Question re geothermal heating system

angeldaisy

I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on which is the most efficient.

I have a geothermal heating pump linked to underfloor heating, as electricity has gone a little bit expensive :rolleyes:, I was wondering is it more economical to

a. have the heating system on the whole time with the thermostats turned down low.

or

b. only have the heating on every few days, I normally run it at night (nightsaver).

I know that if I only have it on every few days it does take a while to heat the house up.
Any thoughts?

2011

I would think option B. I assume this is a new house with good insulation?

If it were me, I would try both options for a week each, take the meter readings and do the maths.

Outkast_IRE

Option B if your house was air tight and insualted enough to retain the heat for this period, not to mention leaving windows open and doors open even for short period will make very hard to retain the heat.

If option B could actually work for you try that but i cant see it working if it get too cold outiside.

angeldaisy

the house was built in 2002 but is quite open plan. I don't really like a 'hot' house, but have just put the heating on this morning as I could see my breath:eek: I think I last had it on thursday or friday?
Because we are trying to save cash - who isn't? - I'm trying to light a fire in the evenings to take any chill out of the house, but it was so cold last night and today I had to resort to the heating. In previous years our esb bill could be as high as 500 euro per bill, I can't afford that, and have averaged 140 for the last 2 bills - with bord gais.

Might try checking the meter readings - need to get organised!
Thanks guys

eureco

Hi there ,new to this whole thing,so hope I do not break any rules,regarding heat pumps I have a Neura ground source one installed by a company in Carlow,we are now having a problem with the system and can not get in touch with the company ,can anybody help me out with a contact for a company who could service Neura heat pumps in Ireland,we are living in the midlands

2011

eureco wrote: »

Hi there ,new to this whole thing,so hope I do not break any rules,regarding heat pumps I have a Neura ground source one installed by a company in Carlow,we are now having a problem with the system and can not get in touch with the company ,can anybody help me out with a contact for a company who could service Neura heat pumps in Ireland,we are living in the midlands

What is the nature of problem?

eureco

2011 wrote: »

What is the nature of problem?

Thank you for your response,the system ran fine at the start of the heating season,approx a week ago we woke up to a cold house and yet the system was running throughout the night,may be the gas in the underground coils needs to be refilled,basically it runs but we have no heat.

2011

eureco wrote: »

Thank you for your response,the system ran fine at the start of the heating season,approx a week ago we woke up to a cold house and yet the system was running throughout the night,may be the gas in the underground coils needs to be refilled,basically it runs but we have no heat.

OK. First check to see if any of the pipes entering or exiting the untit get hot when it is running. Perhaps it is working, but the valve(s) that allow hot water to flow from the heat pump to the rads are not opening.

Is it heating the water for you bath and sink??

My understanding is that the pipes underground contain water, not gas. The refrigerant gas is contained within the heat pump. Normaly this gas would last for years, just like a fridge.

eureco

This system that we have has gas in the coils underground ,it has a sepeate ump for the domestic water ,which is working fine,thanks for your advise.

creedp

angeldaisy wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on which is the most efficient.

I have a geothermal heating pump linked to underfloor heating, as electricity has gone a little bit expensive :rolleyes:, I was wondering is it more economical to

a. have the heating system on the whole time with the thermostats turned down low.

or

b. only have the heating on every few days, I normally run it at night (nightsaver).

I know that if I only have it on every few days it does take a while to heat the house up.
Any thoughts?

I would have thought that option b would mean you would never actually have a warm house as when you turn on the UFH in a cold house it will take ages to heat up the floor and then the rest of the fabric, i.e. walls ceilings, etc before the heat will be released into the air to heat the rooms. With UFH the objective should be to heat the house to a set temperature either 20c or 18c or whatever suits you and then try an maintain this. It is much easier to maintain a temp with UFH that build it up. In my case I use the HP predominantly at night and the house maintain the heat for the day dropping back after 11pm and is then boosted again during the night. If I turned it off for a night or two the whole house would cool down and it could take a couple of days or more to build it back up again. If you want to heat a house sporadically like you suggest then radiators are much more appropriate. The real problem with option B is that you would want a passive house to maintain temps for long periods and then even the act of opening a door wold be very problematic.

This is a difficult situation you find yourself in and one not suited to UFH. Have you any back up heating system like a stove that could be used to boost the temp in the main living areas especially during the very cold weather and use the UFH just to keep the background temp above a certain level?

angeldaisy

Thanks for that Creedp, we have had the heating on for the last week or so, but its soo cold, luckily we have a fire that we can put in.
I think our problem was that we put it in about 10 years ago, and unfortunately the company we bought it from went under. We have no one who will service it, no one to talk to about problems with it.
Every so often it will knock off and flash E01, so needs to be switched on and off again, not so bad if you are in.
I've hung loads of curtains to try and separate off areas, but really could do with someone to sort out where all the draughts are coming from. Think our builder cut a few corners.....

creedp

angeldaisy wrote: »

Thanks for that Creedp, we have had the heating on for the last week or so, but its soo cold, luckily we have a fire that we can put in.
I think our problem was that we put it in about 10 years ago, and unfortunately the company we bought it from went under. We have no one who will service it, no one to talk to about problems with it.
Every so often it will knock off and flash E01, so needs to be switched on and off again, not so bad if you are in.
I've hung loads of curtains to try and separate off areas, but really could do with someone to sort out where all the draughts are coming from. Think our builder cut a few corners.....

