@west 

Hi, I totally understand !

I have been trying to get my Samsung Heat pump to work efficiently for 15 months .....without success.

I am now being prepared for a confrontation with my "Installer " , refereed by an NIC Engineer.

I have just received the following "urgent message" from the EST Scotland and Home Energy Scotland.

With my "installer" having been Twice struck OFF for "incompetence" you might think I have an open and shut case, but from previous experience with the MCS,NIC and RECC I am VERY sceptical!

My Samsung Heat pump has a faulty Pulse Width Modulated ,PWM driver,  with considerable  "short cycling"   ( < 10 minute cycle Period, 30-80 times per day ) , poor efficiency ( 24 % Energy loss) and an increased energy bill of 75% compared to it's Gas predecessor!

My Advice to all "do it yourself !".......

ian

Posted by: @iantelescope

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Could I better present my measurement problem with a specific example.

 

I have a Heat Pump with a Heat Exchanger dividing the Water circuit into two water circuits.

I need to measure the Water Temperatures at the Two input ports and the two output ports.

However, all four ports are physically connected to the Steel copper chassis of the heat exchanger.

How can I measure the Water Temperatures, and not the chassis temperature,  at all four ports?

 

better with the example. Obvious options:

- move the measurement points so they are still on the same pipe, but further away from the metal mass of the heat exchanger.

- if breaking into the plumbing is an option, fit some thermowells into the pipework either side of the HEX.

Horrendous is the only way I can describe my experience having a Daikin heat pump installed under the Eco4 grant. Forgive my ignorance on technicalities but I'm learning fast! It's 8 months on and I sit here with it all turned off as I await a Daikin installer to fix all the issues as it seems my installer hasn't got a clue and has just given up. They were here for 3 days last week correcting the miriad of problems still left by the Eco4 installer changing pipes and trying to sort wiring problems. Issues from the outset and when I had the funding inspection he failed the system. They had to move tank to loft and rewire something. Still issues, not least waking me at 3am 2 weeks later with horrendous noise in loft and another electrical issue and a leak into the floor where a radiator had to be moved. By then it was summer but it was clear some issues with the water. They sent the Daikin registered company out to check it all, but huge issues to be put right so back they came. Then summer over and no heat! At this point clearly installer had given up so I rang Daikin and handed over to the Daikin company again 2 weeks ago.  It's still not right and even they are baffled so awaiting someone from head office to come out, in the mean time left me with it running at huge cost trying to at least get me warm but had set it at 50c as the main set point but left me with no control over anything so not on room thermostat. Cost aside, which was frightening I was absolutely boiling and with days to wait for the return visit and someone from Daikin head office to come and sort wiring I looked up how to turn the main set point down (she had mentioned it over the phone) to 45 cost a bit less but still far too hot, turned it down to 40 next day and house way too hot still so lord knows what is going on. Still costing me way too much I tried the weather compensation curve but after several tweeks no heat and no clue what they have set it to I gave up and turned everything off 3 days ago as it was the weekend and no hope of the cavalry coming and the job they thought would take 2 days max has taken 2 weeks trying to find the issue. Frankly now scared it will never be right and I won't be able to afford to have any heat at all. 

@joti Oh Joti! This is very bad indeed. May I suggest you go into the settings on the MMI and set to LWT and set that down to say 35 (or a little lower if still roasting) you can set the slope to -3. Then set the lower limit to 25 (it probably won’t go lower than this anyway) and the right hand point to your intended room temperature (perhaps 20?). Now set the MMI controls for Weather Compensation and allow the system to do its’ reset and syncronise.  Have you a thermostat? That should improve matters until the cavalry return; you can refine it later. Regards, Toodles. (I have a Daikin EDLA0E3)

@iancalderbank 

I soldered on small diameter copper pipes onto the pipes feeding into and out of the heatpump, both house side, so they both just have water in them (no glycol).  The pipes have temperature sensors inserted, then are covered with tape and insulation.  Don’t remember why two pipes each side, spare presumably.

@toodles Thanks I will give that a go and see what happens. I do have a thermostat but can't use it as they set it to LWT only to see what happened with it set to 50 I presume, I don't think they were expecting me to cook. But as I'm still not sure what the problems are reluctant to change anything else. Thankfully got a bit of sun today as my conservatory gets warm all by it's self pretty quickly. I could write a book on my installation cock ups!

