Hi Jordan,

Perhaps your heat pump does not have a Maximizer.   LINK

So was it the thermostat??  Could you put your meter on the Y2 in the unit and register a call for y2?

...Been a while...

I replaced the thermostat and the problem seemed to go away, however we did not have any of the cold weather that triggers it so I don't know for sure that it fixed the problem, BUT...

.... Came home Christmas Eve (12:30am) and the house was at about 50*.... Seems that hydro-delta has a calendar in it that can identify the holidays (or the presence of in-laws).

Long story short the compressor went out and the whole furnace (which does our hot water too) was down for another 10 days while the factory found and shipped a new compressor. By my calculations the hydro-delta furnace has a MTBF (mean time between failure) of about 18 days and so far has only heated our house about 70% of the time we have had it. Not very good for an item that solely provides both heat and hot water for your house.

Our furnace guy did a great job of diagnosing the problem and getting it fixed, the factory did replace the compressor under warranty (the unit is only about 40 days old)

We installed a pellet stove Christmas morning that we had bought when we had problems over the Thanksgiving holiday. It along with the $1.50/hr emergency heat was able to keep the house warm enough that we were still able to have our new years party, don't know how much of that was due to the drink though!

Again, kudos to my furnace guy here in town. I would recommend him to anyone.

I am however a little pissed off at the factory and brand and would not recommend a hydro-delta or hydroHeat furnace to anyone. They do not respond to e-mails, they transfer you to FULL voice mail boxes, and they obviously are not big enough to source parts from locations in a timely manner.

Today the unit is working fine though I can't 100% say it was the thermostat since I have no proof that replacing it made the difference without the new compressor at the temperatures that the problem existed. I am aware that this is probably just a statistically expected faulty compressor, since they probably source it from somewhere like everyone else. I know that quality control of other companies "black boxes" can be difficult. If that is the case (and I hope it is) and over time I fall back in love with the unit I will post again to let everyone know that my opinion of the product has changed, but for now I have already laid down the $$ and there is nothing I can feasibly do to replace the heat pump.

In the mean time, many thanks to everyone for your input, this is a great forum for GSHP's.

P.S.

To the guy that sees only a couple degree change between Y1 and Y2 (Star Toucher). My path would be:
A) Wiring and functionality (verify with a voltmeter)
B) Air flow from bad filter, clogged or closed vents, collapsed or undersized vents. (Remember that air flow is key)
C) Is the system really big enough?
D) Circulator pump(s)
E) Refrigerant charge low/leeking/missing?
F) Loop field too small/design/ground temperature/etc...
G) Compressor issues?

 

Thanks for the update. Please keep us informed. Best of luck to you. Hope things go better !

Hi everyone. I too have a 5 ton Hydro Delta. I have had it in my home for coming on 2 years now. My house has been classified as an energy star home and is air tight. So much so that I need an air exchanger to bring in good air from the outside. I have been having problems with my Hydro unit since the day it was installed. I too had my compressor exchanged out like jfeurst. I've had upgrades done to the unit by Hydrodelta, on my second thermostat (currently have the honeywell 8000 MT8320), my geo line has been flushed and refilled, and I'm still having problems.

The temperature out of the register at stage 1 is about 73 degrees, stage 2 is 78ish and aux heat stage with/geo is about 89 degrees and then dips to 84 degrees after about 30 seconds. It is currently 0 or so degrees out and even my aux heat has a hard time keeping up the temp at 68 degrees in the house.

Do you all think it is my thermostat like jfeurst? Is it possible my geo fields has the wrong mixture ratio of glycol? Or do you believe it is the Hydro Delta unit? Which was new to the market when it was installed in my house? I have been told that the 5 ton unit was put on the market with out going through a strict quality control and has several "bugs" with it.

I'm curious to see what you all have to say on the matter. Thanks!!

Not that I have a lot to back it up with, but it really doesn't sound like a t-stat problem. Most likely a bad heat pump setup.

Without being there to try to diagnose the problem, pretty tough to say, though.

