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Have I setup my Ecodan Correctly?

  • 17 October 2023
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I have done some reading on here and followed advice from other posters but I wanted to check to see if I have things setup right.

 

  • Goals
    • Be economical, not wasteful
    • Keep temperature in the house at 22-23 degrees C
    • Have hot water in the morning for showers and in the evening for bath for children
  • Heating Setup
    • I have it set to Compensation Curve, at 14 degrees external or below the temp is at 46 degrees for the rads (at least that’s how I understand it works)
    • Thermostats are Heatmister Slimline, they are set at 23 degrees to knock off the rads if it gets too warm
    • This setting is 24/7, I read that its better to keep the house at the same temp all the time. Plus we work from home all the time so don’t want it cooling during the day.
  • Hot Water Setup
    • I had it to warm the 200L tank up to 50 degrees between 2am and 4am, and to come on once the temp dropped 10 degrees but only during this time.
    • I noticed that this was perfect for morning showers - temp had dropped to 47 degrees by 8am which was fine but it meant in the evening it was down to 27 degrees, too cold for a bath.
    • I changed the setup so that it comes on at 2am and will keep it at 45 degrees (again only turning on once it drops to 35 degrees or below) until 9pm.
    • I was working off the same theory on the Heating, that keeping it ticking over all day between 35 and 45 is using less energy than letting it go down to 24/25 and heating back up to 50 degrees at night.  
    • The reason for 2am - 4am is that is the cheapest window to use electricity

 

So, just trying to see if I should be doing something differently?  I live in Ireland, new build house this year and we have a plug-in hybrid car.  Our 2 monthly bill is around 370euro - this includes heating, hot water, cooking, dishwasher (almost every night at the cheap hours), washing machine (every night at the cheap hours), and charging the car (at cheap night hours), and the usual lights, kettle, TV, computers, etc.  As we are home we probably run the kettle and electric hobs a lot more than normal.

 

I want to help keep down the bills as much as I can and previous to this we had a gas burner which was basically instant hot water so I am trying to shed the old way of doing things and learn the new and become good at it.

 

I have read people say once they get this setup right for themselves they can essentially walk away and thats done and dusted.

 

Thanks,

Ecodan Warrior

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Best answer by James_N 18 October 2023, 19:07

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juliamc
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I have a Daikin not an Ecodan but the theory is the same.

If you find it too warm overnight you could just set back the target temperature one degree, then up again early morning. I don’t know how you’d do this with HeatMiser thermostats though.

With the hot water try scheduling it to warm up a second time in the mid afternoon rather than have it reheat. Two reasons for this: 1) the heat is sent to the hot water and not the heating circuit so you’ll be less likely to notice during this warmer part of the day, and 2) the pump will run more efficiently as it’s got less work to do during the warmer hours.

Can you see a figure for COP for heating and DHW (domestic hot water) ? 

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @Ecodanwarrior,

 

Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

 

Great to hear of your newly set up Ecodan! 🙂 you’ve earnt yourself a badge.

 

I’ve tagged some fellow ‘Ecodan Warriors’ as they’re far more knowledgeable than myself….

 

@sylm_2000 @M.isterW @bgreenwood2000 @Cwriggers @Mimi @OrphM62 @Nicllb @amanda1@James_N @Speps @zzzzz @New ASHP any words of wisdom for our new member? 

 

These topics may have some useful advice for you:

 

 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
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I have a Daikin not an Ecodan but the theory is the same.

If you find it too warm overnight you could just set back the target temperature one degree, then up again early morning. I don’t know how you’d do this with HeatMiser thermostats though.

With the hot water try scheduling it to warm up a second time in the mid afternoon rather than have it reheat. Two reasons for this: 1) the heat is sent to the hot water and not the heating circuit so you’ll be less likely to notice during this warmer part of the day, and 2) the pump will run more efficiently as it’s got less work to do during the warmer hours.

Can you see a figure for COP for heating and DHW (domestic hot water) ? 

 

I was actually thinking of both of your points this morning.

 

  • The heatmister thermostat
    • It has 4 heating “windows”
      • Awake - for when you wake up
      • Away - for when you leave for work
      • Arrive - for when you are back from work
      • Sleep - night time
    • You can set each of these to come on and off throughout the day or disable all but one of them if you want a consistent temp throughout the night and day.
    • As we work from home all the time Away and Arrive I can leave blank and I will setup Sleep to have it a small bit cooler at night and then kick it up again during the morning.
  • Glad to hear heating up twice a day is better than consistently running it - I was beginning to think the fan running all the time could not be the most financially economical.

