Problems with ASHP

I had been concerned for some months that the 25kw ASHP was not working very well

It would freeze up quite often and didn’t seem to heat as well as it did before

Then we started noticed huge spikes on our electric, up to about 72 amps!

After some investigation these spikes turned out to be the ASHP switching on one of it’s compressors

I emailed eSavep and they suggested opening the ASHP up and checking the 3 large capacitors on the left of the unit. The easiest way to check them was to unplugthe lead coming from the relays at the bottom, one by one

I opened the ASHP and to my horror saw this

Lots of water! I quickly realised that I should not have inserted all the cable grommets at the bottom, so quickly removed 3 of them and the water flowed out

The 3 capacitors can be seen on the lower right side, and are silver

I then noticed that another capacitor had blown, see “2” here, and the grey material leaking out of it

Of the 3 capacitors I noticed that the lowest one had some oily goo coming out of it

eSavep sent me replacements free of charge, and once fitted all is well again

Playing with my new Flir One

My partner got me a Flir One thermal image camera for Christmas. Here’s a few pics I took of the house

The above show our back door. Seems cold is coming in at the bottom and by the handle

The above sold the front door. First one is taken inside, and the second outside. Seems a lot of cold is coming through at the bottom

The above show the house. These windows are all double glazed. Interesting how the opening windows are not as good at keeping in the warm, compared to the Fixed Units we have

This is lounge. The rug is partly insulated underneath with underlay. You can see where the underlay stops, and then where the oak floor is. Temperature keeps dropping

This shows a wall in the kitchen which is unusually cold. This needs investigating

This shows one of the bedrooms. All looks good. Radiator is on

Balcony door

Shows part of the floor in the lounge, which has a cold spot. On the outside this is where the air brick is

The picture shows a window that is not double glazed

Here’s the Air Source Heat Pump. Seems the insulation is doing it’s job

Here’s the basement Ecocent, who’s pipes are not currently insulated

Beginning to install the basement Ecocent

Here’s some pics of the beginning of the install of the second Ecocent into the basement

I hadn’t really done a proper measure-up and was a little worried when the units arrived to find there was no way to get the Ecocent down the stairs. A friend suggested a block and tackle and in the end that was how we got it down there

The basement holds a hot water cylinder feeding 2 bathrooms, and swimming pool pump and filter, and the Air Handling Unit which takes it’s heat from the oil boiler. The intention is to do away with the hot water cylinder and instead use the Ecocent, and then use the upper solar coil on the Ecocent to provide heat to the Air Handling Unit, meaning we burn no oil at all in the house, other than for heating the house

The 1st Ecocent after nearly a week in use

The Ecocent has been in daily use for nearly a week now

I am over the moon with it. Constant hot water, no oil useage, and even the missus has stopped complaining. My only regret is that I didn’t buy the unit sooner. I had been looking at the Ecocent ever since I bought the first ASHP for the pool. To be fair we have learnt a lot about plumbing since installing the first ASHP so perhaps it was best we have this knowledge to enable us to install the Ecocent properly

The missus has her shower in the morning, and the Ecocent is back up to temperature and fan on idle in under an hour. Amazing

My other concern was the large amount of air the unit sucks in. I was worried that it would make the house feel cold. I can feel no difference at all! The house is still warm, and no heating has been turned on

Would I recommend the unit? Well if you are on Oil, you would be mad not to! I can’t speak for the savings on Gas as we won’t have it, but I would be surprised if you didn’t save money even if you have Gas heated hot water

Installing the 1st Ecocent Day Five – Actually using the unit

The unit was filled on Friday, and when I got home from work I turned the unit on. I didn’t have instructions to hand, and after messing about for 10 minutes, I realised I needed the instructions to get the unit going. So a quick download onto my phone and some reading. Got the unit to turn it’s fan on and initially thought the fan was pretty loud [Edit – the reason the fan was loud was because the ceiling mounted ducting Diffusers were not open! Once opened the fan noise is very quiet]. Anyway, the unit is working, I can have a shower in the other bathroom, I’ll worry about all this tomorrow. Down the pub

When I got home the unit was up to temperature, and the fan is just idling. You can hardly hear it all, and if the doors were fitted you wouldn’t hear it at all. I tested the water, and it is HOTTER than normal! Watch TV, go to bed

