Which ASHP are set up to cool

[ProDave]

My ASHP was included on the planning application.  But that says nothing about heating or cooling.

 

How is a planning officer going to know if it is being used for cooling?  Are they even going to be bothered trying to enforce it given the plenty of other things they don't seem to have tome to enforce.

[joth]

2 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

You can, you just have to meter the heat and take A from B to discount energy spent on cooling. 

Not entirely true: you only need to meter the heat if the RHI application required "metering for payment". 

Most RHIs were done based on estimated heat demand (from the EPC) so payments were completely unaffected by the usage or otherwise of cooling mode.

 

This is all moot for new installs as RHI wound up 15 months ago.

[joth]

6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

My ASHP was included on the planning application.  But that says nothing about heating or cooling.

 

How is a planning officer going to know if it is being used for cooling?  Are they even going to be bothered trying to enforce it given the plenty of other things they don't seem to have tome to enforce.

 

My comment was only about permitted development having an exclusion for cooling mode. If you put the ASHP on the PP and it's approved, you're good to go. The planning office probably doesn't give two hoots either way until someone complains (which could be for heat or cooling noise, or for unsightliness, or most likely plain old jealousy in a heat wave)

 

 

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by joth

[Dan F]

1 hour ago, joth said:

Not entirely true: you only need to meter the heat if the RHI application required "metering for payment". 

Most RHIs were done based on estimated heat demand (from the EPC) so payments were completely unaffected by the usage or otherwise of cooling mode.

 

This is all moot for new installs as RHI wound up 15 months ago.

4mths ago.   Our application weent in in March 2022.

 

Metering with cooling is complex  because while the heat meters have registers for cooling/heating, the electricity meter cannot differenciate between heating and cooling.  What happens in practice is that the amount you can claim for heat is reduced relative to the amount of cooling you do.  This is because the payments are based on heat meter reading - electricity meter reading.   Either that or you have to put a much more complex monitoring solution in.

 

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, joth said:

If you squint you can see an argument that cooling operates when neighbours' are most likely to have their windows open thus the noise could be more of a nuisance, hence requires PP.

Why does this not apply to neighbours cars and vans?

I have to pull into my drive at 14:02 every weekday, just as an intergenerational statement.

 

[joth]

1 hour ago, Dan F said:

4mths ago.   Our application weent in in March 2022.

 

Metering with cooling is complex  because while the heat meters have registers for cooling/heating, the electricity meter cannot differenciate between heating and cooling.  What happens in practice is that the amount you can claim for heat is reduced relative to the amount of cooling you do.  This is because the payments are based on heat meter reading - electricity meter reading.   Either that or you have to put a much more complex monitoring solution in.

 

 

Opps yes think I was looking at the date they announced it was being withdrawn.

 

Is your install on metered for payments then? Ours isn't, just on "metered for performance" thus cooling doesn't impact how much £ is paid out at all. (The performance metering is done via MELCloud which splits out heating, cooling and DHW anyway, albeit in a very inconvenient little dashboard)

 

[Dan F]

32 minutes ago, joth said:

Is your install on metered for payments then?

Yes, it had to be.  Can't remember exactly why, but it was either because rules changes or because we moved in before the install was certified.   

 

The heat meter doesn't count backwards for cooling, but the electricity meter does continue to count up so you can reclaim less.  That said there is an anual limit (based on SAP results) on what you can claim anyway, so it may not have a major impact.

 

We also have metering for perforance (via passivliving) but this doesn't consider cooling at all.  Our COP for July according to their dashboard is 0.6!  That partly because of the way I hard DHW plumbed which gives bad COP, but primairly due to cooling.

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, Dan F said:

We also have metering for perforance (via passivliving) but this doesn't consider cooling at all.  Our COP for July according to their dashboard is 0.6!  That partly because of the way I hard DHW plumbed which gives bad COP, but primairly due to cooling.

Expected, but not really an issue for those with PV, as the ‘problem’ ( sun ) creates the solution ( excess vegetation to power cooling ) so still “free” whilst the sun is in the sky? 

[Bob77]

On 18/07/2022 at 14:32, Luke1 said:

 

I'm currently running my ASHP (Nibe) in cooling mode with flow down to 11C. The pump runs for 10 mins dropping flow tempt to 11C and then creeps up to 15C until the unit comes back on again  after approx 20 mins.

 

So far today the UFH has been working exceptionally well. The downstairs is curently 23.3C and this has not moved since 11 o clock this morning. Current outdoor temperature 31.4C in the shade.

