yes, when it goes to the 2nd stage, I belive the fan is set to the highest setting.  I understand this will cool the air somewhat, but I would still expect a temperature spike based on the 2nd stage.  Earlier this year (11 months ago), the increase in temp was significant from what I remember.  Thanks

Just throwing this out there, but if you noticed a significant increase in heat could it have been backup resistant heat kicking in? Is it set to only go on below a set outside temp or given runtime on stage two?

We do not have the backup resistant heat connected, so it was not a factor. Thanks for the reply though.

When trouble shooting a heat pump, the first thing we do is check GPMs through the unit and then we check the EWT and LWT. It would really help if we had this data.

I will work to get this data later this week. Thanks!

My furnace guy came out yesterday, and did some testing.  He agrees we have an issue generating the appropriate heat from the system.  Next step is to test the freon level, which he expects is the problem since we should be getting 15-20K more BTU out of the system.  If not the freon level, we may need to increase the flow from the horizontal loop we have.  I post results later this week.  In the meantime, I am trying to determine the actual energy draw from the system.  At the single stage, it is drawing 14A.  I suspect this is about 70 KW/day if the system ran 24 hours.  Because of the lack of heat, my single stage is running constant when the temp is 30-40 degress F outside to maintain a 70 degree temp inside.  This could result in 2100 KW in a month which really adds to my electric bill.  Do these calculations sound correct?  I suspect when the system is working appropriately, it will not come close to running 24 hours a day so the actual KW used in a day and month will be significantly less.  The amp draw in second stage was around 19.  These numbers include the pump.  Any advice on how to convert this to actual usage in KW would be appreciated.  Maybe my calcualtions are bad.  thanks

Amps X Volts X Power Factor / 1000 = power in KiloWatts. You are measuring Amps, Volts should be close to 240, but I don't yet know power factor, though 0.75 might be a good starting point.

14 X 240 X .75 = 2520 Watts. Operated 24 hours per day that works out to nearly 60 kwh per day - close to your guess, and my power factor guess may be wrong.

Learn to read your electric meter and check it daily to learn daily house load.

Engineer, You regularly explain terms and concepts in clear way which I appreciate. Perhaps you could provide a quickie on Power Factor and how I miight determine it for my house or device. Dave

I started describing this and then surfed a pretty good explanation at Wikipedia. Check that out and then ask back if you have any questions.

To make hands on measurements around your own house get a P3 Kill-A-Watt for < $30 from Amazon and plug various stuff into it and read voltage, current, amps, Watts, power factor, etc.

The reason it is relevant here is that geo units (like any other AC or heat pump) have big motors with lagging power factor. It doesn't matter much to the typical homeowner except that we can't easily calculate power consumption just using an AC clamp ammeter. For big hardwired loads there is no cheap equivalent to the Kill-aWatt

Kill-a-watt.  I couldn't find nor figure out how to use a "Kill-a-watt" to measure the power consumption of my geo unit.  The unit has a 240V feed for the compressor et al and another for the 3rd stage resistance heater.  I couldn't find a "Kill-a-watt" that could handle either direct wired nor 240V devices.  I did ind a $150 gadget that measures the whole house consumption & I figured if I could ID the base load (all consumption other than the geo) I could them figure out how much the geo was costing. No?  http://www.powercostmonitor.com/

It's not much cheaper, but
http://www.theenergydetective.com/index.html
works out well for a whole house system. I have two of them, on on our grid side and one on the solar/inverter side, it must do power correction because it matches the DC loading side of the inverter.

With respect to the not-so-inexpensive options, I'm using a 'WattNode' manufactured by http://www.ccontrolsys.com/products/pulse_output.html .

This is very well suited to very easy installation for measurement of a direct-wired 240 VAC large power consuming item(s) such as HVAC.

Advantages include very highly accurate (does take into account power factor), very easy to install (slip current transformers around wire), offers direct KWH measurement in addition to power (Watts), has a real-time display unit option, very reliable with a commercial build quality, and offers an instrumentation / recording interface.

Disadvantage is cost - a few hundred dollars.

Here's an example of installation: http://www.ccontrolsys.com/support/pulse_wattnode_installation.html .  For direct HVAC monitoring, and in a residential environment, you would only need 2 CTs, and you'd install the CTs on the 2 wires supplying power to the HVAC equipment.

Here's an example of power monitoring for my home: http://welserver.com/WEL0043/InstantaneousPowerUsage.gif using this product.  In my case, I have multiple WattNodes such that I can monitor HVAC power consumption separate from whole house, pool, and lighting.

Best regards,

Bill

Hi John,

I am experiencing the same issue. My tranquility 27 is blowing air around 25C. I finally turned on the breaker for the electrical heat and it has bumped up to 32C. I would expect the unit to produce 32C without the electrical heater. It is dam cold this morning at -30C outside, but my infloor unit warms up the  basement exceptionally well. I can put my hand on the pump for the basement floor and it is hot, so that tells me its not the well system but the actual tranquility 27. I am wondering what to adjust.

