possible incorrect fitting of Ecodan system

meadowgrass

Just updating ... videos were great, and made a few notes then looked at the curve. Set very steeply, 49 degrees at top and -14 degrees at the bottom (temperature outside). Understanding that as temperature outside increases, top line/temperature decreases, so adjusted curve to 43 and -2, as that may be more balanced? Never have gone above around 22 degrees with remote/thermostat, as gets hot in small property, so maybe 25 and -0 would be better, if I'm understanding it right, so if temperature outside hits 0, there's a steady 25 degrees, which I could lower via the remote/thermostat if too hot.

(Also noticed I have no zone 2 box showing on panel.)

markin

35 and +4, and 40 and -4  is probably about right for you to run it efficiently, The top end is the water temp flowing around the rads and in a cold snaps people give it a boost up a couple of degrees, Many say the first year was expensive to run until they got the setting tweaked just right, Up or down 2c then wait a day to see if they went too cold.




 

meadowgrass

markin said:

35 and +4, and 40 and -4  is probably about right for you to run it efficiently, The top end is the water temp flowing around the rads and in a cold snaps people give it a boost up a couple of degrees, Many say the first year was expensive to run until they got the setting tweaked just right, Up or down 2c then wait a day to see if they went too cold.

Thanks for advice, and glad to know my guess was at least near the right area; getting the hang of this a bit, lol, and had thought the curve was far too extreme.

Down to testing, but it'd be hard to tell at the moment, with it being warmer ... unless choose the sauna option, will see if can test some time soon, when it's cooler, to see if there's constant temperature across the day.

Reed_Richards

If your system was installed properly then your radiators should have been replaced with ones designed to keep your house warm enough at the maximum (specified) water outlet temperature above some minimum outside temperature.  If your heat pump was installed by an MCS accredited installer then you should have a certificate showing the design parameters but your HA may have cut corners to save money and employed an installer who did not fully understand what they were doing.

In my case these design parameters are 50 C water outlet temperature and -4 C outside.  So my 'curve' is flat at 50 C if the outside temperature is - 4 C or less but less than 50 C if the outside temperature is higher than -4 C.  In my case the other end point is 29 C flow temperature at 18 C outside.  @markin can suggest values for you to run your Ecodan "efficiently" but efficiently may not be warm enough; it all depends on the design parameters of your system.          

meadowgrass

Reed_Richards said:

If your system was installed properly then your radiators should have been replaced with ones designed to keep your house warm enough at the maximum (specified) water outlet temperature above some minimum outside temperature.  If your heat pump was installed by an MCS accredited installer then you should have a certificate showing the design parameters but your HA may have cut corners to save money and employed an installer who did not fully understand what they were doing.

In my case these design parameters are 50 C water outlet temperature and -4 C outside.  So my 'curve' is flat at 50 C if the outside temperature is - 4 C or less but less than 50 C if the outside temperature is higher than -4 C.  In my case the other end point is 29 C flow temperature at 18 C outside.  @markin can suggest values for you to run your Ecodan "efficiently" but efficiently may not be warm enough; it all depends on the design parameters of your system.          

Thanks @Reed_Richards and, yes, maybe some corners were cut. Storage heaters were removed, and radiators installed. As you say, finding the right settings is what's important, and, yes, first concern is keeping warm. I'm already very low on energy use e.g. use 3 of 5 radiators, don't heat water (with shower/washer having heating inbuilt), etc.

Thanks for further explaining how the numbers work. So setting it at -2 for an even temperature of 43 is far too high, as at -2 the temperature would be 43; comfortable temperature I've found is around 22-24, if it's really cold, so dropping the lower number down to e.g. -8, with 24 as the top number, may be better? Sorry to be pesky about this. Normally I catch on faster, but this takes a bit of brain power, lol.

Reed_Richards

I don't think you're not catching on here I'm afraid.  The settings we are discussing (for Weather Compensation) don't relate directly to the room temperature, they relate to the temperature of the water in the radiators.  With a heat pump the radiators will always be a bit cooler than you might find with gas or oil central heating but you need them to be hotter in cold weather than in warm weather.  You can save a lot of money if you allow the radiators to be cooler when it is warmer outside rather than the same temperature all the time; as you would have with old-fashioned central heating. The radiators may feel quite tepid in warmer weather but if things are set-up well they will still give out enough heat to keep the house warm.

I would be happy to explain in more detail what needs to be done but there isn't much point until you can persuade your heat pump to come on all the time when you want it to.  When it's off, do you know this because the radiators stay cold and/or because the big fan inside the heat pump never moves?           

meadowgrass

That's bamboozling my logical brain, lol, as warmer water in the radiators would warm up the room temperature, and I can't see what else would do that. Sheltered housing, so no underfloor heating or anything other than radiators.

All I've ever gone by is the room temperature/am I too cold, tbh. I don't notice anything about the heat pump (slightly deaf; don't know if it's making distinctive sounds), but, yes, have noticed cooler radiators, but not at enough different times to give any solid feedback, except they're definitely cool when I turn off the heating fully, as now. Nothing gets put on them to dry etc, so just focus on room temperature.

If it gets a bit cooler soon, will be able to properly test if the heating is on all the time, but am not very confident, with just adjusting the curve while not understanding how that would affect things; if anything, I'm now wondering if me reducing it's range might still mean 10 hours but at reduced heat. Not sure. Still think there may be something else wrong, and will need to contact HA soon I think, after testing.

QrizB

meadowgrass said:

I was asked for photos of Ecodan system, as they wanted to check if system wrongly fitted to only run heat 10 hours (meter is Economy 10 and not smart meter) but all replies stopped on Friday and hard to see why; sounds ridiculous to say all three people dropped replying straight after I'd had to do just a normal correction to say am female after was referred to as 'he', but nothing else stands out. If that is what it was, of course there'll be no responses here either.

As one of the contributors to your first thread, I stopped replying as we'd got to the limit of my competence. Meters and fuse boxes I'm comfortable with; Ecodan control panels are something I've only ever encountered on this forum.

I don't think you ever posted photos of your Ecodan control panel in that thread?

Fortunately this thread has attracted the interest of some heat pump owners and you're making more progress.

meadowgrass

QrizB said:

As one of the contributors to your first thread, I stopped replying as we'd got to the limit of my competence. Meters and fuse boxes I'm comfortable with; Ecodan control panels are something I've only ever encountered on this forum.

I don't think you ever posted photos of your Ecodan control panel in that thread?

Fortunately this thread has attracted the interest of some heat pump owners and you're making more progress.

Hello @QrizB and thanks for your post; I appreciate what you're saying, and, yes, it's just that everyone went silent at the same time. I waited over 3 days, plus you'd said posting here may help, so I did that.

I can't wrap my head round anything more just now, but can take some photos tomorrow of the panel. Yes, appreciate responses, including yours on the other thread.

shinytop

@meadowgrass, if your Ecodan is connected to an E10 switch then you really need to get that sorted first.

Are you using a Mitsubish branded wireless controller?  If you are, and are controlling the heating using room temperature, then the system might be set up to run on Mitsubishi's auto adaptation.  This (sort of) ignores the weather compensation settings and does its own thing based on outside temp, the actual room temp (detected where the wireless controller is located) and the target room temp you set.  If it's not too warm outside and you turn the heating up as high as it will go for a while, the radiators should get quite hot.  

I don't know to what extent your system is locked down and whether you can make it run using the compensation curve.  To use the compensation curve you want the screen to look like the second video in @markin's post. But using temperature control with a Mitsubishi controller isn't a bad way to run the system.  

If it's not a Mitsubishi controller then it's completely different ball game ...