In the morning my partner had her shower, and the unit then fired up it’s fan again to re-heat the water. Fan doesn’t seem anywhere near as loud. Perhaps it was because it was late/quiet last night. My partner – surprisingly – has not complained about the fan noise and in fact commented that it was LESS loud then the Extractor Fan we used to use in the bathroom – that is GOOOOOOOOD! (She is less happy about losing just about all of the “airing cupboard” – we hope to put some small shelves in to the right of the Ecocent, but they aren’t going to be very big…)

I’m sure once we have the doors fitted back on, you will hardly hear the fan at all

So… am I happy? Well, a big yes. The water is hotter than before, the only noise is a fan running (I had read it clunks and rattles – it DOESN’T)

Complaints? Well yes there are a few:

(I suspect the design has been changed, so the manual – and the supplier’s knowledge of the unit – is a bit behind)

Being given wrong information about the Port sizes was annoying.

Being told the Dual Stat input was a Pocket, when it isn’t – it’s a hole straight into the tank.

The Magnesium Anode being sited to the right of the unit is ridiculous, and contradicts the manual which states it is at the front of the unit (which is where its should be!)

Having some of the Ports at the rear of the unit is silly. The P&T valve is difficult to get at, and very difficult to plumb in, as is the Condensate Output

I also wish there were some handles or something “to grab hold of” on the unit as moving the thing is bloody difficult

Otherwise I am over the moon. Would I recommend the unit? Yes, most definitely

Now we need to complete the Condensate pipework (it’s currently just going into a bucket downstairs), sort out the Oil Heating backup (I might not bother, as it is clear we won’t need it), and the loop for the Towel Heaters, and re-fit the cupboard doors

Installing the 1st Ecocent Day Three and Four

Okay, well the next two days was a scramble to get the pipework in. We had to change some of the existing pipework to allow us to sit the Ecocent more to the left of the cupboard, due to the size of the Magnesium Anode, that needs to be inspected/replaced

Here’s pictures of the various ports on the Ecocent, so you can size where they are. All the pipe ports are 3/4″, except for the Dual Stat port, Drain and Condensate output which are 1/2″

Left/Left Rear of tank

 

Right/Right Rear of tank

 

So here’s the tank nearly in place, and some fine adjustments moved into place. We originally had a solder Cold Water Input, but managed to melt the plastic adaptor, so we replaced it for a spare we had and used a flexible hose instead. Much better

Some temporary insulation on the Hot Water output, as we still have a lot of work to do, adding in the Oil Heating as a backup and hopefully another loop to feed the Towel Rails

Here’s the Ecocent in place. Unfortunately the cupboard doors won’t fit back on, so we need to do some carpentry to bring the doors forwards

Installing the 1st Ecocent Day Two

Okay we today we hoped to get old tank out and the Ecocent in, but things did not go to plan

We started off by fitting the compression adaptors into the Ecocent, plus fitting the P&T Valve, Dual Stat, and the Blocks-Offs (1 for the spare P&T Input, and 1 for the spare Dual Stat input)

It was at this point I discovered that the Dual Stat input is not 3/4″ like I was told, but industry standard 1/2″. So I have wasted about 4 hours of my time searching for adaptors and Bushes and about £30 in parts, getting things I did not need. Hopefully I can return them, but I am a bit annoyed about being given the wrong information. It seems clear to me that eSavep are not used to people adding Dual Stats to Ecocents. Here’s a picture of the 1/2″ hole (grrrr…) with the Pocket being prepared

We then (much later) discovered that the Magnesium Anode is much longer than we had suspected (I bought two spares – but I hadn’t had a look at them until today), and the tank + space for the Anode to be swapped will not fit where we wanted it to go. I can imagine than many people have installed an Ecocent only to find this out after the tank has been fitted! It is a bad design, as the Anode entry/exit point is to the right of the tank. It should be positioned nearer the front of the unit for easy access! Here’s a picture of a brand new Anode. It is about 37.5cm’s long!

This means will we now have to position the tank more to the left of the cupboard, adjust the pipework we hoped we could leave as-is, and also make a hole in the plasterboard wall to allow the Anode to be removed for inspection/replacement

This is what we achieved today

This is going to be the pipe run for the Condensate, and we are also running a Hot Water feed for the kitchen. The kitchen currently gets a Hot Water feed from the basement which is a very long run. So we’ll add the option to have the water come from either upstairs or the basement with a couple of Lever Valves

Installing the 1st Ecocent. Day One

Okay, so today we started. Lots of things to think about and a lot of unknowns:

How are we going to get the Condensate outside?