Does it start out working ok in the winter and then get gradually worse? Is your loop vertical/horizontal? Who did the design?

I know there are a bunch more questions, too...

It' just inconsitent all together. Like last night when I wrote the post I gave you all the temp readings. Well the system was having trouble getting up to 68 degrees with back up heat from 66 degrees (it was proabably 0-5 degrees outside). I ran on back up and geo for almost 4 hours before it finally reached 68 degrees. This morning it is 15-20 degrees outside and now the geo is on either stage one or two and is pumping out 84 degrees out of the hot air register. I just don't understand why it is doing that.

Our loop is a horizontal loop about 10-12 feet down.

Local HVAC business who is probably one of the top 5 for the area in geo and they have been in business for a good 50+ years. I don't think it is undersized as 3 other companies in the area gave me the same set up on their bid. I can't see all of them being wrong.

Hmmm.... Perplexing.... Sounds mostly like the heat pump itself having an issue, or the controls aren't set up right.

Could this be caused by a low refridgerant level?

Well I have a Hydro Delta rep coming out in the next week or two to look at things and try to solve the problems. I'm hoping he'll find the glaring problem! I'm trying to read up as much as I can before he gets here, so that way I can follow along or provide gentle nudges on other possible problems. We'll see I guess. Thanks for your help!

Not sure if it is from low refridgerant or not. Would that cause the wavy pattern in the heat?

To tell you the truth...I have a gut feeling I have a leak in the lines and I'm loosing referigerant. That was one of the concerns I brought up to the rep and my local HVAC installer.

Well, hydro-delta is keeping in tune with its past performance... Came home today and the unit is broken again... I imagine that the unit was blowing air and pumping the loops for hours today while the compressor appears to have burned up again. It blew the breaker that runs the compressor, and when I re-set everything it did it again.

My word of wisdom to everyone is stay away from Hydro-Delta. This thing has been nothing but problematic.

Installed end of November 2007.
Broken 1 week during Thanksgiving.
Broken 2 weeks over Christmas and New years
Broken today for who knows how long?

Departing for a 2-week business trip out of the country day after tomorrow and this thing has to take another crap.

STAY AWAY...... STAY FAR AWAY.

 

 

Just an update... I installed a climate master unit to replace my hydro-delta P.O.S. and am completely wowed!! at how this thing performs in comparison to how the hydro delta performed during the brief intervals that I can claim that it did so. It is probably 50% quieter and produces greater temperature gains at the plenum in all three stages of heating and both stages of cooling. The longer that I enjoy this unit, the more I am un-happy with the performance, quality, creature comfort, noise, and customer service that I received from hydro-delta.

On that note:
I shipped the hydro-delta unit back under RMA for a refund after the second compressor failure over three months ago (April 14th, 2008... Today is July 16th, 2008)... neither myself nor my contractor have been able to get a single call back from the company, not to mention any sign of s refund. I have finally resorted to calling and leaving a message every 2 hours for someone at the company and still have not had a call back, or talked to anyone other than an operator, which happens only about 50% of the time.

I had a difficult time finding information about this company when I purchased my geothermal furnace from them, I should have taken that as a clue. I hope that this escapade will be useful to someone out there and that it might save someone un-told, time, money , and hopefully will prevent someone out there from spending a cold holiday, week, or even month, at the hands of one of the hydro-delta products.

jf,
It is useful to me! Thank you for the detailed report. Hopefully, things are looking up now with the new unit!

Jordan,

Good to hear that that unit is working well. Mine, the exact same climatemaster unit, and is working great as well. Any idea what what your loop temps have climbed to so far this summer? Just curious. Ours is in the mid 60's and running EERs in the mid 20's. Have your bills been reasonable this summer? Did you install a second water tank? Our cooling costs are about 1/2 of what they were last summer and we are keeping the house cooler by 4-8 degrees. Sorry to hear you still haven't gotten your refund yet. I'm warning everyone of these other heat pumps as well. Thanks

Dan