Sorry to hear that ... I don't know what brand of heat pump you have but I wonder would it be possible to get somone in the HP business to give the system the once over. Anyone familiar with heat pumps in general might be able to give you a steer and help improve the situation you now find yourself in. It might also be worthwhile to get an airtightness test done to try and address the draught situation and to bump up insulation levels where possible. Anything that will help to keep heat in the house will mean the HP will have to work less hard and keep costs down. Hopefully you'll get to bottom of the problem and things will improve. Best of luck

Oggie

eureco wrote: »

This system that we have has gas in the coils underground ,it has a sepeate ump for the domestic water ,which is working fine,thanks for your advise.

Hi eureco.

Sorry to hear about your troubles with Neura heatpump.
May I ask when you had it installed?

Delsie

eureco wrote: »

Hi there ,new to this whole thing,so hope I do not break any rules,regarding heat pumps I have a Neura ground source one installed by a company in Carlow,we are now having a problem with the system and can not get in touch with the company ,can anybody help me out with a contact for a company who could service Neura heat pumps in Ireland,we are living in the midlands

We have the same system as you and we also were having some issues with our heating. The company we used were also from Carlow and if it is the same company they are still around, it's just down to 1 guy doing all the work. We sent an email to the company from their website and they got back to us after a few days regarding our query. Best of luck.

refco

eurco
from what you have described i imagine that the system is running on 407c refrigerant in which case eo1 fault is a low pressure fault this is caused by long run times with the gas having very little heat exchange occuring the reason for this in my experience is that the differant molucules in the gas have seperated over time causing it to be inefficent and not be able to acheive the temps you need quick enough your system needs to be emptied of its existing gas and recharged with fresh gas

refco

angeldaisy
I would run ufh all the time keeping room stats low as the most expensive part of running underfloor heating is the initial build up of heating the slab as regards rooom stats keep them between 16 and 19 degrees personally 16 would be the max id have them at in most rooms other than your living room
Just on cost you said that esb bills of 500 euro that is expensive but 8 euro a day and i presume thats including all other power consumption give five of it to heating its not great but its not terrible

2011

refco wrote: »

angeldaisy
I would run ufh all the time keeping room stats low as the most expensive part of running underfloor heating is the initial build up of heating the slab as regards rooom stats keep them between 16 and 19 degrees personally 16 would be the max id have them at in most rooms other than your living room

IMHO 16 DegC is pretty cold for a many rooms in a home (such as a kitchen).
I would have a minimum setting of 19 DegC for most rooms (excluding bedrooms).

Just on cost you said that esb bills of 500 euro that is expensive but 8 euro a day and i presume thats including all other power consumption give five of it to heating its not great but its not terrible

I don't agree.
€500 is an enormous monthly energy bill for a home unless it is something this size.
My monthy energy costs are less than a third of that and I live in an average 4 bed family sized home with an ordinary gas boiler.

I recall geothermal heating systems being sold on the basis that heating bills would be reduced. However frequently I find that heat pump owners have far higher overall energy costs. I think that this because many of the installers simply do not have enough understanding to design the entire heating installation properly.

In Ireland we generally don't insulate our homes enough which is strange as it is pretty hard to waste money on insulation. Attitudes are changing with the increased media attention on passive homes, but only slowly.

refco

sorry not saying you where doing well with your heating costs just saying depending on size of the house any thing 2000 square feet upwards 5 euro a day wouldnt be an excessive bill compared to what it would cost on oil
also i completly agree with the statement geothermal was both sold and installed by a lot of people that didnt have any understanding never mind limited knowledge of the systems i have serviced a lot of different models heatpumps over the last few years and most problems where down to setup and the fact that usually plumbers where left go it alone because the heatpump sales person didnt care once they where paid and also couldnt provide the basic information if it wasnt on the brouchre they didnt know the answer
as regards 16 degrees im suggesting that for rooms not used and i was thinking kitchen cause generally you are moving around when in the kitchen

refco

sorry just reread original post and the 500 euro is per bill i assume that is every 2 months and thats what im basing 5 euro a day for heating monitoring my own home also a four bed bungalow 1100 square feet 2 adults 3 kids average electricty consumption without including heatpump is 3 euro so 5 left for heatpump i know not every home is the same but i can only base on what i know

angeldaisy

refco wrote: »

sorry not saying you where doing well with your heating costs just saying depending on size of the house any thing 2000 square feet upwards 5 euro a day wouldnt be an excessive bill compared to what it would cost on oil
also i completly agree with the statement geothermal was both sold and installed by a lot of people that didnt have any understanding never mind limited knowledge of the systems i have serviced a lot of different models heatpumps over the last few years and most problems where down to setup and the fact that usually plumbers where left go it alone because the heatpump sales person didnt care once they where paid and also couldnt provide the basic information if it wasnt on the brouchre they didnt know the answer
as regards 16 degrees im suggesting that for rooms not used and i was thinking kitchen cause generally you are moving around when in the kitchen

I totally agree with you on the lack of knowledge in respect of installing heat pumps, apparently the guy who installed ours looked after the entire of Ireland and that included installing and servicing. to be honest we gave up on him, we were getting the run around unfortunately.

