Nebraska ClimateMaster Trilogy 45 qMode System

I am from Omaha,NE. Had a new CM GEO System installed while building the house in June, 2015. The system was running fine all summer with only one instance of lock out because of low loop pressure. As soon as the heating season started, I had all kinds of errors. The most prominent one being Low loop pressure. The installer came multiple times and finally CM distributor was there and came to a conclusion that the loops were causing the issue. The incoming water was freezing ( they were saying that the water was not picking up the heat) , I had Hot water heat exchanger performance error also on the thermostat. (possibly because the heat changer had ice build up).

Finally, they contacted CM and climate master said that I needed six loops ( mine are Vertical closed loop) instead of the four they originally calculated. During the process, they found out that two of the original four were never working, so they had to put 2 new loops apart from the two they are trying to add now. I was running on emergency heat all this month and half they were trying to figure this all out.

Now they added all six loops, everything is working ( we can really test the system until next winter any ways) now. I am running on heat now but, the temperature are in 50's and 60's these days, so I except it to not have any issues until winter if any. The only issue I am having now is "grundfos Pressure sensor" error on the thermostat. They changed the sensor and tested if EXM is good and changed the wiring harness according to the manual. But, I still have that error and they still are not able to figure this out.

Please advise on what might be the issue. I am very much worried about the long term reliability and really upset with the installer and the builder.

Has anyone else experienced this same pressure sensor issue? I am not confident that what they did will fix all the issues, as this is the first error I experienced before starting with the low loop pressure issues and everything went wrong from that point.

There was/is not a single day that I operated the system with out any error on the thermostat since dec 2, 2015.

 

After arguing with the builder and the Installer and warning them that I will take a legal action, they involved Climate Master.

Error 23: Grundfos Pressure Sensor issue was solved, it was the loose wire harness connection, once they changed the harness, the issue was gone.

Error 53: Low discharge pressure.

Climatemaster said that there was an issue with the algorithms used in the thermostat programming and that was causing false errors where in fact my system is running perfectly after adding the loops.

ClimateMaster was here couple months ago. They updated the software on the unit and also the thermostat and everything is working perfectly with out any errors on the system.

My electricity bill also gone down very much now that I am confident that the system is working as it should.

 

Krishna,
It's good to hear that your Geothermal System is working as it should now.

A closed loop in Nebraska will challenge your Geothermal System during the coldest days after having no Sun shining on the loop field.
If your system is operating with a small problem that is limiting its ability to reach full BTU transfer in the cooling season, that problem will show up in the Winter when the Geothermal Unit is pushed to it's limits.

It wouldn't hurt to add a back up heating system using Propane or Natural Gas that can be put in service when the Gas prices are lower per BTU than electricity.

Electric companies would like to raise rates in order to pay their "Executive Teams" a Kings salary for doing a job that most of have done in the past for a fair wage. I've had to remind adults who worried about the temperature not being hot enough in the summer to maximize the companies bottom line, that we need to give the people a break when possible, it's not all about the money. Or is it?

 

This is one of your silliest comments you made, and you had many silly ones here!

A well designed closed loop in Nebraska will work as good as in any other part of the country. Why should it challenge a geo system in Nebraska on the coldest day?
What shall our Canadian Friends say living north of Nebraska, do they have even larger challenge problems?

1) The capacity of a geosystem is independent from the outdoor temperature.
2) The capacity of a geosystem is independent of the sun shining on the loop field.
3) A closed loop in Nebraska will perform well if designed correctly.
4) Natural gas or propane backup is not needed and advising people to put it in is not good practice. From an economical point the cheapest supplement fuel is usually electric, since it normally only makes up 1-2% of the total energy need.

The rest of your comments are also in your usual line on contractors and companies who charge for their service.