I will need to do some research into the COP to see if it can viewed.

 

What is annoying is that the targeted flow temperature, where it aims to have a specific temp in each zone and uses the compensation curve (which is adjusted automatically based on heat loss from what I have read) doesn’t seem to work as it doesn’t display the outside temp.

I grabbed the image from a YouTube video.  Number 1 is the outside temperature and number 2 is the inside temperature you are trying to achieve in the rads but mine does not display the outside temp - might be something I need to contact Mitsubishi about.

 

 

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@Ecodanwarrior I am not an expert as I only just entered the University of ASHP in May but there are one or two things in your comment that are maybe not correct - the display key in the manual explains that what you are identifying as the outside temperature is actually the inside temperature. See screenshot (if it will load…) 

Also, I have the Ecodan set to Auto Adapt, rather than Weather Compensation Curve, with the Hot Water heating up when it hits the lower parameter (in my case my DHW is set to be at 50C and to reheat when it drops to 40) . I have no timed settings whatsoever. The Ecodan is technically ‘on’ all the time, but that doesn’t mean that it is running all the time. My hot water heats up less than twice in a 24 hour cycle. It takes about 16 hours to drop to 40. The fan is NOT running constantly. It runs only when I push the room temperature requirement up above the actual room temperature shown on the indoor remote control thermostat, or when the room temperature drops below my target temperature. . And then only until the room temperature reaches about half a degree above my target room temperature.

I am still in the first year of ownership and winter is just around the corner in this very cold place. The outside temperature has been in single figures or less for the past week. It will average about 2 or 3 degrees in December through to February. For that reason, the Freeze/Stat function is disabled. The Freeze/Stat function will ordinarily kick in when the temperature falls below 5C. In that situation, the fan would be running all the time while the temperature was below 5C. 

Your melcloud app will tell you the outside temperature.

 

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@amanda1 thanks for the information.  That being the inside temperature actually makes a lot more sense, the Heatmister thermostats must not be relaying the temp to the Ecodan control panel and so that measurement is missing when I turn to Auto Adapt.

 

Our fan was running almost constantly yesterday as we were trying to heat up the whole house, we were away when a cold snap hit over the weekend and the thermostats were set to away, letting the internal temp drop to 17.  Today though I don’t think they have turned on the rads more than once - very mild warmth.

 

I found yesterday that in the morning the temp had dropped from 50 to 47 over 4 hours but then with showers and people washing dishes it was down to 27 by evening, so I think we could be twice in a 24hr period as well.  The idea of timing it was to take advantage of the ultra low rates we have between 2am and 4am (about 25% of the normal day rate) and also to have hot water in the evening for the bath.

 

I would like to switch to Auto Adapt but if the internal temperature isn’t getting relayed to the control panel on the Ecodan will it actually work?

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@Ecodanwarrior I may be wrong but I think the reason your controller doesn’t have anything where the internal temperature should be, might be because yours is not on the Room Temperature setting - there are options for Room Temperature (Auto Adapt) and Weather Compensation Curve (which adjusts the flow temperatures up and down on a sliding scale to optimise them for different outside temperature) and Flow Control (which I haven’t a clue what it does…..). If yours is set to weather compensation it will have the icon for that, if it is set to Flow control, it will have a thermometer and a raindrop icon, and if auto adapt (Room Temp) it will have the thermometer and the internal temperature?

it isn’t a good idea to try to use an ASHP as you would a gas boiler. ie: don’t whack the room temperature up to 23 if the room is only 15 degrees, and then expect it to take just five minutes to start getting warm. Increase or decrease your room temperature by increments of half a degree or a degree at most at any one time, and the ASHP operates best if you aim for an internal temperature between 19 and 21 degrees. If you have it on timed settings, and you then need to crank  it up from cold, it will take a longer time to reach 23 degrees than 19, it may struggle to do so if it is very cold outside, and if you don’t have it set to automatically reheat your water when it drops below a certain minimum temp, it will take much longer to heat the water - and it will prioritize the water before it gets around to blowing heat into your house, so you will find that the ASHP is running for a long time to get to the temperatures you are looking for, and for quite a bit of that time it will not be heating your house.

Heatgeek also suggests not having separate “zones” and there is also quite a bit of advice out there about having all the rads fully open rather than variable.