@joti you say you are "cooking" with an LWT of 50, in fact in your previous point you mentioned "cooking" with an LWT of 40. So just to give you a small piece of positive feedback: that does at least imply that your system is capable of heating your house, and also implies it should be able to do so with an LWT of less than 40. In which case, you should be able to arrive at a system that is efficient to run. mid 30's will give you really good efficiency -  once the system is setup right. I suggest you post as much possible info as you can about your system . it's usually worth starting a new thread for the discussion of a specific system - then all manner of helpful people will try and help you work out what to do.

@iancalderbank Will do. Indeed it does anyone who says it can't heat a house eh! I also noted that it went from 23 to 19 degrees overnight after having turned it off completely at midnight. I thought that seemed pretty good considering 1950's house and currently no loft insulation (another story).

@toodles Thank you so much! I have some heat at least now, had to turn LWT up to 40 as just didn't come on. But seems to be ticking over nicely now slowly raising the temp. Although I think rads need balancing, had already suspected that as it's been so much hotter on upstairs ones. Heard today from the Daikin installers that someone from Daikin head office coming out on Thursday, they were going to pop over tomorrow to stop me over heating but told them what I have done and think I will be ok ticking over like this now until then to save the poor girl coming back again, she's been amazing all things considering.

I think my installers were in the right ball-park when they designed the system, although i may decide that a smaller hp might have been ok, i won't know til I've finished the insulation and been through a winter with the hp (was commissioned feb 23).

Schoolboy errors during the installation that i had to point out though: no circulation pump fitted on the house side of the lowlossheader/volumiser; and the expansion vessel connected on the wrong side of the cold water checkvalve - so it would vent through the pressure relief valve when the water was heating. They were setting the parameters by rote rather than understanding (i was asking technical questions and in the end he said i might as well do the setup myself as i knew more than he did), but to be fair, they had set WC to on, which judging by other's experience, earns then a few brownie points.

Some of you might recall I've added a few topics in the last few months researching Eco 4 and best ASHP practice. We bought a little house in Dumfries and Galloway last autumn and I've been renovating it since then. When we moved in I contacted a company fitting ASHP under the Eco 4 scheme called Eco Providers Ltd from Clitheroe area.

For those who don't know, the scheme has big draw backs, mostly in terms of the massive lack of regulation in terms of quality of job done, and I found that the system designers were designing a system which was basically the opposite of good practice, partially due to the way the scheme is set up. However, our funds are extremely limited so it was a case of needs must. At the beginning of December I was in the middle of deciding between two different companies, only to be told by the rep from this company that they would have the system fully installed by Christmas.

After weeks of not hearing from them I finally got back through to them in the second week of January, needless to say nothing had been done by christmas nevermind a full system. They seem to take the viewpoint that because customers are approaching them from a position of need that they can be treated with dismissal and a complete lack of care.

All in all to say that I finally had to complain today having still heard nothing concrete from them only to be told (after two months of waiting) by the manager that they no longer wanted to complete the job. When I told him this would leave a family with 2 kids without any heating or hot water and a house still only halfway renovated due to having to wait for the heating etc he accused me of being duplicitous and put the phone down. It's crazy that folk who are struggling are having to deal with companies like this. All in all to say I heartily DON'T recommend Eco Providers Ltd!

The Eco 4 scheme also has massive holes in it, it's really not fit for purpose. At this point it looks like we'll have to either live in a building site (walls down dust everywhere no heating) for a few months, or in a caravan. One of our only real options, being in Scotland, is the Home Energy grants and loans scheme.

This will provide some of the money as a grant, and the rest as an interest free loan, and we would engage a company ourselves. The obvious benefit of this would be that we can find the best company possible who will provide an efficient and bespoke package.

The downside is taking on over £12000 of loan we didn't expect to have. So we're looking for a company, or companies, to contact who are either in the south/middle belt of Scotland, or the North of England. I've rung Greenhome Heating already as they seem to be good, can anyone recommend other companies who they have good experiences of? Thanks!

@witchcraft, I’ve been looking through old posts and was curious to see whether you were able to make inroads with MCS with your complaint?