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My (rotten) ASHP. Update.


zoothorn

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2 points to this.

 

1, having a clearer picture of how they work (2 months installed) I feel again the need to warn about them, or rather my vaillant one which is an utter disaster.

 

2, whether someone can help with a basic setting.

 

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As I mentioned before, noise inside (not from the nice purring fan outside), is bad enough not just to be intrusive but aggrevating & impossible to live with. Noise eminates from the heat compressor outside > fed inside > to boiler. Loud enough to hear chiefly inside, but also can hear it outside from within house too. Noise eminates too from the pump inside the boiler > fed along pipes to cylinder. Both are on continuosly when heating on, & also during HW periods. Also the pump alone, engages on/off/on/off intermittantly 3mins/3mins loud enough to not only be heard 2 rooms away, but also overnight so much so its wakes me up in the next room through wall) & infuriatingly so bc it does whatever its doing (not even the engineers know).. for min 1 hour: this is the worst, most intrusively interruptive noise Ive heard in my life, as bad as the worst hotel for eg. Not neccessarily the loudest, just the most disruptively annoying.

 

I had managed to minimise the night noise intrusion, by setting the "set back temp" to 10*.. & ending the heat period at 9pm. Just so I could sleep. With the big caveat of not having any heat in house 1st thing AM (as I am forced to start the heat cycle coinciding with my alarm, 7.30). The added disadvantage of this, is unlike evening when I can ramp the temp up from say 18* daytime 'lukewarm' house setting to 21* by turning a knob, then 1 hr later noticing room warming & rads up to temp, because its had to be put to '10* set back temp' overnight, it takes twice the time to get rads up to speed. So, effectively useless if I want to leave house at 8.30 for eg: house still cold. But also, a few days ago the pump woke me 6AM for its infuriating on/off/on 3 mins awfulness. So I have no confidence going to bed it'll be silent overnight at all anymore. So I'm on tenterhooks sleeping = stress.

 

In conclusion I know only now, that the system can only work, & is only designed to work thus: it has to be in heating mode 24 hrs a day, which includes overnight periods the rads will come on albeit less frequently than the 'heating periods' we all like (for eg 6.30 am-8.30 am and 6pm-9pm), in order for the rads to work properly. IE it -has- to be continuously in standby mode dipping in & out to feed the rads 24/7 including overnight just as the day (there is no extra 'night time' setting available). This might be fine if A) the boiler & cylinder are sited well away from beds, and B) you like warm bedrooms overnight, & C) one can afford to run the system 24/7 like so. But for me.. its not fine at all & a total disaster of a design. If I had a wife & child, child using the spare room the boiler & cylinder are in.. it'd be worse: this room (Im told where most go, replacing immersion heaters etc/ old systems) is totally useless even in the day, ruined by the intrusive noise of the equipment.

 

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I also have only warm-hot HW. It was hot & a great temp, but engineer came (refettling stupidly complicated system to try & reduce noise- to no effect) I think lowering the HW temp a bit. I am tearing my hair out with this pathetic designed system. Pathetic. German too.

 

zoot

 

 

 

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Who advised you an ASHP was the best form of heating for an old leaky stone cottage?  They work very well in a modern well insulated house where it needs a low level of heat input and does not cool down quickly when the heating goes off.  Ours turns off at 9PM and stays off all night.

 

i still don't understand where your noise is coming from? is it the heat pump outside making the noise and transmitting it through the pipes?  If so flexible pip sections where it enters the house should stop that.

 

Or is is a circulating pump within the house?  I had issues initially that the under floor manifold pumps were noisy, until I changed them for better Wilo pumps.

 

All I can suggest is you get the installers back again.  If you paid one price to one company to install a complete system tell them it is "not fit for purpose" and you want it removed and a full refund unless they can make it operate properly and quietly.

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Sounds bloody frustrating! 
 

I am a little lost on your system set up... You mention an ASHP and a boiler, plus a cylinder. Is the boiler just a backup for the ASHP? Is the cylinder for dhw or is it a TS? 
 

As prodave says, it’s not clear to us where the noise source is.

