I have a Climatemaster Tranquility 27 Geothermal system.  2 stage compressor with Zone control for my home.  It's 1 1/2 story with finished basement.  We keep the stat at 71 on main floor, 62 in basement, 68 during day upstairs going to 72 at night for kids.  My compressor is out after 3.5 years.  Any one else have this problem?   HVAC contractor that installed it wants to charge me $700 labor & freon to install new compressor as it's under warranty, parts only.  Isn't this rediculous???  I don't even think that its working properly at all as my utilies are at $254 level pmt monthly, living in eastern NE.  Seems to be awefully high considering my neighbor has a normal heat pump with about the same sq footage. Any help would be great, I'm fighting them on fixing for free.

Many compressors diagnosed as dead sometimes aren't. OTOH, compressors can be killed by user behaviors, chief among which is lack of filter maintenance.

$700 seems steep, though parts only warranty after 1st year is an industry standard. Still, he / she must not value you as a geo reference.

You haven't given us enough info to know if utilities are high or not - need tonnage, cost per kwh. The level payment arrangement makes it even harder to work out cost of heating / cooling vs rest of house use.

I would ask to speak to the owner and explain the situation to see if they can help you. Worst case, can another Cilmatemaster dealer give you a repair quote?

Thanks Curt,

My KW charge is $0.04 I have a 5 ton unit using 5501 KWH for 11/18-12/18 averaging 183kw per day. 1700sq ft on the main floor, 800sq ft on 2nd floor and 1700sq ft in basement. We keep the temp at 71 on main floor, 68 in basement and 68 day on the 2nd floor then 72 at night. Average high was 38 & low was 20. Compared to 2008 we used 5381 with average of 179 & temps were 38 & 17. Hopefully this is enough info. House is only 3.5yrs old, 2x4 construction with R-19 exterior walls & R-50 in ceilings.

Wow - that's cheap juice!

What is your kwh per day when not heating or cooling? If for purposes of discussion I pick 30 kwh for rest of house that leaves 150 kwh per day for heat. A 5 ton unit making 50 kbtuh at a COP of 3 would burn 5 kw, so that implies a good bit of aux heat.

This is hard to diagnose over internet without more info.

Please review the "Problems..." checklist on top here and provide as much info as possible.

Couple of things;
At first glance $700 may seem high for compressor change but.....
3 Installer hours, 3 helper hours, 5ish pounds of R-134, nitrogen, filter drier, offsite prep and return, $75 shipping fee, more than $2,000 in tools (recovery unit, torches, manifold gauges, nitrogen tank and regulator, vacuum gauge, vacuum pump.......) sil-flos and refrigerant disposal. Before you know it $700 sounds cheap.
We actually figure 1 man day for a compressor change out by the time all the associated running around is done. We charge about $800.
Lots of guys will do it cheaper. They will also take short cuts ensuring an early demise of your new compressor.
My bigger concern is your installer. A 5 ton unit for your home sounds outrageously oversized and if he/she doesn't know how to size equipment........
Good Luck,
Joe

Joe, would oversize equipment cause short cycling leading to shorter compressor life?

I wasn't really questioning that $700 is reasonable for compressor swap labor and incidentals. I've recently spent the $2k on the right tools as listed and agree that doing it right (the only way) will take a man day, not to mention the time and hassles of travel, ordering, billing etc.. I just couldn't see hitting a fairly recent customer that hard for a failure that really shouldn't have happened so early on a premium system - I'd want to meet them in the middle somewhere. There just aren't that many geo systems out there and a bad ref is bad news for all of us.

Compressor life is less a matter of short cycling and more a matter of number of starts per day. An oversized system will have shorter on cycles but shouldn't have more cycles. I didn't catch the potential that this system is oversized upon first reading but agree that it may well be.

The $700 seems reasonable after finding out that Climatemaster only "suggests" using a drier and they are going to use one. They are going to put some sensors on the new compressor to see if anything else is going on. They said that they really can't go back on Climatemaster since there haven't been any ongoing problems with my unit. But if it happens again they've said they will. However, i have also had both sensors replaced that would be similar to a normal ac unit being froze up. They have also told me that one service call they said that my temps coming in from the loops were lower than normal. They've explained that the ground may be cooler than normal in the winter & warmer than normal in the summer. The register for my loops shows no areas of rock/limestone whatsoever which would mean an issue for thermal exchange in the loops. I'm not thrilled at all & I've beat them up about it but I also am tired of using my aux heat so we are scheduled for replacement next week. I'm still going to contact their distributor & try Climatemaster direct. but I'm still a believer in GEO.

