New ASHP and HIVE app.

cannugec5

We have our new ASHP in, being commissioned tomorrow. 

The Heating Engineer handed me a HIVE HUB today, if I want to use it. I’m very keen as I love technology and previously had a NEST with our oil central heating. 

So, I’m trying to register an account with HIVE ready for when it’s all working. But I have fallen at the first hurdle. When I 
enter my postcode it does not have our address listed ( we have been at this address for 21 years!). We are in a small village, all covered by one postcode. So some 90 houses with one postcode. But our house is not there and there is no option to manually add an address. 

Chat only lets you ask predetermined issues. The HIVE COMMUNITY needs an account to log in and ask a question… but I can’t log in because I can’t create an account! 

Does anyone have any other contact details so that I can get my address added? 

Before I get shot down I do know that an ASHP does not have the rapid response and respond to frequent changes like other heating sources, but if we are away on holiday the HIVE would enable me to turn it back on a day or two before return as well as monitoring zones. 

DougMLancs

You do need to seriously consider whether you want to put a Hive in your system- on/off controls like Hive with fixed flow temperatures will seriously affect the performance of your ASHP (and your energy bills!)- far better is to set it up with the ASHP’s inbuilt weather compensation. For holidays, most modern units have an app to control it remotely or mine also has a holiday timer I can set on the control unit. How many zones are being set up?  Lots of small zones with different set temperatures will lead to lots of short cycling which will again decrease efficiency. They may be installing a buffer tank to reduce the resulting short cycling but again that will affect performance. Basically the less extra gubbins, the better it’ll run 😂. I would recommend looking at some of the HeatGeek videos on YouTube around controls and zoning for more information.

Strummer22

DougMLancs said:

You do need to seriously consider whether you want to put a Hive in your system- on/off controls like Hive with fixed flow temperatures will seriously affect the performance of your ASHP (and your energy bills!)- far better is to set it up with the ASHP’s inbuilt weather compensation. For holidays, most modern units have an app to control it remotely or mine also has a holiday timer I can set on the control unit. How many zones are being set up?  Lots of small zones with different set temperatures will lead to lots of short cycling which will again decrease efficiency. They may be installing a buffer tank to reduce the resulting short cycling but again that will affect performance. Basically the less extra gubbins, the better it’ll run 😂. I would recommend looking at some of the HeatGeek videos on YouTube around controls and zoning for more information.

The ASHP will almost certainly have a buffer tank. 

I've got a HIVE app for my ground source heat pump. My HIVE HUB doesn't talk to the heat pump at all, instead it turns the central heating pump on and off. Different installations may vary, but I have a very simple system where the heating is either on or off, and zoning is controlled with TRVs. Therefore the weather compensation is unaffected by the use of the HIVE app.

In response to how OP can get their issue sorted, call customer services on 0333 202 9614. I've found them to be pretty good. 

matt_drummer

Strummer22 said:

The ASHP will almost certainly have a buffer tank. 

I've got a HIVE app for my ground source heat pump. My HIVE HUB doesn't talk to the heat pump at all, instead it turns the central heating pump on and off. Different installations may vary, but I have a very simple system where the heating is either on or off, and zoning is controlled with TRVs. Therefore the weather compensation is unaffected by the use of the HIVE app.

In response to how OP can get their issue sorted, call customer services on 0333 202 9614. I've found them to be pretty good. 

My air source heat pump does not have a buffer tank.

I also use only my heat pump manufacturers systems to control it. 

The only pump on my system is inside the heat pump, it is a Daikin Altherma 3 monobloc. The Daikin system controls everything, third party controls make it worse.

I have no zoning and trvs are wide open.

The idea is to size the radiators appropriately for each room so that the system is balanced. Ideally every room is at the design temperature when the heat pump is working and it is not necessary to turn radiators on and off.

Then the flow temperature is matched to the heat loss using pure weather compensation, the idea being to get the flow temperature as low as possible and the run times as long as I can.

It may help if the OP said what make and model of heat pump they have.

matt_drummer

Strummer22 said:

I've got a HIVE app for my ground source heat pump. My HIVE HUB doesn't talk to the heat pump at all, instead it turns the central heating pump on and off. Different installations may vary, but I have a very simple system where the heating is either on or off, and zoning is controlled with TRVs. Therefore the weather compensation is unaffected by the use of the HIVE app.

Won't turning off your heating pump turn off your heat pump?