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@ProDave hi there, uselful reply thanks. Firstly I'm in catch-22 land as its a govt grant thing. Secondly Ive had 3 engineer visits, 1st to change a part (error code ?) not giving me huge confidence, 2nd to go thru all settings to try to alieviate/ minimise the noises (only partly success: just put in a '10* set back temp' low enough so it keeps bloody quiet at night until my rad ons @ 7.30am; tho it woke at 6am 2 days ago), 3rd visit by snr engineer to go further into it to try & reduce compressor settings (useless 2 hrs- just as noisy as b4).

 

The noises are from 2 places. From the compressor outside. And ftom the pump inside.

 

The compressor feeds 2x flexi pipes > enetering the house. I get most of the intrusive noise it creates within the house @ the place where the pipes enter (wall) up to where they finish (boiler). So a 3m passage of noise. On top of this, I hear the compressor outside, through & in likely the windows upstairs. So a double whammy of compresor vibrate-droning here.

 

The other noise (a higher pitched motor type, the pump afaict) starts in the boiler > then is carried onwards to the cylinder. The two noises (compressor & pump) 95% of the time coincide. I have reduced them to stopping at 9pm. But, the motor/ pump does some cycle on-off-on 1 hour thing on its own.. without the compressor too.. at infuriatingtimes like 6AM. Or 4AM. For a full 1 hour. This is not only loud enough to wake me (a heavy sleeper) but so repeatingly incessant, seemingly the cycle it does over 1 hr or so, as to be impossible to get back to sleep. Like having a car engine start/ stop on/ off on outside your window to deliberately prevent you from sleeping.

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The 1st Unit is the main problem, Compressor noise coming into it, then within it.. and also its pump within it, then onwards to cylinder. Even pipes onwards the drone is heard.

 

cylinder does not produce any noise, but motor noise is heard at it too eminating from the boiler pic1.

 

the outside fan plus compressor unit: fan is aggreeable in noise terms (the only thing vaillants pdf tech info purports as producing any noise, ie a diagram of a fan in a box).. but its compressor tagged to its side is anything but agreeable: so much so its easily heard 20 m away on road outside.. and as a vibration device, produces 'pools' of noise patches all over inside and outside.

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Looks like a split unit and that is the refrigeration unit outside and the heat exchanger inside. That will be noisy as you’ve basically got a big fridge running in reverse indoors. 
 

That tank install should have all the hot pipework insulated to meet regs too - so the install is non compliant with building regs. 

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3 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Looks like a split unit and that is the refrigeration unit outside and the heat exchanger inside. That will be noisy as you’ve basically got a big fridge running in reverse indoors. 
 

That tank install should have all the hot pipework insulated to meet regs too - so the install is non compliant with building regs. 

 

Hi Peter- maybe pipes not perfect.. but far from my concern.

 

I realise its a big fridge in reverse, but half of it afaik, the compressor I know as definite, is outside.

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2 minutes ago, PeterW said:

It’s the heat exchanger that is making the noise - will be at least one pump in there 

 

If the heat exchanger is in two parts, 6m apart.. then yes I agree.

 

But if you are suggesting one unit is solely resonsible for the noise, then no.. as Ive said the noise is being created at two distinctly separate points. One outside, one inside. The heat compressor, and the pump.

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1 minute ago, ProDave said:

What do the instructions say about noise levels?  Has anyone measured anything with a sound meter?

 

If the noise is within manufacturers spec, there is nothing they can do.

 

This is my main grumble with vaillant. The only info with noise-related xyz (diagram of a fan in a box, & ascociated dB figs) relates to the outside unit. Both engineers agree hands down I have a valid point: so much so its been fwd'd on up & may very well be included in a revamped pdf.

 

Sound meters are totally n/a if there's no info to compare anything to. Him getting his meter out & saying 'fine' is meaningless. If it wakes me in the next room, its excessively noisy/ end of. The snr engineer agrees with my points on this, even with meter in his hand.

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I understand that but the outside noise will be from the fan condenser unit and the inside from the heatexchanger unit with at least one circulation pump through the matrix in that box of tricks on the wall. That will be the source of the multiple noises as split aircon and heat pump units have to move both refrigerant and water about. 

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1 minute ago, PeterW said:

I understand that but the outside noise will be from the fan condenser unit and the inside from the heatexchanger unit with at least one circulation pump through the matrix in that box of tricks on the wall. That will be the source of the multiple noises as split aircon and heat pump units have to move both refrigerant and water about. 

