I purchased a Climate Master Tranquility 27 "4 ton".  We decided to go with a split system and use our two year old Hi eff propane furnace as the blower source as well as have back-up.  The other option was an electric in the duct heater.  The unit itself is very quiet but it seems like the coil they put in the duct has a vibration when the geo is running.  There is no vibration when the fan is running by itself.  This system is a two stage + propane back-up and I was told that the second stage would only turn on when it is really cold.  So far we have been hovering around the freezing point and it is already going into the second stage.

In stage one the system draws 10Amps at 240V for the Geo and 6 Amps for my furnace fan.
In second stage it draws 14Amps at 240V for the Geo and 6Amps for the furnace fan. 

I work in the electrical industry.  I am going to connect a power quality 

analyzer to this system for one week and record how many times per day the system cycles on as well as the total KWH for a one week period with outside temps.  I will post my results latter.  The system has only been running for two days at this point so it hasn't been enough time to see if it was worth it.

I am a bit nervous at this point.

 

Thomas

 

Thomas,

You should be able to turn off the back up electric... try that and see how the geo does.

What type of water loop do you have? Closed loop horizontal, closed loop vertical, or open loop? If closed loop, please describe it (i.e. length of pipe, depth, backfill material, how long since backfilled, etc.)

What is your water flow rate, your entering water temperature, and your leaving water temperature? What about supply and return air temps as well?

I don't have the electric back-up. I have propane back-up.

My loops are horizontal 300' out and back x 4 loops burried approx 6' deep.

Water temps are 64 in 58 out.  The one time I checked on the air bleeds that are sticking out of the insulation.

Is there a better way or place to measure?

 

 

thomas.....you might want to post questions about geo on the geo forum.

Thomas,

Regarding the vibration noise when the compressor is running: Sometimes the installer forgets to remove the shipping bolts. If they are still in then the rubber dampers can't function right.

Hopefully some pros will jump on here as to why the unit is running in 2nd stage. Are you saying it's unusually mild for this time of year? If your temps are typical for January and your unit is sized right then I wouldn't be surprised that it would run in 2nd stage in January. If you're setting back the temp that can cause it to run more in 2nd stage when it's trying to catch back up.

I'm no pro but the amps seem in the right ballpark for 1st and 2nd stage for a 4 ton unit. Is the unit maintaining the thermostat setpoint?

6 amps seems high for blower current, but I expect that's a shortcoming of keeping an older blower in the system. Know that with geo you'll have 2-3x the number of blower hours than with propane as primary heat source.

Do you by chance have static pressure, airside Delta-T and waterside Delta-T values? Those are a geo systems vital signs.

A cheap way of approximating system power use is via $35 Readington LCD hour meters connected at strategic points. Readington's will increment based on a broad range of inputs, something like 20-277 volts, AC or DC. An AC clamp meter and mfg specifications yields KW use, and multiplying by hours finishes the job.