New Installation in Maryland

Heat ransfer is the Q & A

Multiply that by time and "SEE" where the btus go. Remember hot goes to cold always. Heat pumps only slow down the action,

Eric 12/26, 27 or 28could be possible hired two new guys this week who are old employees. They can hold down the fort.

Mark 440.223.0840

 

Fold a playing-card sized bit of aluminum foil a couple times. Wrap it around the probe and then tape it to the surface of interest. Essentially you are creating a conductive fin between the probe and surface.With a bit of pipe foam or other insulation on top, the probe should see a temp darned close to the interior of the pipe regardless of pipe material.

 

Well friends, my technician replaced the original Climatemaster programable thermostat with a Honeywell VisionPRO TH8000 and the house is really warm. No problem with heat. Now the system will not turn off at the set temperature and even when the set temperature reads the same as the actual temperature the system still runs and even goes into AUX heat mode. I am using over 115Kw hours per day at 14 cents per Kw hour and this does not seem acceptable. I can see perhaps 50 Kw hours on 32 to 37 degree days, but AUX heat should not kick in when the house temp is 70 and the thermometer reads 70. It will just not kick off properly.

Climatemaster Geo heat pump is really doing its job. EWT about 41 degrees, LWT about 33 degrees and house is warm. I suspect something is not right with the communications between the thermostat and the control board, or something is wrong with the control board or the thermostat. There are no "smart heat settings" on this model thermostat. It is only supposed to communicate temperature differentials to the heat pump control board. One degree = first stage, Two degrees = second stage, and 3 degrees = AUX heat. This is not what is happening!

If anyone out there has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.

White Rabbit
Salisbury, MD.

 

I like TH8000, but

There is some black magic in the background. There are settings that make them less aggressive. You'll need an installer guide to access them

 

Tech showed up at 9:00 AM today and guess what? As soon as he got here the system shut off normally. He adjusted the temperature setings (up and down) for several hours and everything worked fine while he was here. As you say, there must be some magic in the system, or as waterpirate advised the Climatemaster needs some time to adjust to the Honeywell settings. Anyway, at the present time, the house is at 70 degrees, the thermostat says 70 degrees and the system is OFF. However the temperature outside is in the 40s and the sun is out. I promise not to touch the thermostat and let it set at 70 degrees and see how the system works for 24 hours before I post another word.

White Rabbit
Salisbury, Maryland

 

Yep, less aggressive in heat mode is a good thing (I leave standard in cooling mode).

Are you using setbacks, or manually bumping up the temperature? This could engage aux even though the heat pump may be able to satisfy the thermostat without aux.

I don't think you'll find "One degree = first stage, Two degrees = second stage, and 3 degrees = AUX heat." anywhere in Honeywell literature for their digital thermostats.

8000 should have Adaptive Intelligent Recovery, but it may not be enabled. The installer settings will give you access to all of these nifty settings. Let us know if you can't find a pdf of the installation manual. I assume this is a TH8320 or 21?

With Honeywells, the displayed indoor temperature will not vary from the set point if it is somewhat less than +/- 1f from the set point. Outside this range, the actual indoor temp is displayed. Takes some getting use to (and can be frustrating until that happens.)

Thanks Curt. So, the foil doesn't encase the probe and the pipe? Shiny side in or out?

 

yes, no, either

 

Good morning, it is Saturday Dec 18th, 8:00 AM. House is warm, outside temp 28 degrees. Again, it appears my system has been running since yesterday when the technician left and I have not touched the thermostat. I used 92 Kwh of electricty in the last 24 hours, which is down somewhat from previous days using the Climatmaster thermostat, but the system just will not go off for awhile (even though the thermometer is set at 70 degrees and the actual temp says it is 70 degrees. I think I have found the answer on the Honeywell FAQ site.

"Honeywell digital thermostats are designed to display the room temperature in a way similar to how peope sense temperature. This means the thermostat takes into account not just the ambient air temperature but also the radiant temperature of objects in the room. Honeywell thermostats do round in the display to the nearest whole number (half in Celsius) and to the temperature setting. For example, if you have the thermostat set to 72 degrees the system will turn on and off but the inside reading on the thermostat never changes from 72. The actual temperature did fall to 71 or up to 73 and that is what turns on the heating or cooling but the thermostat display will stay at 72 to avoid jumping up and down constantly."