 

Ok we agree then (we just call it different things/ it matters not) but I know the outside noise is catagorically coming from a heat compressor (when its on it says in the Live Indicator "heat compressor active"). This is what the engineers call it.

 

The fan sucks in air > it is compressed > made into X > then, fed into house.  Its irritating noise, most of it, is heard once its entered the house, via the pipes. 10% of its noise enters house directly no, but from the unit itself (not thru 2ft stone wall, but up & in thru window: your ears tell you so).

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When you instructed the contractor to install a system for you, did you at any point tell them it must be somewhere between silent and almost inaudible inside the house?

 

If not, then I doubt you have a leg to stand on.

 

If I had been asked to design a silent system, it would be a monoblock unit, placed further from the house, preferably by a wall without a door or window, and all necessary water circulating pumps would be in the outside unit.

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That isn’t how it works ... fan sucks air over a set of thin tubes like a car radiator that makes the refrigerant turn to gas. This is pumped through small bore pipe - the white things up the wall - to the heat exchanger where a compressor condenses the gas to a liquid and it releases the heat to the internal heat exchanger. This has water one side and in some a secondary glycol circuit to extract the heat from the compressor. The water then goes to the tank or the radiators. 
 

if the fan unit is causing noise you can mount sound panels above them about 2ft up (airflow clearance) and these can absorb or deflect the noise. This also keeps snow and rain off the top of the units which can also be beneficial. 

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1 minute ago, ProDave said:

When you instructed the contractor to install a system for you, did you at any point tell them it must be somewhere between silent and almost inaudible inside the house?

 

If not, then I doubt you have a leg to stand on.

 

If I had been asked to design a silent system, it would be a monoblock unit, placed further from the house, preferably by a wall without a door or window, and all necessary water circulating pumps would be in the outside unit.

 Its not the point ProDave. My old immersion heater made a tad of noise, sure, but nothing to interrupt being in the room.. let alone/ heaven's above making enough noise at 4AM to wake me in the adjacent room. Every house Ive been in, in my entire life has had a boiler emmitting similar feint noises, never in a month of sundays any of it 'intrusive', 'highly irritating', let alone 'sleep disturbing'.

 

I do have a very valid point. Both my installers agree. Both vaillant engineers agree. So much so they're elevating it to being disclosed in the future. Just like Daiiking & mitsubishi do. Its is simply hoodwinking ProDave, not letting customers in on noise these inherrantly will create (as PeterW alludes to/ someone else too, who said anything with a pump with motor in shouldn't be sited bang middle of house).

 

If this noise was just contained to before 9pm & after 7.30 am its one thing (tho still far from liveable with). Mine goes on/off/on 4am, 6am.. you imagine being woken like so in your house by motors in your adjacent room? its simply 100% not acceptable, in any way whatsoever, or, just conjusive to be in a small house spare room at all: put it in a soundproof container.. maybe yes, but whose gonna fork out for making that?

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@zoothorn whilst I feel fir you, when I did my homework about heating I found split units were known to be more noisy than monoblocs  which is why I installed the latter. The fact that no dB info was available is also a warning sign. I hope the installers/manufacturers manage to sort this fir you.

Edited by joe90
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The on/off thing in the night.  the manufacturer should be able to advise on that.

 

My own LG ASHP does a similar thing.  at night when "off" if it senses the water temperature in the outside unit is <10 degrees, it will turn on the circulating pump to run the water around the system.  Essentially it is drawing some heat out of the warmer pipes in the house to keep the water temperature in the outside unit above 10 degrees.

 

Now in my case it is just the gentle hum of the water circulating pump and for perhaps 30 seconds each time it comes on. The colder the night the more it comes on.

 

Only the manufacturer could change that, it is not even a documented thing, just something I have observed, and there is no setting to alter it.  But if it really bothered me, i could disable it by putting the whole thing on a mains timer to cut power off overnight.

