DeeJunFan

I could have mis-read the numbers perhaps @dpmiller could confirm? Thanks

Would cost more than 2/3 times the cost of the unit or so i've been told. Its quite labour intensive and the re-gassing is expensive.

I dont think these IVT units came with any sort of warranty and if they did its just over 12 months runtime so not likely to be covered. The company (ice energy) we all bought them from went bust fairly quickly after they unloaded them. The compressor was reading mega Ohms and when he put the voltage through it was down to kiloOhms. around 2500KOhms

So @dpmiller was kind enough to come out and diagnose my heat pump. Its the compressor so looks like a have a large lump of scrap metal on my hands. Anyone know of any other half decent heat pumps on the market? Thanks

Hi @dpmiller Thanks for that. I haven't had any joy yet with getting anyone. I have posted a message on the electrical forum @ProDave suggested and it appears that the way my spark tested the earth fault wasn't the correct way to even do it. Spark removed the earth supply cable from the heat pump so it wouldn't trip out and then tested with a voltage meter. He put one probe on the live terminal and one on the earth and got the voltage reading. I wasn't sure this was the right way to do it but i dont have a clue how to work the thing. I'm at a loss to be honest. I'll send you a PM and if you could send me your contact details that would be great. Thanks Damian

Does anyone else with one of these units have a voltage meter that they could throw on it to see is there a certain amount of earth leakage always there? Heat pump guy thinks there would be a lot coming of the DC inverter? Thanks D

I have sent the spark this video to see if he would be able to check it.

Thanks Dave. I asked could he test the compressor to see if it was giving trouble he said he wouldn't know how to do that. Suggested I needed an engineer. I'll have a look on the forum. Thanks

It was a spark that carried out this initial investigation. He Disconnected the supply earth cable to try and figure out what the issue was. If the earth cable is left connected then it trips the RCB 30mA So he is sure that its the unit itself that is throwing the earth fault. He measured the Voltage on the earth with a voltage meter. The spark doesn't fell able to diagnose the issue any further. Heat pump guy says it could be a compressor issue but i have no way to diagnose that. There is no fault code on the Unit its reading H6

Hi Guys, The heat pump saga continues. We currently have no heating because there is an earth fault on the heat pump and it keeps tipping the fuse (RCD the MCB doesn't trip) I have tried to get someone who actually knows about heat pumps but its proving very difficult locally. People can happily install them but know absolutely nothing about how they actually work or what might be causing the earth fault passed is it wet? The earth is getting 130V on startup and then gives out the full 230V after about 30/40 seconds of running. The entire unit becomes live because the earth terminal is connected to the chassis of the unit which is some what dangerous if childern are passing by. Basically one heat pump person i spoke to reckoned it was more than likely an electrical fault than a component fault. He reckons the DC inverter is somewhat electrically "Dirty" and may have always been feeding back from the earth and could have affected the MCB/RCD over time. He thought we should have a type C/D fitted to work with an inverter but not sure. Said we could try to bypass the RCD with the Heat pump as if the unit is running ok ie the inverter isn't faulting out. I said this to my spark and he said they guy was talking nonsense and wont do anything. I'm awaiting some sort of service engineer but i have no idea if we are going to find someone who knows what they are looking at. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks D

I have no idea to be honest. I had a manual and the spark wired everything up and the manual hasn't been seen since. I will try and get some photos up for you to have a look at. Do you need the controller wiring and the main board wiring? Thanks Damian

So my setup i thought was fairly simple. I have only 2 zones upstairs and downstairs. So one motorised valve on each manifold and 2 thermostats. as far as wiring goes these seem to be setup correctly as each time the thermostat goes below set temperature and enters heating mode the motorised valves click on and everything looks good. Also the heat pump controller looks ok as it has a small green light which is on when the thermostats and valves are calling for heat and off when they are not. But i have continually got issues where the heat pump either doesn't start when the controller kicks in or doesn't turn off when the controller does. Almost everytime the heat comes on i have to turn the controller on and off and a lot of the time when the stats stop calling for heat valves close and controller light goes out the heat pump stays on.

Didnt know there was a digitial display! I'll take the cover off this evening and see if there is anything on it. We have only had the heat pump on about twice in the last few months and the last time it didn't turn off and the house ended up at over 24.7 degrees. And its doing our electricity bill no favours. Thanks

Thanks for that. Yes a good few times i had to "Reboot" the controller and then noticed a few hours later that the Thermostat is at say 23-24 degrees and not calling for heat motorized valves are closed to the floor loops. Green light is off on the controller but the heat pump is still running and my towel rads are pumping hot. Scald risk hot

OK, how do you break that? I'm getting some very strange behavior from my IVT. The temp is getting very high i now understand why. But i'm also seeing instances where the thermostat calls for heat and the lights go on on the controller but the actual heat pump doesn't start. If i then turn off the controller and back on again the heat pump kicks in. A number of times also i've had an overheat because the heat pump doesnt swtich off when the stat stops calling for heat and the controller switches off. This then leads to very hot towel radiators that i was told to fit as constant open loops. I've been looking to see if there are any better controllers or anything i can do manually to try and get some better performance. Turning it way down from 100% would be a good start. Thanks Damian

ok so it is as i was thinking. The pipe stats tell the heat pump when to stop. Do you have 2 pipe stats or does your cylinder stat do the job for the DHW? Do you have any idea of how long the DHW takes to get up to temp on a normal day? Thanks Damian

I think this is what the digital controller on mine does but i have no idea to do anything manually. confused is an understatement

ok so your heat pump does have programs?

@PeterW I'm trying as usual to get my head around all of this. I had imagined the heat pump itself had some kind of programs that pumped out water at a certain temperature instead of just heating the water until it reached a certain temperature and then stopping? So i assume that you just have the cylinder stat calling for water at 45 degrees and the room stats calling for water at 27 degrees until they are satisfied and then the heat pump turns off. Or do you need 2 pipe stats along with the cylinder stat? From your experience how long does the Heat pump take to get the Cylinder to temperature? I'm trying to get an idea of timings?

no this is an over hang of plumber number 2. He suggested just using the floor itself as the buffer. I'm now not so sure that was a great idea. But kind of stuck at this point.

Nice one. Its about as grey as my hair has gone in the last 5 years!

Since our system has been commissioned its now running at about 1.5-1.75 Bar I was thinking it was supposed to be higher but the plumber said it was fine.

I'm getting senile the longer this build goes on. Hopefully you have a Massey 35, that would definitely cure some stress.

If i had the budget i would get a sunamp and possibly a better ASHP but it is what it is right now and we need to get into the house (Baby #3 is coming in November) I may be able to get a second immersion and put that on a backup timing? Right now i'm not 100% confident that the Plumber and Spark know how to get the Basic W plan working with my Heat pump and deliver the 2 different temperature setup points without the digital controller.

Its so hard to know whats the best thing to do. I have had 4 different plumbers working on the house and the most recent guy is kind of cleaning up after everyone else and trying to get it ship shape but i'm just a bit lost about whats the best way forward. The ASHP is currently running but no pipe stat means we just have to turn it on and off manually (its just running to make sure screed is ok before tiling) Current plumber has never worked with an ASHP that didn't have a digital controller so he seems a bit lost and its a tough spot to try and make decisions in .