 

My parents just moved into their new home which has the Trilogy 45. They literally just moved in less than 24-hours ago, but so far so good. It is cooling the home and heating the water well. They are still waiting for the zoning to be fully installed. Climatemaster has had major difficulties sourcing the additional thermostats necessary for the other two zones. I don't really understand why since they are just rebadged/reprogrammed Ecobee thermostats. Originally Climatemaster said they would have them by June and now they are saying August (supposedly on the 1st). I'll report back once they are installed to let everyone know how the system works with zoning or if there are any other issues. Hopefully everything goes well since I'm the one that convinced my dad to install geothermal in the first place.

 

Update:

Hmm, Woke up last morning and went to check the thermostat and guess what,
Error 93: Heating Check Valve, Solutions: Check temp across check valve( check for leaks) and check temp across EEV1 (Check for leaks)
Error 56: HW Heat Exchanger Performance Warning, Solutions: HW Heat Exchanger fouled, clean it per instructions

Any idea on why would this happen?

It cooling the house fine and also hot water is fine too.

Reached out to climatemaster and still waiting for a response.

 

Soda,
Geothermal heating & cooling can be care free to operate and easy on the skin in the winter due to the lower temperatures produced at the air registers during the heating season.
Geothermal beats collecting firewood all year, feeding the wood burner(s) and fighting off creosote fires in the chimney. I've had a chimney fire on a few occasions and swore off burning wood years ago.
It's also safer than having a gas or oil fired heating system which can be a major threat to older folks if they lose their mobility, making it harder to escape a home with a fire or smoke issue.

Hopefully the install your parents was sold will continue to operate with no problems as my split unit heat pumps in the past, and now geothermal unit have performed well for our family over many years.

 

Krishna,
With any luck your Error Codes are electronic glitches.
I wouldn't expect a Geothermal Desuperheater to become fouled when used in a new house with a new hot water heater. The same is true for a check valve in a new system, whether in a closed Geothermal ground loop or in a water to water house loop.

 

All this (other than WrecksTech's codswallop) confirms long-standing suspicion that, despite years of development, ClimateMonster Trilogy still isn't ready for prime time.

 

I've visited my parents' house for the first time and setup the Trilogy 45 to the internet. I've gathered some data so far and I'm wondering if anyone could tell me if everything looks ok. I don't really know what to look for.

We still don't have the zoning installed. Three additional zones are planned, but Climatemaster says that the equipment won't be ready to order until next week. Currently, the temperature on the main floor of the house seems to be kept very consistent. Of course the basement is cold and the upstairs is hot, but I'm hoping that will be resolved once the house is properly zoned.

 

Krishna,
Using the upper graph data, the system appears to be keeping the house on temperature which is most of what a home owner wants. How efficiently it is working must be in the lower graph data.
Lets see... looking at the top graph Only which is 2 days of data:

The Black line is Outdoor Temperature cycling from an AM low of 60 degrees to a PM high of 78 to 80 degrees over two days.

The Blue Green line is Indoor Temperature slowly cycling around a Thermostat Set Point of 74 degrees, which is the Blue White Dotted line "Desired Cool". That looks like a good steady indoor Temperature.

The Red Dotted line is Desired Heat which was set at 68 degrees, until around 2 pm on July 31st when the Desired Heat was set to 58 degrees. Then at 2 am the Desired Heat was raised back to 68 degrees.

The light Blue line at the bottom of the graph is Humidity from a low of 41% percent to high of 48% cycling over the 2 day period.

The Green line is Leaving Air Temperature, which is warm in the AM when heating the house due to an outdoor temperature in the 60s and cool in the PM when cooling the house when the Outdoor temperature is in the high 70s.

The Yellow line is Leaving Water Temperature, that makes no sense to me, so I'll leave that up to someone else to comment on.

The Lower Graph also is new to me so I'll let someone else interpret it for you.

