms, say the bedrooms. 

@jamespa: You might want to go easy on the abbreviations when someone is trying to understand how their heat pump works and may end up wondering why adjusting their water closet could help! (WC in this context = weather (ie outside temperature) compensation).

 


   
👍
😂
2
ReplyQuote
(@jamespa)
Famed Member Moderator
9586 kWhs
Joined: 2 years ago
Posts: 1746
 

Fair enough, although in this case op does actually mention weather compensation so hopefully makes the link.  But yes, for the avoidance of doubt by WC I mean weather compensation!

 

This post was modified 3 weeks ago 2 times by JamesPa
This post was modified 3 weeks ago by Mars

   
ReplyQuote
(@ajbevster)
Trusted Member Member
129 kWhs
Joined: 3 weeks ago
Posts: 21
Topic starter  

Absolutely happy to get rid of the evo homes they seem overly complicated for what they are. I've transferred over to the normal trv and set them all at 3 for now. The thermostat being used now is the evohome handheld device so just going to keep that in centre of house and go from there. 

Funnily enough the house temp picked up was 27c so way over what the radiator thermostats were saying. 

I'm now concerned the heat pump won't be turning on at all for long periods of time and then using huge amounts to get the house back up to heat. House seems to hold heat really well which is why I was so surprised at why it was working so hard. 

How do I balance the rads? And how do I adjust the wc on the ideal logic? Can this be done using the evohome controller? It has a setting called smart weather with warm weather saver and cold weather boost...shall I enable both those? If I just disconnect the evo home entirely can I use the logic control box to determine heating....however don't think there is a thermostat inside so guessing this is a no no. 


   
ReplyQuote
(@jamespa)
Famed Member Moderator
9586 kWhs
Joined: 2 years ago
Posts: 1746
 

@ajbevster 

Further to my earlier post (which you should still read) one of the pictures seems to show the heat pump timed to come on only for a few hours per day.  The effects of part time operation are a bit difficult to calculate, but there is at least a fair probability that running part time is actually costing you money because, by doing so, you are forced to run at a higher flow temperature than you need to.  I would suggest you try, in addition to the suggestions above, operating it 24x7  (you can do a modest setback at night if the controller allows it) and reducing the flow temp/weather compensation settings still further.  This may well work out cheaper.

Currently it looks like it has been set up to run as if it were a gas boiler.  This is in many/most circumstances, the most expensive possible way to run a heat pump, and in addition the least comfortable!

This post was modified 3 weeks ago 3 times by JamesPa

   
ReplyQuote
(@ajbevster)
Trusted Member Member
129 kWhs
Joined: 3 weeks ago
Posts: 21
Topic starter  

Thank you so much for the help James. 

Bit confused, which picture shows it's part time operation. I would absolutely love it to run 24/7 with wc as you suggest...I just have no idea how to do that...there's the immersion setting for legionella but I'm happy with that one. 

Already feel better removing the stupid evohome trvs...now just to figure out how to the change the wc and the flow temp and how to do a setback...


   
ReplyQuote



(@jamespa)
Famed Member Moderator
9586 kWhs
Joined: 2 years ago
Posts: 1746
 

Our posts crossed but fundamentally and in short form you need to 

  • Turn trvs to max
  • Turn any external thermostat to max inc evohome
  • Make sure that the evohome and trvs are programmed to be on 24*7

The effect of the above is to disable the secondary controls entirely without removing them

  • Have the heat pump working 24*7 (time program on ideal controller)

Then

  • Balance the rads
  • Turn the weather compensation down to the lowest possible consistent with the house heating up.

These last two you can do in parallel and will take several days or up to a couple of weeks to get right.

No need for a thermostat (maybe as a tweak if you get lots of solar gain)

To balance rads you use the lockshields valves (lsvs).  These are at the opposite end to the trvs.  The one on the rad which takes longest to heat up, usually the one furthest from the ashp, should be fully open.  Others should be fully open or turned down just enough to get the rooms all to the same temperature, or if you want a temperature differential between rooms, the right temperature differential (NB differential not right absolute temperature, it's the WC curve you adjust to get to the right absolute temperature).  Often you will need to turn a lsv down to within a turn or two of shut before it does anything different to when it's fully open.

The process is iterative and you have to wait several hours after making a change.  In total expect it to take a couple of weeks.

 If you have the motivation look at balancing radiators on the heat geek website.

Please don't try to do part of this as it will make things worse.  Read your manual in respect of how to adjust the weather compensation curve and if you don't understand it ask.

Happy to give more detail once you are happy with and understand the overall plan.

I strongly recommend you don't start until you are happy you understand each part of this.

Btw this is essentially the same for any heat pump.  Installers should do it but generally don't because it takes too long.

Once you have the basic setup running as above you can tweak further, but until this is working best to keep it very simple.

 

Finally in answer to your specific question "If I just disconnect the evo home entirely can I use the logic control box to determine heating....however don't think there is a thermostat inside so guessing this is a no no. ". It's not a no no, the answer is yes and furthermore you should at least initially.. 

You might eventually want to retain elements of the evohome to fine tune once you get it working solely on the ideal controller.  My suspicion is that the latter does include a temp sensor, which isn't absolutely necessary as the prime control driver is outside temperature not inside temperature.  However sometimes inside temperature is useful as a secondary input to the control loop, and if the controller does have a temp sensor it shouldn't be in the loft!

 

This post was modified 3 weeks ago 8 times by JamesPa

   
👍
1
ReplyQuote
(@ajbevster)
Trusted Member Member
129 kWhs
Joined: 3 weeks ago
Posts: 21
Topic starter  

Sorry you've lost me. 

I can turn all trvs to max...but max temp on evo home is 35c and I definitely don't want it that hot. I just want it on low and slow....shame there's not a tutorial online for all these things. 

  1. So genuinely I need to have heating on thermostat turned up? Currently set at 21 which is perfect for the whole house. But obviously this seems to be leading to the ashp turning on and off.

Think I'll need to read up more on what wc is as I clearly don't understand how the ashp knows what temp the inside is without a thermostat...

I'll be back

 

This post was modified 3 weeks ago by Ajbevster

   
ReplyQuote
(@jamespa)
Famed Member Moderator
9586 kWhs
Joined: 2 years ago
Posts: 1746
 

Posted by: @ajbevster

I can turn all trvs to max...but max temp on evo home is 35c and I definitely don't want it that hot

Yes, to stop them having any effect

Posted by: @ajbevster

So genuinely I need to have heating on thermostat turned up? Currently set at 21 which is perfect for the whole house.

Yes to stop it having any effect

 

Posted by: @ajbevster

Think I'll need to read up more on what wc is as I clearly don't understand how the ashp knows what temp the inside is without a thermostat...

It doesn't, but it doesn't need to.  It needs to know how much energy to supply which is determined in essence by the outside temperature.  There are good reasons why, counterintuitively, this turns out to be a better way to control a boiler or ashp and thus why some countries mandate it.  If you are interested in control theory I can elaborate.

 

 

 

 


   
ReplyQuote
Page 1 / 4
Share:

Join Us!

Heat Pump Dramas?

Thinking about installing a heat pump? Or already have one but it’s not performing as it should? Rob is here to help!

Pre-Installation Planning
Post-Installation Troubleshooting
Performance Optimisation

👉 Book a one-to-one consultation now.

Latest Posts

x  Powerful Protection for WordPress, from Shield Security
This Site Is Protected By
Shield Security