I am trying to collect some info before I call my geothermal  guy as he was mostly useless during this install and I am sure he will tell me to live with it. I do not want to warm my home with electricity all winter. BTW, since I started having to use the heat in septemeber, the output temp at the vents has always been around 25C.

Cheers!

Dean

My furnace guy came out late last week, and he determined the freon level was low.  I believe it has been this way from day 1.  At least now at stage 2 the register air is measuring 91-92.  I have been monitoring electric usage over the last several days, and when the unit is running, the average electricity used is 8-10 KW/hr.  When the unit is off, the average is 3-5/hour.  Maybe these measurements are pretty good for a unit generating heat, but I dont understand is why it runs so much (which is costing me $$).  I have a Honeywell 2 stage thermostat.  A few points:

* Once the desired temp is reached, the unit continues to run.  On occassion it will shut off, but why would it continue to run so long?
* I have noticed the unit running on stage 2, even though the desired temp has been reached and held for an hour plus

Pretty frustrated with this, and just do not see the saving expected.  I appreciate all of the input.  I did by the Killawatt thing and will be monitoring other things in the house.

Cincy Mark,

Sounds like you and I are in the same boat. I am going to call me geo-thermal guy tommorrow and see what he says. Its -29C outside right now and my unit has been running full bore since I got up at 8am this morning trying to make it to 22C inside the house. Now, about 12:30pm it has finally decided to rest. It ran for about an hour in stage 2 even though it reached 22C in the house on the thermostat. I have been monitoring closely as I have been working the utulity room all day install my home audio system in the same room.

CHeers!

Dean

Cincy Mark,

Is your unit a package (blower and compressor in a single box) unit? If so, I'm highly skeptical you had / have a refrigerant charge problem - package units have a very precisely weighed in factory charge, and techs' mis-diagnosing charge is quite common.

If it did have a low charge, then I would expect that diagnosis to be accompanied by "...and I found a leak and fixed it by..." The refrigerant system in a package unit is well protected by the system cabinet so it should not incur leak-causing damage during a normal installation.

A split system requires field charging after assembly, and that should have been weighed in as well. Leaks are a bit more likely, but again, a pro should find and fix them, not just add refrigerant.

Dean in Edmonton - I gotta figure -30 is close to or at winter design temps for Edmonton, so a properly sized unit should run pretty much continuously. That said, I agree your 25 C register air (77F) is a problem. It ought to manage 32C or higher with 22C room temp. Check temperature at unit's return - if cold air from unconditioned space is being drawn through return, that would explain low supply air temp. Return oughtn't be much below room temperature assuming properly constructed ductwork.

Hopefully Geodean is still out there. Here is the data you requested.

GPM - 13
EWT - 46
LWT - 41.5

By adding the freon, my air temp out of the vent is around 90- 92 in second stage. Unfortuntatly, this is not keeping the house warm when it gets below 20F. Right now, the temp out side is 5F. The thermostat is set at 69, and the unit is struggling to keep me at 66. Next step suggested by my contractor is a bigger pump to increase the GPM up to 15. I have the Tranquility 27 model 064. He suggested that my BTU's are 4.5 degrees x 13 GPM x .485 = 28,372. All I know, is this unit runs about 24 hours a day trying to keep the house warm when ever the temp is 35F or below. Is replacing my pump to get 15GPM going to make that big of a difference?

I am ready to return this thing and get a gas unit. Very frustrating.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Mark

Thanks Engineer, thanks for the input.

3 days ago my water to water quit. Right before christmas, its amazing the difference in the overall comfort level of the home without the infloor unit warming the basement. The plumber came out to look at it, but he is not up to par with the unit at all, I am hoping the contractor shows up tomorrow (monday) to see what is going on. They thought the compressor overheated and shut down, but there is no service codes, go figure. I had a couple good suggestions from the topic I started a few days ago.

For the most part, this thing is working pretty good for having outside temps at -25C. I am going to check the cold air intake, as its about a 6 inch pipe coming into the home, might be a little to much cold air for this time of year.

Cheers

Dean

Mark,  good to hear from you.


An EWT of 46° is really good for as much as your heat pump is running.  I have heard from three people this week who have EWT's below  30° and their installers are telling them not to worry.  But that is another story.

It is easy to see your problem though.  You are only getting 28,000 BTUh out of a heat pump that should be giving you 53,000 BTUh


Increasing the flow through your heat pump will not do much to increase the heat out put of your heat pump.  The main effect it will have is to decrease the delta T between EWT and LWT.

I have attached  the specs for your heat pump.  The HC is the heating capacity of your heat pump.

AS you can see you should be getting 52,800 BTUh

As you can see,  by increasing the flow from 11.3 to 15 GPM, the HC increases from 52,800 BTUh to 53,900 BTUh.  This is not enough to bring your house from 66 to 69.

You never did tell us if your heat pump is a split unit or a packaged unit. 

Did the service guy tell you why the refrigerant was low?  I suspect that if he didn't find a leak,  that it is still leaking which would account for the low out put of your heat pump.

Just think how warm your house would be if you were getting 52,000 BTUh.

Either the heat pump is not going to second stage or the refrigerant keeps leaking out.

Good luck,  keep us informed

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