How do I set Ecodan Heating

markin

Water at this time of year is likely needing only 40min, So i think 30min 2 times a day is then you would start seeing savings.

The radiators should shut off far quicker, but they still start out hot, But at this time of year you may not be able to tell the difference. The frost setting would still be around 6c

Mstty

Scoobnut said:

My test revealed that the cost of heating hot water was the same ( as far as can tell ) whether its on 12 hours 6 till 6 or three hours, morning, afternoon and evening. It's not a proper test but it gave me an idea of cost to run. The thermostat is still in the living room and with the good weather it's not coming on. I've got it running at 18 degrees which it will stay at over the winter. I have turned the radiator thermostats down too but that doesn't do anything, the radiators still get very hot. I thought of dropping the temperature of the water as that's scolding but as yet I'm undecided. I worked it out in the winter it was cheaper for use to run a boiler stove on peat, logs and coal than it is to run this thing. I looked into a fixed rate electric but that was nearly 400 a month. One thing I did do was put a tick on the legionella box. All the videos I've seen showed a tick where mine didn't have it, was this right.
 

Hi,

Hearing hot water three times a day will likely make no difference to having it on 12 hours a day. Something  in a roundabout way we worked out on this thread where it's likely the cylinder will cool three times to need heating up if on for 12 hours.

So with your measuring how many kWh have you used each day, that might give us all some clues👍

The Legionnaires tick is good and depending what is set in the service settings (spanner) should heat the tank up once a week sufficiently to kill any bugs👍

If your radiators are blasting out heat it could be your have a static flow temp set too high. 

If you can take a picture of the LCD panel it should show us some clues

Cheers

Swizz

Reed_Richards said:

If it was me, I would change the 40 C on the first screen to 35 C or a bit less.  But if that's wrong your house will be too cold when it's more mild outside.  You won't know for sure until you try.  If your house is not too cold it will be saving you money.   

On the menu screen, after heating is selected, in the first lefthand box, you can toggle through 3 settings..one with a thermometer, one with thermometer and water symbol, and one with compensation curve..which one should it be set to? Heating will be off until sept/ October in any case, . And what does eco mode on the water setting mean....thanks!

Mstty

Here are some easy to follow, very short vids for setting the hot water temp and scheduler for the OP

Hot water temp

https://youtu.be/sU_s1HtdV2o

Scheduler

https://youtu.be/FE9GfGLzsDo

Reed_Richards

Scoobnut said:

My test revealed that the cost of heating hot water was the same ( as far as can tell ) whether its on 12 hours 6 till 6 or three hours, morning, afternoon and evening. 

You mean 12 hours continuously or 9 hours in total (in three blocks of 3 hours)?

I thought of dropping the temperature of the water as that's scolding but as yet I'm undecided. 

You mean the hot water from your taps?  Dropping the cylinder temperature will save you money, try it as an experiment.

The thermostat is still in the living room and with the good weather it's not coming on. I've got it running at 18 degrees which it will stay at over the winter. I have turned the radiator thermostats down too but that doesn't do anything, the radiators still get very hot. 

The radiators will still get as hot as they always have, they will just stay hot for a shorter time if you turn their thermostats down.  BUT if they get very hot at this time of year that indicates that you are not using Weather Compensation and that could be causing a lot of extra cost.  My heating may still come on in the morning if it has been cold overnight but the radiators are really tepid.  Its enough though, but means my heat pump does not have to work so hard so costs me less to run.

I worked it out in the winter it was cheaper for use to run a boiler stove on peat, logs and coal than it is to run this thing.  

That's possibly true, depending on how much you pay for your solid fuels.  However my guess is that you are not running your heat pump as economically as you could.

One thing I did do was put a tick on the legionella box.... was this right. 

Yes, if you want to be completely safe you need to run the Legionella program.
 

Mstty

As I understand it you use a separate electric shower and only use hot water heater by the ASHP for washing up?

Realistically you could turn off your hot water all together and just boil a kettle for washing up it will be far cheaper👍

matelodave

https://www.heatgeek.com/3-steps-to-maximise-your-heat-pump-or-boiler-efficiency/

Have a look at this to give you some idea of what you are trying to achieve with weather compensation. As he says, you are aiming to get the pump idling away for long periods rather than blasting heat into the radiators in short bursts. It does depend your your lifestyle how you heat the place but if you are there nearly all day then continuous gentle heat is what you need.