As far as oversizing, we're a little over 4000 sq ft for all 3 floors.

I also had another Climatemaster installer come out to doublecheck and they confirmed it was the compressor. You can almost hear something rattling inside when the 2nd stage is supposed to kick in, & he manually jumpered it. They would be at the same cost.

While this may, or may not, not have anything to do with the failure of the current compressor, you can try setting fewer cycles per hour (CPH) on the thermostat for each compressor stage. I like engineers reasoning that start/stop cycles can effect compressor life.

We have our CPH set to 1, 1, (and 1 for aux). For us, this setting actually yields 2 CPH in first stage (with the ability to go to second stage once per hour if needed). Fewer CPH should lower compressor start/stop cycles (obviously) and help to prolong compressor life (hopefully). It will probably increase temperature swings between cycles. Our swing is 2f. This is tolerable for us since we used to have a gas furnace. I also like not hearing the system start and stop more often. At least 2 other people here (in addition to me) have noticed a significant positive difference in hot water production from the DSH. Our house is standard construction, 18 years old, and moderately tight (maybe a rating of 6 or 7 with 10 being super tight and 5 being average.)

I suggest going with as few cycles as possible that will still maintain your comfort in terms of temperature swings.

"As far as oversizing, we're a little over 4000 sq ft for all 3 floors."

Heat load not square feet determines size of heat pump. Further basement load is a small fraction of ground floor. On top of all that you indicate terrific insulation values.
It concerns me that you have a 5 ton unit in a house that would use a 3-4 ton in mid Michigan. What's worse is three zones. You also indicate weather warmer than mine so I presume you are in a warmer climate.
If I had to guess (AND I DO as no information has been provided), I'd say it's unlikely that your heat loss is 64MBH.
Could these things impact compressor lifespan? Maybe. Could they be creating more cycles? 3 zones?!Certainly. Could they choke the system similarly to poor filter maintenance? Definately!
Does it explain high electric bills? You bet!
Does it call the designer's competance into question? I'm afraid so.

"Any help would be great..."

I'm trying to answer your questions about poor lifespan and high electric bills, but you casually discard my size question. I will still try to help if you like, but I need your help to do so. Why not start with the questions in the trouble shooters checklist; answer what you can. It is obvious the unit isn't working right now so you can't answer temp questions.
Wouldn't it be nice to know that the design is ok before you spend money on this? It's possible you'll simply be fixing a symptom, not the REAL problem.

Good Luck,
Joe

You can almost hear something rattling inside when the 2nd stage is supposed to kick in


That sounds like a Copeland problem.
Reliability of the 2 stage scroll is very high but let's face it....there's going to be some failures.

Joe,

Where can I find this troubleshooters checklist? I thought 5 ton was a bit overkill, but I went with the zone control as we have a two story entry and rarely in the basement. It made sense to go this rout as ive been in many two story houses where the 2nd floor is like an oven & the main floor is freezing. What is your size question?

At the very top of this page "Problem with your heat pump..."

Posted By mkfan17 on 05 Mar 2010 11:27 PM
Joe, 

I thought 5 ton was a bit overkill, but I went with the zone control as we have a two story entry and rarely in the basement. It made sense to go this rout as ive been in many two story houses where the 2nd floor is like an oven & the main floor is freezing. What is your size question?

Overkill and zone systems are a bad thing made worse.
Two story houses have uneven temps due to incompetent duct design.
Question is what is the heat loss for your house?
J

As much as I favor zoning, I quite agree that zoning and an oversized system is a particularly bad combination. We use zoning in part to prevent overconditioning some rooms, and done right it allows us to shave a half ton or so from some systems since we dynamically direct a greater portion of the systems capacity toward the load of the moment.

Zoning imposes a constraint of having to accommodate a system's minimum airflow at all times, and oversizing exacerbates that constraint, resulting in excess static pressure, short cycles, noise, inefficiency, and potentially shortened compressor life.

Zoning will become much easier to do right when we get more fully variable output compressors (like a Copeland digital scroll). Or storage can be used in hydronic systems.

Concur.

I visited the Copeland booth at the ACCA show in Tampa yesterday and the guy I spoke with doesn't expect Digital Scroll to be incorporated in residential heat pumps

The other approach is using electronic inverters. No idea how the pricing compares.