From the WaterFurnace manuals I read I was under the impression that the WaterFurnace heat pump would come with their "Aurora Interface Diagnostic Tool" which could be used to set certain advanced settings, but also to look at certain metrics like loop water temperature. My installer told me today, however, that not only was that not included, but that if I did get a hold of one and used it myself it would void the warranty. Is that true and/or normal? He said that for that specific metric of loop inflow/outflow temperature I would be able to buy a thermometer and use a port in the pipes to measure that, are there other important metrics that I won't be able to gather without an AID tool? Thanks for your time.

The diagnostic tool was designed to assist installers and service technicians in trouble shooting and monitoring system behaviors. It is touted as a perk for the client in that troubleshooting should be easier. It was not intended for distribution to every system owner.
Technically use of your own tool could void warranty as you are not a factory trained technician. The fear would be an untrained tweaker could create nuisance problems or cause real harm to system.

That said, I have clients with service tools, I have clients with WEL systems and some with monitoring thermostats. I am the gate keeper for the warranty, my clients will not void it as long as they keep their filters clean and don't change settings without discussing it with me first.

So you need either a greater level of trust with your installer or to do as is suggested and measure entering and leaving water and air temperatures. That will tell you how the system is working.

Thanks Joe,

Right now trust between me and the installer is a bit on the iffy side, it's been a bit of a rough installation and I've got some complaints with them. That said, I don't have any problem with not getting an AID tool if that's common practice, as long as there are other ways I can get the info I want

I have ordered a suitable temperature probe and will be recording the values with that. (For other googlers wondering about similar questions, on another forum a "Cooper-Atkins DFP450" meat thermometer was recommended, and it had good amazon reviews, so I ordered that. I didn't think the wife would like sharing her kitchen thermometer with the water pump)

Are there any other data points that a technically apt user that likes making spreadsheets and whatnot should record? The thermostat itself measures and records the last few daily, weekly, and monthly energy usages (split up between fan, compressor, aux heat, and pump), so I plan on manually moving those into a spreadsheet regularly. The only other data point I was interested was water input temperature. Are there other important things that I may wish I had kept track of later on?

Posted By Yonder on 06 Nov 2014 11:35 AM
Thanks Joe,

Right now trust between me and the installer is a bit on the iffy side, it's been a bit of a rough installation and I've got some complaints with them. That said, I don't have any problem with not getting an AID tool if that's common practice, as long as there are other ways I can get the info I want

I have ordered a suitable temperature probe and will be recording the values with that. (For other googlers wondering about similar questions, on another forum a "Cooper-Atkins DFP450" meat thermometer was recommended, and it had good amazon reviews, so I ordered that. I didn't think the wife would like sharing her kitchen thermometer with the water pump)

Are there any other data points that a technically apt user that likes making spreadsheets and whatnot should record? The thermostat itself measures and records the last few daily, weekly, and monthly energy usages (split up between fan, compressor, aux heat, and pump), so I plan on manually moving those into a spreadsheet regularly. The only other data point I was interested was water input temperature. Are there other important things that I may wish I had kept track of later on?

My system was installed a year ago. I too had an installer that I had many complaints with. After experiencing high electric bills through the polar vortex winter, I've wondered if my system was working as well as it should. So I've spent time the last 6 months or so reading this and another forum. I started out with the same Cooper thermometer and a pressure gauge for the loop. After a while, it became cumbersome to record the data, and I still felt like you do - in that there's more you want to know. I ended up ordering the WEL, and will receive it as a Christmas gift. Not the most exciting gift, but if it gives me peace of mind, it's worth it's weight in gold. I wanted to know operating parameters (to sense potential problems) and get an idea of cost of operation. The WEL, and others like it, will provide this information. Phil from WEL was very good about answering any and all pre-sale questions. And the pros here have spoken much about the data from the graphs in many other threads. Your quest for knowledge is very similar to mine I think. You might be interested in my post http://www.geoexchange.org/forum/threads/monitoring-geothermal-system.6181/

Keep it simple.

Rather than spending money for a WaterFurnace diagnostic aid, which may be expensive, where ownership may at minimum raise some eyebrows with the installer, distributor and/or WF, where it only works when plugged in, where you still have to manually write down numbers, where you could mistakenly or unintentionally change a setting, keep the monitoring separate and non-invasive.

The WEL accomplishes all this, and is probably (much) lower cost than the WF diagnostic aid. I can't imagine WF selling anything to an end customer direct, and I can't imagine a distributor or installer selling anything like a diagnostic aid at anything other than list price. (And I can't imagine one being available on Ebay.)

Get yourself a WEL, get some temp sensors, get a power transducer from Continental Controls along with some current sensors, hook the stuff up, plug the WEL into your router, and you'll be impressed and amazed at what you too can learn about how your system is performing.

And, assuming you have PT ports in your water lines, get yourself a pressure gage with an appropriate probe, and now you can use your WEL to compute water flow, EER and COP. And then check the specs to see if indeed your system is running well.

Knowledge is power.

While the WEL accommodates refrigerant pressure gages too, this is the one thing I don't recommend proceeding to do. Everything to this point is non-invasive and thus non-warranty affecting. Pressure sensors on the refrigerant ports is a different story. Regardless of what you read, they will eventually leak.

For an example of measuring everything possible with a WF system, take a look at what I've got set up for a residential structure, at:
http://www.welserver.com/WEL0043 .

Best regards,

Bill

Please pardon my ignorance, but what is the "WEL" your referencing?

Sir what is the "WEL" you reference? We recently built a new home and have the 5 series water furnace. I would enjoy learning more about our water furnace.

http://www.welserver.com/

It is a monitoring system that you can mount sensors to the heat pump and water pipes. You get a free web page where you can see the read outs of the sensors.