My compensation doesn't have a graph but its set to 40 degrees at -5 and 25 degrees at 25 degrees, but we've got underflloor heating so it very slow to respond. As R-R says if your rads are getting hot rather than just tepid then it sound like weather compensation is not active. TBH they shouldn't get everso hot at all even in the depth of winter but at this time of the year they should only be lukewarm if the heating does come on.

Check your hot water temperature and make sure that is around 50 degrees and no hotter. Also do you really need the hot water all day and all night. We get all we need just by heating the tank for an hour or so a day before we get up.

 Why not try it youselft. If you do run out then give it another hour in the evening.

Swizz

matelodave said:

https://www.heatgeek.com/3-steps-to-maximise-your-heat-pump-or-boiler-efficiency/

Have a look at this to give you some idea of what you are trying to achieve with weather compensation. As he says, you are aiming to get the pump idling away for long periods rather than blasting heat into the radiators in short bursts. It does depend your your lifestyle how you heat the place but if you are there nearly all day then continuous gentle heat is what you need.

My compensation doesn't have a graph but its set to 40 degrees at -5 and 25 degrees at 25 degrees, but we've got underflloor heating so it very slow to respond. As R-R says if your rads are getting hot rather than just tepid then it sound like weather compensation is not active. TBH they shouldn't get everso hot at all even in the depth of winter but at this time of the year they should only be lukewarm if the heating does come on.

Check your hot water temperature and make sure that is around 50 degrees and no hotter. Also do you really need the hot water all day and all night. We get all we need just by heating the tank for an hour or so a day before we get up.

 Why not try it youselft. If you do run out then give it another hour in the evening.

I don't know if this was for me, but thankyou for the link, very informative.  I realise that for 5 years I've not understood how heat pumps work...installer told us absolutely nothing.
As its summer I intend not to turn on the heating until sept/ October,  and even then our house ,south facing in south Devon doesn't get all that cold..so I will try the advice then. 

Reed_Richards

Mstty said:

As I understand it you use a separate electric shower and only use hot water heater by the ASHP for washing up?

Realistically you could turn off your hot water all together and just boil a kettle for washing up it will be far cheaper👍

Or, less radical, you could set your hot water temperature to something warm enough to wash your hands in (40 C or a bit less) and top up the warm water with hot water from a kettle when you do the dishes if necessary.  Heat Pumps hate heating the hot water to high temperatures because it is the hardest and least economic thing they have to do.  

shinytop

Scoobnut said:

A year ago we had a Mitsubishi Ecodan system installed under the warmer homes scheme, replacing a soild fuel boiler. While the elecrtic bill went up we managed. Untill now. My bill in January was 950 with my 150 discount. April it was 1,140 and we'd hardly used the heating and gone back to peat. My husband is retired and I am disabled, my electric bills are over twice what I paid before instalation. We cant keep this up. I have set the water on a schedual running from 8am till 6pm as it seemed pointless to heat the water at night when no-one used it. Will this work and can I set a schedual for the heating dropping the temp from 21 to 18. we have managed to stop the heating coming on by keeping the thermostat in the living room as the heat from the stove keeps it from coming. We live in the Western Isles and dont get temps below 0 much but do get cool summers wind and rain. When the wind hits the poor heating system ends up on all the time trying to keep the house warm. I can't ask the fitters that installed it as the fella that set up the system wasn't even sure he'd done it right and the fella that came to service it had to ring another to talk him through it. How do set it to run efficiantly and can I actually switch the heating off and just keep the water on.

Thank you,

Elsa

Sorry I'm a bit late to this.  I have an Ecodan and I've done lots of experiments to get it running how I think is about as well as it can.  Firstly, for a modern cylinder, it will make little difference to your HW costs whether you have it on constantly or timed.  The main things you can control that will affect costs are how much you use and how hot the water is. 50 deg is plenty; I have mine on 47 and that works for us.  Also, for most people, HW is a small fraction of the total; heating is a lot more significant.

It's useful if you can say the size of your house in m2, model/rating of ASHP in kW, house age/contruction, what sort of radiators/ufh you have, what your target room temp is and how much power in kWh you are using. Then I and others will have some idea if there is room for improvement.  Living where you do, a SCOP of over 3 should be achievable for a properly designed system. 
    
Weather compensation, with radiator temperatures in the range 30-45C usually works best, as long as your radiators can heat the house at these temperatures. If they can't  then you might need different radiators.