What’s under the floorboards? Where are the pipes?

Can we get at the heating pipes feeding the bathrooms, to allow us to use a coil for heating the towel rails?

Will we have room to get the ducting through the ceiling into the roof (the roof “slant” is right by the place where the ducting needs to go)?

Have we got everything we need?

It has quickly become apparent I should not have cut corners and ordered plastic ducting fittings. They are crap. I am attempting to return them all now. Metal adaptors, Y pieces, 1-way valves are the way to go. I suggest trying http://www.ductstore.co.uk. These guys also sell Motorised Diverters, so you could divert the cool air in the summer into an area of the house, either manually or using an electric actuator

I’m still awaiting delivery of a couple of items, hopefully they’ll turn up tomorrow

We need some more insulated ducting. I ordered 20m but we need another 4-5m

ASHP 25w Classic – Refitting the Water-In temperature sensor

When I was messing with the insulation inside the ASHP many months ago, after we had replaced the pump head twice, I managed to remove the Temperature-In sensor, and couldn’t work out where it had come from

I assumed – wrongly – that the sensor would have a Pocket on the Water Inlet pipe. I couldn’t find it and in the end I just strapped the sensor to the pipe and put the insulation back on – but the unit was showing the temperature wrongly – a few degrees below what it actually was. I left it like that for about 6 months. I decided to get it sorted, so after two phone calls with eSavep I was told the Pocket is on the pipe with the drain off cock

So I investigated and there it was! The sensor is now correctly fitted into it’s pocket again

That heatsink compound gets everywhere!

You can just see the cable at the rear of the front bottom pipe

Preparing to install the first Ecocent

A fairly frustrating few days preparing to install the first Ecocent. I think I know what I am doing now, but only time will tell

Here’s the bag of bits you get with the Ecocent

You get a P&T valve, 6 x 3/4″ to 3/4″ threaded plastic adaptors, and a 1/2″ to 20mm glue adaptor for the condensate output. The adaptors are to stop electrolysis between the pipework and the cylinder

I searched high and low for a 1/2″ to 21.5 reducer/adaptor for the condensate output so we could use standard overflow pipe. None appear to exist. I have been told we need to either carefully drill out the adaptor to 21.5mm using a 22mm wood drill bit, or get some 21.5mm overflow pipe and heat it up with a blow torch to allow 21.5mm to be inserted into the 20mm hole. This is poor. No where is this mentioned in the installation manual, and was not mentioned at any time before the purchase. It does seem that they waste a lot of time not telling people how to do something, which then creates 10 emails and 6 phone calls. Why not just tell people up front?! Hopefully this Blog will help people doing a DIY install like me

The next issue is with the Dual Stat Input. I was told I had to get a 3/4″ Dual Stat. These do not appear to exist!! Another phone call and I have been told to get a 3/4″ to 1/2″ Bush, and that will allow a normal Dual Stat to be used. Then I was told the Dual Stat “hole” was a pocket. But it is not a pocket. It’s a hole straight into the tank! I have purchased a Dual Stat, and we will see what turns up – I don’t yet know if it comes with a pocket or not. I asked whether a copper pocket was okay to use and have been told, yes it is. I may still decide to use a stainless steel pocket though

I have also been told that my oil boiler will try and heat the tank to about 85 degrees, the Ecocent will see this and think there is a fault and turn itself off for safety. That is fair enough, but again I was not told this prior to purchase. I do not think it creates any issue, as I am only installing the oil heating option as a backup in case the compressor fails (I cannot risk not having hot water – the missus would go mad). Additionally the Dual Stat will only be set to about 55 degrees, and on top of that my home controller decides when the oil water heating is used, and only gives the tank just enough time to heat up. My hot water is certainly not on all day, and in fact in summer it’s on for about 30 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at 10am and another 10 minutes at 5pm. These times are slightly longer in the winter. Anyway, I am hoping we will never need to actually ever use the oil heated hot water again, and valves are going to be fitted in the boiler room to ensure that the pipes are definately disconnected from the cylinder

Hopefully everything ordered (ducting, pipes, etc) will arrive over the next couple of days as we hope to start the install next week