 

mrrxtech,

Your questions regarding the bottom graph and the LWT (leaving water temperature) are the same things I wondered the most about. We haven't had any issues with using hot water so far. It all seems to work fine when using the shower or sinks, but the graph looks pretty spastic. I'm not sure if it is supposed to look like that or not. I also have no idea how the efficiency graph should look and whether the system is performing efficiently or not.

Does anyone else have any idea how to read those parts of the report?

 

The LWT is around 80F when the unit rejects heat into the loop during A/C mode. When the unit heats up the DHW, it takes heat out of the loop, which is why you see the LWT drop down to 50F when the water tank gets heated.

The Lower part shows when the unit runs for DHW heat, and when it runs in cooling mode. It also shows the capacity the compressor is running at.

 

Thanks, doc. I appreciate your response. Do you think that all seems to be working well? The house is probably about 4000sq or so with the large sun room and finished basement included. It's in northern Michigan. I believe the outdoor temperature is actually a few degrees warmer on average than it reports. It's pulling that data from some internet source and their's generally seems lower than weather.com and how it actually feels when I'm outside.

I'll also post some reports once the 4 zones are all installed. I'm still unsure of how that all work with the ecobee interface. I hope it actually does work.

 

I tried warning everyone about that machine. It's nothing but a nightmare. Piss poor equipment, horrible tech support and even worse management, heck the entire company is a joke. They were finally purchased by the same company that now owns Waterfurnace and every other geothermal manufacturer in the states except BOSCH. They will be the down fall of NEBO

 

It is actually NIBE Industries AB.

 

I've been tracking my parents' Trilogy 45 performance remotely for many months now and it seems to be working really well. All of the zones are keeping the temperature very consistent. Even when it has gotten below freezing, the geothermal has not yet resorted to using the backup electric heater and I've never even seen it reach 100% capacity. I think the highest I have ever seen it is maybe 80% compressor capacity and that was only for a few minutes. It frequently is running at only 30% compressor capacity. My parents' 50 gallon water heater tank will be replaced with a 105 gallon tank this Wednesday. It is the tank that is packaged with the Trilogy 45. The installer agreed to replace it since they did not size it properly. The only other issue is that on one of the four thermostats it will not show the outside temperature for some reason. That thermostat is also going to be replaced on Wednesday if they can't get it to work. My parents overall are very happy with how the Trilogy 45 is performing. They say that the inside temperature is always perfect and that the Trilogy is very quiet.

I can report back if there are any other issues after Wednesday, but I am assuming everything will work. I can't say how the relative ongoing cost versus the Waterfurnace 7 is, but in theory there should be significant savings on hot water. Also, my parents were more concerned with heating versus cooling, and the Trilogy 45 has more heating BTU's than the Waterfurnace 7.

Just a little bit more info. 3 out o the 4 zones basically never fluctuate in their temperature at all. The porch zone is all windows, and that zone still fluctuates basically at most 1 degree F up or down whenever I check it. It's quite impressive though I admit this is the first geothermal system I've used.

 

We will keep our fingers crossed for you...Thanks for the update.

 

I just realized that this is an Inverter Powered Variable Speed Compressor, Fan and Field Loop. I should have seen that with the Compressor Power Graph.
This design is the Geothermal of the future. My Brother has a Daikin which is permanently wired with enough instrumentation to make it look like a Science Project or company demonstrator model. He had a Daikin Engineer drive a good distance to see his instrumented Unit.

The Compressor can produce 1 more Ton than the rating on the Unit which is nice for living in the North. The ability to run at low tonnage in the Summer eliminates the fear of a short run time when cooling due to an oversized Unit.

Eventually the Company who comes up with the most reliable designed Unit will see their sales increase while those who don't perfect the design will fall to the wayside as the word gets out. I be looking for the design that runs like a Trane with little need for maintenance & repairs as my next Unit.

 

That is what the Waterfurnace 7 series does (which also makes the units for Trane), The Climatemaster is prone to have problems, that is why we are keeping our fingers crossed here and hope that soda jerk is the exception from the norm.