 

The radiators are also cool, however they don't help really help to keep the room cool.

I  did experiment by putting a tower fan on its side under the radiator however it causes a significant amount of condensate to accumulate and then drop off the radiator. So unless you can mix the upstairs water to keep it above dew point, or somehow collect the condensate then the fan assisted radiators would cause issues.

I was getting condensate when running the flow as high as 15C-18C, at which temperature the cooling effect for the UFH and radiators is minimal.

 

I am having an Altherma system fitted in a few weeks time, with UFH throughout the ground floor, and asked the installer about the option of cooling (hadn't really occurred to me until the weather this week!). He said that cooling via UFH was a no-no because of condensation issues on the floor, but from reading this and other threads it looks like that is unlikely to be an issue?

 

Do you need to do anything different if you want to run cooling via UFH or is it as simple as switching the unit into cooling mode?  

[gc100]

Just thought I’d add for those who are still building: we put an AC unit in our house which is pipped into our bedroom and office (with 2.3k unit outside next to ASHP). By far the best thing I did - it just runs off the solar in the day and keeps both rooms at whatever temp I want . It was great walking into these rooms at 19c in the last heatwave just gone. I only wish I did the same for the kids rooms, but I had enough trouble persuading the Mrs about our room/office ( though she’s very happy now). 

[crispy_wafer]

9 minutes ago, gc100 said:

Just thought I’d add for those who are still building: we put an AC unit in our house which is pipped into our bedroom and office (with 2.3k unit outside next to ASHP). By far the best thing I did - it just runs off the solar in the day and keeps both rooms at whatever temp I want . It was great walking into these rooms at 19c in the last heatwave just gone. I only wish I did the same for the kids rooms, but I had enough trouble persuading the Mrs about our room/office ( though she’s very happy now). 

Nice, You have one unit ducted into both rooms, or two separate controllable units?  I'm personally yet to make my mind up, or more likely to have the courage to say yes.  Money is getting tight as it is, a 6 unit system with 2 multi splits is a bit of an uplift on the ASHP after the BUS Grant.  But the ability to cool and heat areas in the home is a winner and if it can be done with the least amount of equipment, all the better for me.

 

 

 

 

[gc100]

2 hours ago, crispy_wafer said:

Nice, You have one unit ducted into both rooms, or two separate controllable units?  I'm personally yet to make my mind up, or more likely to have the courage to say yes.  Money is getting tight as it is, a 6 unit system with 2 multi splits is a bit of an uplift on the ASHP after the BUS Grant.  But the ability to cool and heat areas in the home is a winner and if it can be done with the least amount of equipment, all the better for me.

 

 

 

 

 

Its a single cassette type unit which lives above our en-suite room and is pipped into both with a single control in our bedroom. Cost £2200 + VAT installed, which I think is excellent value given the amount of work it took them to install. There are just a couple of vents high up on the walls which are quite discrete. i can't hear it at all, which is great compared to wall mounted units I've had in the past abroad

[m0deller]

I've ordered the blue plug (VAI0020266328) for the aerotherm+. Will confirm if it works or not. 

 

[Dan F]

2 minutes ago, m0deller said:

I've ordered the blue plug (VAI0020266328) for the aerotherm+. Will confirm if it works or not. 

I think there is a very high chance it will.  If it doesn't, it should just be a case of getting a different resistor and using the same plug.

[m0deller]

On 21/07/2022 at 18:06, Bob77 said:

 

I am having an Altherma system fitted in a few weeks time, with UFH throughout the ground floor, and asked the installer about the option of cooling (hadn't really occurred to me until the weather this week!). He said that cooling via UFH was a no-no because of condensation issues on the floor, but from reading this and other threads it looks like that is unlikely to be an issue?

 

Do you need to do anything different if you want to run cooling via UFH or is it as simple as switching the unit into cooling mode?  

My understanding is that it will calculate the dew point and prevent condensation. It has humidity and temperature sensors. I'd trust your own research rather than an "installer." 

[Dan F]

9 minutes ago, m0deller said:

My understanding is that it will calculate the dew point and prevent condensation. It has humidity and temperature sensors. I'd trust your own research rather than an "installer." 

