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IVT Ecolane ASHP - any owners out there?


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1 minute ago, joe90 said:

 

Surely if the immersion’s are on a timer, then at 7 they will come on ONLY if the water is not up to temp?(their internal thermostat will detect this). I bought an in line heater like Jeremy but was advised not to use it!! I have still yet to sort my ASHP heating out  ?

 

Only 1 immersion on the tank at the minute.   And it will be connected the an immersun type device so i'm not sure if that affects it being on a timer?

 

Why were you advised not to use the water heater?

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1 minute ago, DeeJunFan said:

Why were you advised not to use the water heater?

 

It was suggested 15mm pipework would “strangle” hot water flow (although Jeremy says this does not happen). Nick recons 300l hot tank heated by ASHP and backup immersion’s would be sufficient. (I have kept the inline heater and put cables in as a plan B. ). Currently in the rush to move in we are working on immersion  only but I must get round to sorting this out (glad it’s a hot summer). I am also considering E7 and E10 and my provider has confirmed they are available and a £150 charge for changing the meter out. We have no PV. Also like to say that despite reading how badly insulated DHW tanks are, ours, a Tempest (kindly supplied through Nick) leaks so little heat my other half has complained the airing cupboard is not warm enough ?.

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2 minutes ago, joe90 said:

 

It was suggested 15mm pipework would “strangle” hot water flow (although Jeremy says this does not happen). Nick recons 300l hot tank heated by ASHP and backup immersion’s would be sufficient. (I have kept the inline heater and put cables in as a plan B. ). Currently in the rush to move in we are working on immersion  only but I must get round to sorting this out (glad it’s a hot summer). I am also considering E7 and E10 and my provider has confirmed they are available and a £150 charge for changing the meter out. We have no PV. Also like to say that despite reading how badly insulated DHW tanks are, ours, a Tempest (kindly supplied through Nick) leaks so little heat my other half has complained the airing cupboard is not warm enough ?.

 

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 . 

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3 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I doubt we'll ever turn our in-line heater on, TBH.  The only scenario I can see where we might is if the Sunamp PV packed up, which doesn't seem very likely.

 

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. 

 

Edited by DeeJunFan
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35 minutes ago, DeeJunFan said:

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. 

 

I am in the same boat (although I do have a controller) , I think I know what I want, but not sure “regular “ plumbers and sparks “ get it “. I don’t know if it’s my age or sanility but I am having a real problem getting my head round it ?. I think I need to have a house party ? (and invite all those knowledgable people from the forum round).?.

 

think I will go drive my tractor.

Edited by joe90
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1 minute ago, joe90 said:

 

I am in the same boat (although I do have a controller) , I think I know what I want, but not sure “regular “ plumbers and sparks “ get it “. I don’t know if it’s my age or sanility but I am having a real problem getting my head round it ?. I think I need to have a house party ? (and invite all those knowledgable people from the forum round).?.

 

think I will go drive my tractor.

 

I'm getting senile the longer this build goes on. 

 

Hopefully you have a Massey 35,  that would definitely cure some stress.  

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1 hour ago, PeterW said:

@DeeJunFan have you got a buffer planned for the UFH..? Ideally if you had this you can give the UFH a decent load battery of 40c water to pull against when the tank is topping up. 

 

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. 

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@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?

 

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I can't comment on your heat pump, but my LG one works like this.

 

In heating mode, it modulates the compressor to maintain the water flow temperature to what you have set it, I currently have it set for 40 degrees but I will probably fine tune that when I start using the heating.

 

In hot water heating mode, it seems to ramp the compressor up to pretty much full speed quite quickly, then you can watch the flow temperature slowly rising as the tank warms up.  Flow temperature always seems to be about 5 degrees above return temperature, which is dependant on the temperature of the water in the tank.

 

Mine prioritises hot water heating but you can swap it to prioritise heating if you want.

 

Mine has a thermistor temperature probe to measure the tank temperature, it does not use the mechanical cylinder thermostat.

 

By the time the tank reaches full temperature, the flow temperature from the heat pump is about 5 degrees hotter than the tank temperature. I am currently running a hot water temperature of 50 degrees so the flow gets up to about 55 degrees.  Mine you can program to stop heating with the heat pump at a certain temperature and then use the immersion heater to get to full temperature. I might investigate that option in the winter if frequent defrosting becomes an issue.

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7 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I can't comment on your heat pump, but my LG one works like this.

 

In heating mode, it modulates the compressor to maintain the water flow temperature to what you have set it, I currently have it set for 40 degrees but I will probably fine tune that when I start using the heating.

 

In hot water heating mode, it seems to ramp the compressor up to pretty much full speed quite quickly, then you can watch the flow temperature slowly rising as the tank warms up.  Flow temperature always seems to be about 5 degrees above return temperature, which is dependant on the temperature of the water in the tank.

 

Mine prioritises hot water heating but you can swap it to prioritise heating if you want.

 

ok so your heat pump does have programs?

 

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3 minutes ago, DeeJunFan said:

 

ok so your heat pump does have programs?