 

I personally think it is an unecessary function, the water has inhibitor / antifreeze that should be good to -10 degrees, so turning on at +10 degrees is way over the top.  I would at least like to adjust the trigger temperature down close to zero (where the antifreeze would still be protecting it)

 

Next time you have a visit you need to ask the "engineers" to power up the individual components to see what is really making the noise.  It should be very simple to temporarily power up the water circulating pump for instance and see how much that is contributing the the noise.  At the moment you don't really know what is making the noise, just "something in that box"

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7 minutes ago, PeterW said:

That isn’t how it works ... fan sucks air over a set of thin tubes like a car radiator that makes the refrigerant turn to gas. This is pumped through small bore pipe - the white things up the wall - to the heat exchanger where a compressor condenses the gas to a liquid and it releases the heat to the internal heat exchanger. This has water one side and in some a secondary glycol circuit to extract the heat from the compressor. The water then goes to the tank or the radiators. 
 

if the fan unit is causing noise you can mount sound panels above them about 2ft up (airflow clearance) and these can absorb or deflect the noise. This also keeps snow and rain off the top of the units which can also be beneficial. 

 

I have said from the top Peter. The fan itself is not a problem. Making even a soundproof container for this unit is totally meaningless.

 

We need not agree on how the system works. I just need to inform you of the two points at which the noise is being created. One outside, one inside. A compressor, and a pump. If the compressor feeds pipes that enter the building, & it is these pipes whereby the sound is being introduced is the problem & cannot be resolved by containing the compressor even in a titanium vacuum whatever; the sound still enters the house exactly the same way & emits its noise at the same point IN the house.

 

It seems like you ate both just arguing for the sake of doing so bc you know I'm not as technically competant as you about knowing how such a system works so you'll flatten me like a fly. I don't need to be. It is agreed by 4 engineers its noisy. There's no debate about it. I'm just informing others of the missing info vaillant should have said (Ive just had my very installer call me, & totally agree wit this very point; 2 vaillant engineers too: but you don't??) to custiomers, so they can site the equipment accordingly. I'm not asking for you to explain how the system works in detail: its not needed for this.

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 This may or may not be relevant but @Jeremy Harris had excess noise on his monobloc and it was not till he read the MI,s that specified 1meter long flexible tails to minimise noise, he installed much shorter ones and this caused noise/vibration into the house. He replaced the short ones with long ones and the noise diminished greatly!      Food fir thought

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I think they are both trying to fully understand so they can give you some useful advice. 
 

don’t take anything here as people trying to be smarter than you.... it’s part of being a nerd, just wanting all the info. 

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2 minutes ago, joe90 said:

@zoothorn whilst I feel fir you, when I did my homework about heating I found split units were known to be more noisy than monoblocs  which is why I installed the latter. The fact that no dB info was available is also a warning sign. I hope the installers/manufacturers manage to sort this fir you.

 

Thank you joe90. Spot on as usual. I even dared suggest to the snr engineer I think said missing info has been -deliberately- withheld too.. expecting an irritated lecture, instead I got agreement. This guys no1 engineer by all accounts, of vaillant UK.

 

I went over & perused all the info I could have before, only having to take a chance it suggests, that the -outside- (looking in diagram form like only a fan) unit created noise. Like a big fan it said, as it is so. I go 5m away in garden etc & considered noise just like the diagram. I conclude its worth the chance > its installed. The noise around here, outside.. is not by comparison, a problem whatsoever.

 

Once the pipework to boiler done, in my spare room, & then it emerges from the box clad in black polystyrene to fit.. my alarm bells go off "whats the black for?" "sound containment" the installer says. OMG. The start of it. But too late to re-site it. Extremely angry I am about this. Especially so having a UT room, away from beds, almost ideal to house both boiler & cylinder, just renovated/ fresh to re-configure WM & a new space now my worktop/ workspace moved into my new workshop (top of WM before!). Maddening.

 

The only silver lining is the damn thing -can- live outside, of course in a weatherproof housing. So, as I hinted to the installer an hr ago on phone, I can only see re-placing it outside as any viable way ANYONE could possibly live with it.

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6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Can you post the full model numbers of this unit please?

 Of course ProDave. Vaillant Arotherm Split. 7.5kW.

 

Thanks for thoughts btw chaps- it is helpful to feel I'm not quite so alone on this/ someon'e thinking on my behalf maybe. Appreciated.

 

Damn tricky feeling hands tied to voice my full opinion, to both installers & vaillant, having the damn thing foc. But if its causing me stress & sleep issues, lukewarm HW & rads cant function properly (unless left on overnight & therefore intrusively noisy in small hrs).. then its undoubtadly a problem with it, not me.

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