 

The Vaillant controlls have dew-point monitoring, not sure about the Daikin Altherma (google doesn't throw anything up).  If you ASHP doesn't have this then yes, you do need to be careful with condensation by limiting the temperature your floor surface gets too. The UFH flow temperature can be slightly lower, but should insulate exposed pipework in this case (could be an issue if it goes withing any walls).  Have a play around with dew point calculator to get an idea. 18C floor with 24C room temperare and 60% RH is a non-issue, but if RH or temp is much higher than this then condensation can be an issue. 

https://www.calculator.net/dew-point-calculator.html

[joth]

8 hours ago, Dan F said:

 

The Vaillant controlls have dew-point monitoring, not sure about the Daikin Altherma (google doesn't throw anything up).  If you ASHP doesn't have this then yes, you do need to be careful with condensation by limiting the temperature your floor surface gets too. The UFH flow temperature can be slightly lower, but should insulate exposed pipework in this case (could be an issue if it goes withing any walls).  Have a play around with dew point calculator to get an idea. 18C floor with 24C room temperare and 60% RH is a non-issue, but if RH or temp is much higher than this then condensation can be an issue. 

https://www.calculator.net/dew-point-calculator.html

 

The Loxone flow temperature controller block (ITC) does helpfully have a note saying don't drop the temperature below the dew point, but doesn't help in calculating it. 

https://www.loxone.com/enen/kb/intelligent-temperature-controller-2/

 

There's a fairly simple estimation of dew point for RH>50% so I'll probably just drop this in to calculate my minimum flow temperature.

 

Td = T - ((100 - RH)/5)

https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/dochelp/QA/Basic/dewpoint.html

 

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by joth

[joth]

27 minutes ago, joth said:

There's a fairly simple estimation of dew point for RH>50% so I'll probably just drop this in to calculate my minimum flow temperature.

 

 

Done. At this moment this is giving 14ºC as the dew point. If I add on 1K as an error margin, that puts me back at the 15ºC flow temp I originally thought of 🙂

 

[Dan F]

2 hours ago, joth said:

 

Done. At this moment this is giving 14ºC as the dew point. If I add on 1K as an error margin, that puts me back at the 15ºC flow temp I originally thought of 🙂

 

Yes, but when RH does increase it will accommodate and adjust a few degrees.

 

In going to have to dable with Vaillant ebus protocol to control cooling as no dry contract or interface for this 😞

[m0deller]

@Dan FWhat are you wanting to do via ebus? Assume you know about ebusd? 

Edited July 27, 2022 by m0deller

[Dan F]

1 minute ago, m0deller said:

@Dan FWhat are you wanting to do via ebus? Assume you know about ebusd? 

Can do most of the basics via EEBus, but can't enable/disable cooling.  In theory Vaillant were going to support a Modbus interface, but nothing has appeared yet and the Vaillant team don't seem to know anything.

 

I know about ebusd yes, but I haven't sourced as ebus coupler yet as I was trying to try to avoid needing to use ebus.  My main concern with using ebusd is that it doesn't seem anyone has documented available operations and registers, so it could take a lot of experimentation to discover things.  Have you had any experience with ebus?

 

 

 

[m0deller]

On 27/07/2022 at 19:52, Dan F said:

Can do most of the basics via EEBus, but can't enable/disable cooling.  In theory Vaillant were going to support a Modbus interface, but nothing has appeared yet and the Vaillant team don't seem to know anything.

 

I know about ebusd yes, but I haven't sourced as ebus coupler yet as I was trying to try to avoid needing to use ebus.  My main concern with using ebusd is that it doesn't seem anyone has documented available operations and registers, so it could take a lot of experimentation to discover things.  Have you had any experience with ebus?

 

 

 

There's lots of info on the ebusd GitHub site. I mainly just read to generate CoP figures etc. Most attributes can be written to as well. 

 

[Dan F]

38 minutes ago, m0deller said:

There's lots of info on the ebusd GitHub site. I mainly just read to generate CoP figures etc. Most attributes can be written to as well. 

Nice.  So it's a case of trying to use this information here and/or sniffing the bus while using the controller to work out how to use it?  https://github.com/john30/ebusd-configuration/tree/master/ebusd-2.x.x/en/vaillant

 

There is a home assistant plugin I've seen, but it only maps some things.. and nothing about cooling. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ebusd/

 

[m0deller]

Got the blue key. £5 . 

[Dan F]

7 minutes ago, m0deller said:

Got the blue key. £5 . 

Nice to see it working.. nice find of mind finding same thing (for gas boier) with different product code 😉

 

Are you cooling UFH in kitchen?  Is UFH in a passive slab or just screed?