 

It has about 20 or so "parameters" that you can set from a menu, some of which have sensible default values, others not so sensible.

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10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

It has about 20 or so "parameters" that you can set from a menu, some of which have sensible default values, others not so sensible.

 

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

 

confused is an understatement

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The IVT heat pumps on eBay do not have a programmer of any description, they are one part of a two part hot water system that are being sold off by Ice Energy and others online. 

 

They are pretty binary in terms of control - the temperature sensor switches off  the pump when it gets to that temperature. 

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5 minutes ago, PeterW said:

The IVT heat pumps on eBay do not have a programmer of any description, they are one part of a two part hot water system that are being sold off by Ice Energy and others online. 

 

They are pretty binary in terms of control - the temperature sensor switches off  the pump when it gets to that temperature. 

 

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

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  • 5 weeks later...

So...

 

The IVT unit is from the IVT AirCombo 60 that they no longer sell. IVT have been really helpful - it’s apparently a rebadged (wait for it .....) Mitsubishi Unit as used in the Ecodan series ..! Correct model is the PUHZ-W90VHA, however it interfaces with the rather nice Ecodan controller that is north of £900....

 

The A terminals are inputs, the B terminals are error or output. Just trying to get some more info on what each one is as it’s not that complicated to use by the look of it and it’s either PMW or 0-24v on one of those pins

 

And @JSHarris it has a cooling function too..!
 

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10 minutes ago, PeterW said:

And @JSHarris it has a cooling function too..!
 

 

They all have a cooling function, as they have to in order to defrost.  The problem is that to be sold in the UK as an MCS approved product, that's eligible for RHI, the cooling functionality has to be hidden from the installer or user instructions.  I had to reverse engineer mine to find it, which wasn't hard as the installation instructions showed that two no-volt connections had to be switched to ground to make the ASHP turn on.  I tried just grounding one and the heat pump didn't turn on, so then tried just grounding the other and it turned on, but in cooling mode.  A quick test with grounding the other connection showed that all it did was switch the unit to heating mode if grounded or cooling mode if left open circuit.

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On 31/07/2018 at 10:53, joe90 said:

Nick recons 300l hot tank heated by ASHP and backup immersion’s would be sufficient. (I have kept the inline heater and put cables in as a plan B. ). 

 

That's what we have, DHW water heated to 50C.  4 of us in the house inc a teenager who likes long showers (but still never seems clean!) and we haven't been able to run the tank cold, and that includes drawing off a deep bath and aforesaid teenager showering at the same time.

 

56 minutes ago, PeterW said:

So...

 

The IVT unit is from the IVT AirCombo 60 that they no longer sell. IVT have been really helpful - it’s apparently a rebadged (wait for it .....) Mitsubishi Unit as used in the Ecodan series ..! Correct model is the PUHZ-W90VHA, however it interfaces with the rather nice Ecodan controller that is north of £900....

 

The A terminals are inputs, the B terminals are error or output. Just trying to get some more info on what each one is as it’s not that complicated to use by the look of it and it’s either PMW or 0-24v on one of those pins

 

And @JSHarris it has a cooling function too..!
 

 

I've got the FTC5 controller with my Mitsubishi ASHP and preplumb cylinder package, and very nice it is.  In terms of plug and play, it does away with all the reverse engineering and working out being described.  Basic electric connection, plug in controller cable and off you go.

 

45 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

They all have a cooling function, as they have to in order to defrost.  The problem is that to be sold in the UK as an MCS approved product, that's eligible for RHI, the cooling functionality has to be hidden from the installer or user instructions.  I had to reverse engineer mine to find it, which wasn't hard as the installation instructions showed that two no-volt connections had to be switched to ground to make the ASHP turn on.  I tried just grounding one and the heat pump didn't turn on, so then tried just grounding the other and it turned on, but in cooling mode.  A quick test with grounding the other connection showed that all it did was switch the unit to heating mode if grounded or cooling mode if left open circuit.

 

Cooling function instructions are provided in the manual of mine, but to access the function via the controller, you have to flip a dip switch in the control box to activate it.  Ours is an MCS approved install. 

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So in the interests of sharing what I have been provided by a very helpful IVT support engineer :

 

The A-inputs acts like a “binary staircase”. So each signal is either on or off, 24V (not PWM). 

  

Step 

A1 

A2 

A3 

Power 

0% 

30% 

42% 

53% 

65% 

77% 

88% 

100% 

 

 For the B-outputs :

 

B3

B2

Operating mode

1

1

Normal

1

0

Restricted

0

1

Defrost

0

0

Failure/Power off

 

Looking at the wiring, A5 and B1 are bridged to a common point (need to confirm 24v or GND) which leaves the A4 terminal all lonely ....

 

Anyone hazard a guess as to what it actually does ..? I think cooling ..!

 

Just to add to this, these are the DIP switch settings :

 

8A4B2518-BEFA-4C3D-8856-3329560A75F8.jpeg.2aa9939a5075b45f03587c7338e0da89.jpeg

 

I will share the service manual for the Mitsubishi unit if anyone wants it but it’s avaialble online 

 

 

 

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