Yep, that is what it says on the Honeywell site! Sounds like some kind of SPIN to me, but what I think it means is that the temperature (if set at 72) must go up to 74 (according to the sensors in the Honewell thermostat) in order for the display to change and the heat or cooling to actually shut off for awhile and rest. If it stays within the 71 to 73 range, the system may go off for 5 minutes, but will come right back on to maintain the temp in the 71 to 73 range.

As Bill O'Riley would say: "What Say You?"

PS: I now see this thermostat behavior was pointed out by "geome", and also I do not have my system in the intelligent adaptive mode.

White Rabbit
Salisbury, MD.

 

You should have your tech set the stat up so the first and second stage CPH are at 2, the aux and emergency CPH at 9 and the "Heat Temperature Control" setting is #1 ("Choose if room is warmer than set temperature") or the least aggressive.

Bergy

 

Bergy,

The Honeywell TH8000 is not flexible enough to provide those type of settings and does not work that way. Previously I had a Climatmaster thermostat which could be set up in a similar fashion but it did not seem to work correctly. That is why the tech went with the Honeywell which he has used in many other Climatemaster installations with success.

From further reading on this forum, I find that long run times in first stage are not unusual, so I wll just wait and see what my engery usage is. System is keeping the house nice and comfortable, EWT and LWT look great. Return temps are in the 65 degree range and exiting temps are about 90 degrees in phase 1 heating.

I just received my ENVI current cost meter today and I am installing it now. It shows I am using 4.35 Kw at this instant for a monthly estimated cost of $12 to $13 per day. This device (if it is accurate and works as advertised) will keep track of my engery usage, plot it, graph it, and hold it for a daily, monthly and yearly comparison for up to 7 years worth of data. It can be stored on my computer as well as connected to Google Power Meter so I can view it from any internet computer. As a gadget freak, I am just in "gadget heaven". I just hope that over a one year period I can save some money. LOL!

White Rabbit
Salisbury, MD.

 

Popoff,

I got it here direct off of the website - click below :

ENVI whole home energy monitor by powersave

Here is a picture of my readings just a few minutes ago:



As you can see, it shows energy usage now, and converts it to monthly and then it switches back and forth to daily along with the current temp in the room. You manually put in your energy costs per KWh. It supposedly holds up to 7 years worth of data. Installation is a little scary because you have to open your breaker box, clamp on two clamps, and sqeeze in the transmitter. My current computer room is about 30 feet line of sight from the transmitter going through several interior walls and it still has a 100% signal. I am having problems setting it up with what is called an internet bridge. The bridge is connecting to my network, my router and the internet, but not with the Current Cost site. I think they are down right now because I get an http error, website not available when I try to sync the device with them. Will post more when I accumulate some data and have time to play with the device. I have only looked at total house energy usage so far today.

White Rabbit
Salisbury, MD.

 

This is good stuff. Thanks! I had found their site in the UK on Google but somehow missed the domestic one.

 

Initial review of Current Cost ENVI Power Meter:

First, it is a nifty gadget and operates as advertised. It shows your Energy Now usage, estimated cost per day and month, based on the rate per Kwh that you input.

Second, it is supposed to store up to 7 years worth of data. I have no idea whether this works or not, however extracting this data and using it to evaluate your usage is the key and so far, I have not found a really great computer program to do this evaluation. There are several programs on the Current Cost website but they all have some limitations as to what they evaluate and graph. I have not been able to connect to the Current Cost Power site, and Google Power Meter is not all that great.

After one full day of gathering data (admitedly an extremely small insufficient sample) my estimated usage will be about $350 to $400 per month in the winter. For the sake of very simple analysis, if this holds true year round, my estimated annual electric bill will be between $4200 and $4800.

My combined "oil and electric" bills for 2008 were $ $4580 and for 2009 were $4003.89.

