Problems with tranquility 27

The readings were taken around ten in the morning. The furnace had been running all day and night and has been running non-stop for the last 3 months. It never cycles off unless we turn it off manually.

 

tranq

Did someone do a heat loss of your structure?
Your measurements sound low for EWT of 32-34, may be a ref leak, if so your going to need a compitent tech to determine so ,what were the ref side measurements, press and superheat that the tech was relaying to the factory.
How many KW backup,and what is TD across heater with only it on.

 

One thing I forgot to mention, was when the tech was out, he took off the filter and let the furnace run without the filter in it for a while. The fan slowed right down, and apparently the temp went up 5 degrees. I think this is what he is basing his suggestion of poor air circulation on.

I don't see anything in the manual about the heating strips, but I recall the first tech saying that it takes 17 or 19 amps which is why it is on 2 15 amp breakers. (does that help?) How could I find out that information?

 

You're speaking to an amateur here! I don't have all the numbers that the tech took down.

 

What we know is that the fan is reving up and blowing very hard, which the tech says is to compensate for the low air flow. He thinks that the air is moving past the heating coils too fast to be warmed. Does this make sense?

I'm not sure what you are saying about the delta -T, is ours at a good level then?

 

If fan seems to over rev that's a clue to an overly restrictive air filter or other duct issue - blower can't make desired air flow.

Better than just guessing would be using manometer to test for external static pressure - Tech should be able to do that.

Low airflow and low Delta-T points to a system capacity problem.

"air moving too fast past coil" probably isn't the problem - that would only be a problem if airflow was too high -

There's an off chance system was set to try to push too much air. Tech should be able to tell you airflow settings and suggest any changes needed.

 

well field issue

Did anyone test the amount of glycol etc - when you stated the incoming pipes were frozen should that not tell you something - was the well field sized correctly- was there a proper amount of anti freeze - just my thoughts tho - the last thing that the manufacture recommends is putting gauges on the refrigerant side of the system

good luck

 

As usual all above statements make sense to me. On a simple note I would leave the filter out of the system for a week and see if you notice a difference. You said the fan slowed down when filter was removed, if I am correct that means the coil sensors in the unit saw the coil temp drop, and thus needed less air flow, telling the fan to slow down. If unit is in heated area leave the filter door open for max return flow. Blowers like to push air but hate to suck it, so restricted air flow is bad. one more, if your registers are in the floor you may be able to lift them out to increase air flow on supply side, heated air.
All of the above are simple test to see what is going on, good luck!

 

Blower itself, not coil sensors

Your unit has an ECM (electronically controlled) blower that promises to deliver airflow within 5% of a dipswitch-selected setpoint. It will do this up to a design ceiling of back pressure, typically either .50 or .75 inches water column.

If it is set for 1000 CFM and has a big clean filter to suck from and big ducts to blow into, it'll do it with low rpm. If it becomes restricted it'll speed up as needed to overcome the restriction, up to its pressure limit.

Hope that helps.

 

No offense to your current contractor but we see this type of issue all the time, they don't know what they are doing. Improper return air intake or improper supply duct can cause airflow issues as well as the filters. We see inadaquete airflow daily on jobs we check out that others installed. Any heating and cooling system is limited due to the BTU's of heat it can put out and GEO is typically less than a conventional gas unit so sizing and structure load is key. Sounds like your issue could be several things. Give my GEO expert an email and let him know your problems and readings found thus far, he will be happy to help you if you tell him i told you to email. "john@wallacemechanical.com" - John Dodds - office 405-340-6908 - cell 405-417-4393 -- he can offer some great input on this issue.

Bobby Wallace, Owner
Wallace Mechanical
Edmond, Ok

 

Thanks to everyone who has replied. It is great that so many people are willing to help. I am still considering what the problem or problems may be. I have had 2 different techs from 2 different companies come out and one says there is nothing wrong with my system and the other thinks we should start by replacing the thermostat with a different make (the climate master themostat)and enlarging some of the duct work and air filter.
Some of you have suggested a ref leak, and I am still considering this as a possibility but it is very difficult to get service in our area as the first tech (company who has installed my whole unit and has been doing geothermals for 30 years) has not returned any of my calls. Second tech has been very helpful but seems to not have as much experience and is very busy as well. So how do you check for a ref leak without a service tech and the proper equipment? Is there a tool you can buy?

Today the temp is 5 degrees c . The auxillary heat was running constantly as it has been for the past 3 months. Since I could see the kw zipping by on my meter, I turned the furnace off at the thermostat. I turned it back on and the furnace seems to be running fine, just on stage 1 of the geothermal(no auxillary heat) and actually cycling off. If the furnace didn't need the auxillary heat to heat the house why was it running? I have turned the unit off before and it seems to run well for a few hours and then the temps in the house will drop and the auxillary heat comes on and stays on forever.

Do you think that my problems could be the thermostat which is a Honeywell TH8320U. It is may be telling the furnace to stay on auxillary more then it should or maybe a sensor in the furnace is malfuctioning. Or do you think that after running a few hours the geothermal just doesn't have enough heat to give so then the auxillary takes over. We have tried turning the auxillary heat off at the breaker so it doesn't go on but the furnace does not seem to be able to keep up without the auxillary. Once the auxillary heat is engaged , the furnace never turns off.

Sorry for the long post, just getting very frustrated with geothermal and the company that sold and installed our unit. Whatever happened to standing behind the products you sell.

