Ground Source Heat Pumps

nosha123 wrote: »

morning all
Looking at the above readings from geotherm I fear I may not have all of mine.. Perhaps i should have scrolled down to get other GT readings.. but here is a start. If I have done it wrong I can amend it tomorrow!
Menu 1.1
5.0 temp incr/decr
This would normally be 4 for a underfloor system, unless you have heated towel rails, or a radiator linked in.
Menu 1.2
0.0 fine-tune
Menu 1.3
Out 20º curve 20º Out 15º curve 24º
Looks OK
Menu 1.10
21.0º
Menu 1.11
5 room sens influence
Suggest change to 6 or7 as outside sensor may be giving too much influence.

Menu 3.0
Temp readings
return radiators GT1
Off 36.0º now 35.4º
out GT2 4.3º
Hot water GT3
tgt 5.0 now 49.1 (the 49.1 might be an error.. I cant read my scribbled properly and we were having a 'marital' over who was doing the button pushing!!!)
readings look ok

Menu 7.1 op time readings
no of hours in op 1965h (This sounds horrific! Is this the no of hours immersion is kicking in?)
Far too high, this is only compressor use, you should be looking @ circa 12 -14 hrs per day in the winter

Menu 7.2
HP DHW-Rad% 18% DHW 82% RAD
% are about right

Menu 7.3
Add heat hours 410h (or maybe this is the immersion???)
Again far too high for a few month old installation. Without you going into the service menu, then it is impossible to see the immersion connection Kw is set at. Do you know how to access that menu?

and the GT readings
GT1 return raditator off 36.0 now 35.6
GT2 Out 4.3
GT3 Hot Water. Tgt 51.0 Now 49.1
GT5 Room. Tgt 21.0 Now 20.8
GT6 Compressor 80.0
GT8 Heat trfluid out 40.5
GT9 Heat trfluid in 33.8
GT10 Ht trfld (coll) in -0.7
GT11 Htrfld (coll) out -3.8
The readings above, all look within the operating parameters, apart from GT10/11 which look low for the external temp, although the delta @ 3C is ok. My view is that as the room temp is set @ 21C then combined with the operating times, the ground loops are recharging too slowly, due to that the electrical backup is kicking in too often.
Is there a flow valve on the collectors, that you depress to give the flow rate. It normally pops a disc up to show how many litres min going through the ground loop?

Alarms Menu 11.0
There were a few... Initally looked like they were dated. As first reading starts 101210 (but then subsequent readings showed 101209)
All the alarm messages were "exceeded temp heat carrier inlet"
The last recorded alarm is shown first, so 10/12/10 is the last time there was a problem. Have you cleaned the internal filter since the installation, plus the ground loop filter?


On boxing day we discovered a leak.. there was glycol all over the garage floor and an 'O-ring' had changed shape so wasnt maintaining a seal. We called the emergency number and was told if you put the O ring into hot water it will revert to normal shape. This leak then happened another two times before an engineer could get to us to fill the glycol back up and to change the faulty part for one that doesnt alter shape!!!! We were not happy!!!! Has since been fine - but my husband (who is a builder and also does plumbing etc) accidentally let some of the gas out of the compressor. Ice Energy told us there are only 4 men in the UK who can top it up and it costs £500. Apparently we can get an air-con or refrigerator engineer to do it also - and likely for less than £500. We were told the system will not be as efficient without the right amount of gas in the compressor so I am trying now to find someone who can do this urgently!
A refrigeration engineer should be able to do this without any problem.

There I think that is all.. unless of course I am missing several readings like you have posted above!
Thanks in advance!!

nosha123 wrote: »

Wow.. thanks Geotherm
First point yes we do have three heated towel rails.
Suggest you turn the menu in 1 down to 4.5

Second point: would the fact we have lost some gas in the compressor be affecting this reading? Ice Energy want £420 to re-gas it and say its a full day's site visit (inc travel from up north). Can I get any refrigeration engineer to do this or will I have to use Ice Energy? They say they would RATHER they did it. but I bet its cheaper elsewhere!
Any refrigeration engineer should be able to recharge the system. Remember, this is only a refrigerator working in reverse as such.

Dont know how to access the service menu - but can read manual tonight. What should I be looking for?
Hold down the far right button on the control panel for approx 20 secs. I will let you know what to check in menu 5 of that control in another post

Room temps are now all set lower - and operating at about 19.5º.
OK

Will ask husband about flow rate valves tonight.
Thanks

Re alarms.. the reading 101210 doesnt seem to be a 'date' as the next entry I scrolled to was 101209 followed by 101208 and we only had it commissioned a few months ago! From what I understand filters have been cleaned and were full of muck!
Suggest you recheck the filters again. The alarms are latest first on the menu, so 101210 relates to the 10th Dec 2010. If the date is set correctly, then this would be the last recorded.

Will get other readings for you tonight if I can work out how!
Thanks, if any problems with anything let me know

Thanks so much!