If my electric costs actually remain as high as $350 to $400 per month average, then the system will never pay for itself. I am hoping that during the Spring and Fall the electric usage will drop so low that it will offset the costs of heat and air during the winter and summer.

I will just have to wait, stare at my ENVI monitor, watch the snow fall, wait for Santa to arrive, and bother everyone on these forums with my posts.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Keep Warm
White Rabbit
Salisbury, Maryland

PS: Geo working great, house is toasty, but stage one is almost always on 24/7.

 

The TH8000 series DOES have those settings available in the installer setup mode. For a 3 heat/2 cool heat pump you should have a TH8320U stat.

Bergy

 

I agree. You need to get hold of the installation manual, not the user manual. Look at the installer setup section.

 

Bergy,

Pursuant to my thermostat settings: I do have a TH830U1008 Honeywell, and I have the installer instructions.

I will check the settings that you recommended ie:

"You should have your tech set the stat up so the first and second stage CPH are at 2, the aux and emergency CPH at 9 and the "Heat Temperature Control" setting is #1 ("Choose if room is warmer than set temperature") or the least aggressive."

I found that the first and second stage CPH were set at 3, which is recommended by Climatemaster. Aux and Emergency were set to 9. I did not change these because I would like to know from you or geome what this will actually do. Please let me know.

I did change the Heat Temperature Control from 2 to 1 as you suggested and see what this does. If that solves the long run problem of never reaching the set temp, then I am a happy camper.

I also have a passive solar room and today the temps are in the low 40s. My passive solar is keeping my greenhouse (computer room) at 75 degrees. My house temp at the thermometer is 71. I manually put the heat setting down to 69 in order to force the compressor and fan from running continually. The house temp has held at 71 ever since, and I am using less than 500 watts of electricty for the entire house.

Please let me know what changing the cycles per hour from 3 down to 2 will do for me.

Thanks so much for your valuable input, I really appreciate you guys.

White Rabbit
Salisbury, MD.

 

From the VisionPRO 8000 manual: "Temperature Control in Heat" "Applies to recovery ramp and use of auxiliary heat during recovery." I take this as meaning that the less aggressive setting keeps multi-stage equipment in lower stages longer.

Adaptive Intelligent Recovery (AIR) starts the equipment Prior to a different programmed thermostat set point in the goal of Reaching the new set point at the programmed time. This is instead of the thermostat having the equipment Start to reach the set point At the programmed time.

I know manual thermostat changes (with Honeywell) brings on higher stages sooner. Not using AIR (assuming thermostat programmed temperature changes) may do the same (I'm not positive.) I know from experience that lower stages run during the AIR recovery (probably helped by the Less Aggressive setting mentioned previously.)

Reducing CPH lengthens run time per cycle and increases temperature swing. We are comfortable with 1,1,1 in a standard construction house. Our temperature holds +/-1f (2 degree swing.) With this setting, our system actually runs 2 CPH in 1st stage, possibly because 1st stage needs to be engaged before 2nd stage engages (but I imagine if 2nd stage is needed, it will only run 1 CPH).

Benefits to reducing CPH include better system efficiency because the equipment runs at steady state longer. DSH production is better (per Doc) possibly due to the same reason. Also, I believe that less start/stop cycles are better for unit longevity (per Curt.) From a homeowner's standpoint, I suggest setting CPH as low as possible for 1st and 2nd stage, and increase them as needed until you are comfortable. You may wind up with 2,2,9 as Bergy suggested.

I have yet to figure out if 9 or 1 for aux heat is better from a cost standpoint. I'm sure 9 is better from a comfort standpoint, but our system hasn't needed aux yet, so this not an issue for us.

 

9CPH on the electric strip is better than 1 CPH. The electric strip heat is expensive to run, so allowing the strips to cycle on and off quicker will help the house to achieve set point with as little strip heat as posible.

Bergy

 

From a cost standpoint, wouldn't lots of short aux cycles be equal to one long cycle? Of course, the heat pump would be continuously running until the 1 aux cycle started. Is this the difference?