On another note, is it expensive to get them serviced??

2011

angeldaisy wrote: »

I totally agree with you on the lack of knowledge in respect of installing heat pumps

Electrically they are quite straightforward to connect. Whether it is a gas or oil fired boiler or geothermal heat pump makes little difference to the complexity of the electrical design.
In my (limited) experience the plumbing end is the part that requires more specialized knowledge.

apparently the guy who installed ours looked after the entire of Ireland and that included installing and servicing.

I would take that with a pinch of salt. I have heard more than one installer say this.

angeldaisy

2011 wrote: »

I would take that with a pinch of salt. I have heard more than one installer say this.

Well to be honest this was over 9years ago, and I wouldn't have him back in the house if he was the only installer / servicer of all heat pumps in ireland. I would sooner burn the furniture to keep warm:D

2011

It would be interesting for heat pump owners to install an Owl energy monitor on the heat pump unit itself. That way the running costs of the unit could be assessed with a fair degree of accuracy. They can even be set up for dual tariff metering (day/night).

Bruthal

2011 wrote: »

It would be interesting for heat pump owners to install an Owl energy monitor on the heat pump unit itself. That way the running costs of the unit could be assessed with a fair degree of accuracy.

A good idea alright, I suggested similar before in the heating and plumbing forum, although your energy monitor method is better than my method was. A heat pump might be providing the heat expected, and so the user is happy with it, but without knowing how it compares to gas heating for example, it might not be actually of much benefit.

An example,, an air source water heater with the evaporator in the attic and condensor in the HW cylinder will work well in the summer, possibly cheaper than gas as the evaporator easily absorbs heat from the warm attic, and releases it in the HW cylinder condensor. It can still work in the winter, but not near as well, as the attic air is now much colder, so a far higher volume of air is needed over the evaportor for each degree of heat transfered to the cylinder water, and the compressor will be running much longer times.

So in the water heater example, it probably does not do much better than heating the water with gas, and probably does worse over the yearly average, but unless the user measures the heat pump electrical consumption as suggested here, they might be happy with it simply because it works.

refco

heatpump service should not be expensive assuming that it is working well there isnt much need in servicing it but if you feel its running longer than it used to and your not getting the affect then have it looked at

eureco

refco wrote: »

eurco
from what you have described i imagine that the system is running on 407c refrigerant in which case eo1 fault is a low pressure fault this is caused by long run times with the gas having very little heat exchange occuring the reason for this in my experience is that the differant molucules in the gas have seperated over time causing it to be inefficent and not be able to acheive the temps you need quick enough your system needs to be emptied of its existing gas and recharged with fresh gas

Contacted the agent in Carlow,he informed me that I will need a new compressor,a ta cost of € 1500 ,this will be fitted in mid Jan,the system was installed in nov 07 at a cost of 20 k,I am seriously considering my options if this is what the future holds in repair costs,this in my opinion should be a major consideration for anybody thinking of installing a heating system,a high performance wood burning system connected to underfloor heating is a far better optioin ,and right now I am getting a guy to design a heat exchanger for my austroflamm Hercules wood burner which we will connect into the underfloor direct.

p38dse

I feel your pain!
Just forked out €1600 on a new compressor, and mine was only fitted on '07
I am really dissapointed with the short life of the system, any €300 oil burner will last longer than that, looks like renewable technology is only replacable, as parts cannot be renewed!:(

refco

did he come out to test the unit or did he diagnose over the phone

Oggie

eureco wrote: »

Contacted the agent in Carlow,he informed me that I will need a new compressor,a ta cost of € 1500 ,this will be fitted in mid Jan,the system was installed in nov 07 at a cost of 20 k,I am seriously considering my options if this is what the future holds in repair costs,this in my opinion should be a major consideration for anybody thinking of installing a heating system,a high performance wood burning system connected to underfloor heating is a far better optioin ,and right now I am getting a guy to design a heat exchanger for my austroflamm Hercules wood burner which we will connect into the underfloor direct.

Hi there,

I was just wondering if you have the warranty card for your system.
I would have thought parts were covered for longer than that.
what model neura heatpump is it?

kilowhiskey

Hi refco,
I too have a NEURA gound source HP system in a new house. It appears to work after a fashion but as the builder provided no information or instructions I feel I would need a Neura experienced engineer to service the system and give me run through on the most effective way to use it. You seem to be familiar with GSHP systems can you recommend anyone in the Wexford area?.

refco

sorry i know its been a while since you asked for info kilowhiskey but i dont really know of anyone in the wexford area i will try and gather info on the Neura hp and pm it to you