If the hot water isn't circulating around your radiators then the water returning to your heat pump will be so close to the leaving temperature that your heat pump will turn off. There needs to be a certain delta t between leaving and returning water temperatures, below a certain amount it will turn off.

It sounds like your HIVE controls are actually turning your heat pump on and off, not directly but by it's effect on the delta t.

DougMLancs

It’s true that installers who don’t know better are fitting buffers but that doesn’t mean they’re all needed. You won’t find installers on the continent fitting buffers everywhere. There’s a whole movement of heating engineers in the UK now who A) won’t touch third-party thermostats like Nest when fitting a heat pump and remove TRV’s in the living spaces (retaining in bedrooms) to create an open loop system which maximises the engaged system volume and hence eliminates the need for a buffer tank in many cases. Installers are seeing a 40% improvement in efficiency when left on weather compensation with no on/off commands by 3rd party thermostats and no buffer. The BetaTalk podcast also has some very good episodes around this. When people complain about high running costs for heat pumps, these are the kind of areas that need tackling.

cannugec5

This is the pump. 

matt_drummer

How is your installer proposing to control your system?

What are the Grant controls like, is there an app?

cannugec5

Strummer22 said:

DougMLancs said:

You do need to seriously consider whether you want to put a Hive in your system- on/off controls like Hive with fixed flow temperatures will seriously affect the performance of your ASHP (and your energy bills!)- far better is to set it up with the ASHP’s inbuilt weather compensation. For holidays, most modern units have an app to control it remotely or mine also has a holiday timer I can set on the control unit. How many zones are being set up?  Lots of small zones with different set temperatures will lead to lots of short cycling which will again decrease efficiency. They may be installing a buffer tank to reduce the resulting short cycling but again that will affect performance. Basically the less extra gubbins, the better it’ll run 😂. I would recommend looking at some of the HeatGeek videos on YouTube around controls and zoning for more information.

The ASHP will almost certainly have a buffer tank. 

I've got a HIVE app for my ground source heat pump. My HIVE HUB doesn't talk to the heat pump at all, instead it turns the central heating pump on and off. Different installations may vary, but I have a very simple system where the heating is either on or off, and zoning is controlled with TRVs. Therefore the weather compensation is unaffected by the use of the HIVE app.

In response to how OP can get their issue sorted, call customer services on 0333 202 9614. I've found them to be pretty good. 

Thanks for the number. Unfortunately I have failed! 

The CS representative was struggling to hear/understand me. Having read out my long address using the phonetic alphabet she then wanted to know my time zone and ‘which’ Europe I’m in? Is it Europe Amsterdam or ‘one of the other options’? At this point I thanked her for her time (an hour to get this far…) and gave up. I will try again when I have calmed down…

Reed_Richards

Little bits of misinformation are creeping in to some of the responses.  I have a heat pump with a third party controller (a Drayton Wiser but similar to a Hive).  Using my third party controller and a room thermostat I can turn the CH function of my heat pump on and off at pre-set times and vary the target room temperature as I wish.  This does NOT turn the entire heat pump on and off.  I have set up Weather Compensation on my heat pump and that works perfectly well and completely independently of my third party controller.  My Weather Compensation settings are not taken to extremes so I can vary the room temperature slowly should I want to.  I have two zones, one is a small zone with just the bathroom radiators so I can heat the towels in summer if I want to.  There isn't much water in this zone alone so I need a buffer tank.

What I cannot do with my third party controller is Load Compensation.  This is a feature where your heat source varies how hard it works according to the difference in the actual room temperature and the desired room temperature set on the thermostat.  This is a useful feature if you want to vary your room temperature, making it cooler at night for example.  No heat pump that I know of has the ability to do Load Compensation with a Hive or similar, although many gas boilers can.  So you would need to use the manufacturer's controller if you want Load Compensation, but I'm not sure if the Grant controller can even do this.        

matelodave

I too have an ASHP without a buffer tank and TBH having lots of controls just defeats the system, causing it to cycle.

We've got zone controls which were I've now disabled as they were causing the heatpump to cycle and actually increased the running costs. because the unit would keep and stopping rather than settling down to a gentle stead temperature

Rooms can still be shut down if we want them but as said above, the pump needs a minimum flow rate through it and shutting off too much with TRVs will also cause cycling because the bypass valve should maintain the flow but as no heat it being delivered the pump will shut down.

Once its tuned properly with weather compensation we let it get on with it and ,apart from the odd occasion when the temperature plummets rapidly, the heatpump idles away at around 33-35 degrees and the place stays toasty warm all day.