Thanks again for all your help and thanks to Wallace Mechanical who was kind enough to give out his tech's email address. I wish you lived closer. I will keep everyone updated.

 

I have exactly that problem with my thermostat (a WaterFurnace TP32W02,
actually a WF re-branded White-Rodgers 1F95-1271). It calls for aux heat
almost immediately when I raise the setpoint only 1 or 2 degrees -- even
when heat pump stage2 is making good progress toward the new setpoint.

I've disabled aux heat -- with a switch on the Envision heat pump control
board that tells the heat pump to ignore t-stat requests for aux heat unless
the heat pump itself detects an internal failure requiring shutdown.

The problem with that "workaround" is that an aux heat request from the
thermostat still causes the heat pump to shut down the DHW circ pump --
so the desuperheater isn't supplying any hot water preheat.

I've been searching for a replacement t-stat that's not as brain-dead as the
one I have now. Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to compare the many
t-stats on the market, because even the online installation manuals tend to
provide little/no useful information. Of all the ones I've checked so far, your
Honeywell TH3820U seemed the most promising; the install/config menu
offers more modes and "tweaks" than other t-stat I've researched. Have
you tried fiddling with the "cycles per hour" and/or "more/less aggressive"
heating menu items (pages 16-20 in the installation manual)?

Honeywell TH8320 Installation Manual

Looby

 

Forgive me if I have posted this already, but the Climatouch Part #: CT0-7TC-32, gives users a lot of control over the aux heat.

 

Losing DSH during an aux heat call...

...is probably a good thing. That ups system space heating capacity by 10% or so when it is really needed.

I have 8321s - I like that they display humidity and can be configured to run system to dehu as well - they'll allow temp to drop several degrees below setpoint in an attempt to dehu.

I also like many of the other menu options such as options to restrict or entirely disable user settings...

 

Heat loss

I dont know about you but today here it was 3 c
my furnace goes off completely at about 11 am and didnt go on again until 8 this evening
i have 7500 on 3 floors
the great big yellow orb in the sky does a good job of keeping the house
energy neutral on a day like today
you seem to be losing even on a sunny day like today?

nile

 

No quarrel with that logic, but the problem with my t-stat is that it calls for
aux heat when stage2 is doin' just fine -- even with the DSH generating hot
water. Aux heat costs me 4x as much as heat from the loop, and turning off
the DSH just adds more to the operating cost.

Seems to me that most (all?) 3heat/2cool t-stats on the market are designed
promarily for air-source heat pumps, rather than geothermal. There's nothing
revolutionary about PID (proportional-integral-differential) temperature
control algorithms commonly used in industrial control systems -- but I've
yet to find a residential HVAC thermostat that appears to use such a
tried-n-true common-sense approach. The Honeywell TH832x series
claims to use P-I logic, but without the "D" (differential) term, it's not
paying attention to rate-of-change of temperature. There's no need to
call for aux heat if the temperature is already moving toward setpoint
at a reasonable rate.

Looby

 

I don't see in the honeywell install guide any way to configure stages 2 and 3, other than the cph setting, and I'm not sure that would be useful

You might be able to add an adjustable delay-on sequencer to interlock aux until stage 2 has been on for a certain time, say 30 or 60 minutes.

As a regular tuner of PID loops I appreciate your desire for more control over the process.

 

I agree that fiddling with cycle times doesn't look very promising, but that
t-stat also offers a selection of how "aggressively" it calls for aux heat
(menu item 0680). There's also an "Aux Lockout" setting that will prevent
any use of aux heat with outdoor air temperatures higher than <setpoint>.
Unfortunately, the range of lockout temps on the TH8320 is too restrictive
to be of much practical use with a geo heat pump.

That got me lookin' at the YTH9421 -- similar logic, but the "Aux Lockout"
range goes down to 5 °F. I know that my system, with aux disabled, can
hold 68°F with outdoor temps of 5-10°F -- so the aux lockout feature might
be exactly what I need.

placegeo: I haven't forgotten or dismissed your kind recommendation of
the Climatouch CT0-7TC-32, it's still on my short list -- but I haven't studied
every alternative, yet ....

...BTW, should "anal-retentive" be hyphenated?

Looby

 

Update on problems with tranquility

A new thermostat was installed recently. The Next Energy ATP32UO4. Now we have more control over when the emergency heat is coming on and it is not running 24/7 like it was. However, the emergency heat is still coming on today even though we have another mild day 5.4 C. During our first two winters with our furnace, the emergency heat only came on when the temps were below -5 C. (Since that time we have installed some new windows, 3 new doors and added insulation to the attic and some walls). Installer is still saying there is nothing wrong with the unit and would not test for a ref leak when he installed the new thermostat. We have contacted the sales rep for assistance.
As I have said before the second tech we contacted is recommending replacing our Aprilaire 2200 air filter with the filter that comes standard with the Tranquility 27 and enlarging the cold air duct work to give us more air flow. (The duct work was already enlarged when we installed the unit in 2006). I have linked some pictures of our unit and would like to have your opinions.
Thanks again for your help.

 

2200 OK

when he pulled the filter and the fan ramped down was the door off of the filter box?

The question you need to ask is what has changed
Did you add the filter or was it origanal ?
My thoughts where on my origanal post
Why would the tech not want to test for refrigerent leaks?
It wouldnt take more then a half hour ( if he had the tools )
Seems odd