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@amanda1 I attached an image from my control panel of what I think is auto adapt, I don’t see the measurement for internal temperature. What is 25 degrees?  That is what it came up as when I switched over and I have not adjusted it.

 

Flow Control I have read is used usually during commissioning for testing the system by ramping it up.

 

I have the house set on the thermostats at 22 degrees.

 

My understanding of how the system works is that based on the outdoor temperature the Ecodan system determines how hot the water should be running through the rads - colder outside, hotter water in the rads.  The thermostats are then just there to stop the heat becoming too much in the house, you don’t need 50 degree heat running through the rads and heating up the house too much.

 

You do need to increase the temperature over a long period of time, but you can go from 15 to 23 it will just take time - it took me about 12 hours to get up.  But once it is up you can then go into management of the temperature is my understanding - this means the pump is not on all the time. 

 

Also on the Ecodan, if you set the DHW to a timer it will always send hot water to the rads outside of the scheduled time for DHW.  This is a handy setting if you want consistent heating during the day and not have it randomly interrupted by DHW trying to heat up.

 

 

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Hi @Ecodanwarrior, I’ve had my Ecodan running for over two years now so I can tell you what works for me.

Hot Water

I have this set to 49C and it comes on twice a day (4am and 1pm) to heat the tank all the way up. I found this more efficient than the setting that is constantly topping the tank up. If you find this approach doesn’t get you enough hot water then switch to the top up mode. NB if your HW tank is in a colder garage, loft etc, put some lagging on it (£15 from B&Q). They are already insulated but I found this made a noticable difference for me.

Worth noting that the HW tank temp on mine seems to be measured towards the bottom of the tank. So it can say 20C but there is still lots of hot water left, as the water in the bottom of the tank can be much colder than at the top

Heating

I have found the best approach is to keep it simple. I have one daytime temp (20.5C) and a nighttime temp (19.5). As other posters above have mentioned, you can’t change the temp quickly in your house, so I think its best to keep things stable. I have a nest thermostat but use none of the ‘gadgets’ or funtions on it. It just moves the target temp up to 20.5 in the morning and down to 19.5 at night. All my radiator thermostats are set to max. Even in rooms not being used. Its unlikely one room is going to get too hot with a heat pump.

I am running on a weather compansation curve. This is important to do to get good efficiency, but I think is the trickiest thing to get right. The overall concept of the heat pump is to just push in enough heat each hour, to cover that hourly heat loss from your home. This means the pump is running most of the time and at a low temp. But your house loses more heat when its cold outside. The weather compensation curve means as it gets colder the ASHP raises the temp of your radiators to compensate for this. Every house is different, so its a lot of trial and error. To give you an idea mine is set to 46C at 0C outside, and 31C at 15C outside. I have pretty good insulation but I am all radiators (as opposed to under floor heating). You know if you are getting this roughly right if the heatpump is mostly on all the time, and you get very close but never quite reach your target temp (set your target temp 0.5C higher than you actually want it) on different days and different weather. However the reality is there are so many variables that perfection is sort of impossible and you are trying to get it roughly right. 

 

James

11.2k Ecodan ASHP. 4 Bed semi.
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Hi @James_N, I think I have the same setup for heating as you.  Our thermostats only measure in full degrees and these are split into a downstairs zone and upstairs zone, no UFH.  When you say on all the time do you mean the fan is constantly turning?

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Yes. When its cold outside. Pump on / fan turning all day

11.2k Ecodan ASHP. 4 Bed semi.
Tim_OVO
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Looking forward to hearing how the set up is performing, @Ecodanwarrior! 🤓

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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@Tim_OVO @James_N @amanda1 @juliamc 

Update:

 

  • Settings
    • DHW heats to 48 degrees in the following windows
      • 02:00-04:00
      • 18:00-19:30
    • Heating
      • Zone 1 - downstairs
        • Time Window 1: 04:30 - 22:00
        • Temp: 22 degrees
        • Time Window 2: 22:00 - 04:30
        • Temp: 19 degrees
      • Zone 2 - upstairs
        • Time Window 1: 04:30 - 22:00
        • Temp: 21 degrees
        • Time Window 2: 22:00 - 04:30
        • Temp: 19 degrees
  • Findings
    • House is more consistently warm.
    • Heat Pump isn’t working as hard but possibly working more often.
    • Have noticed that the rads were turning on but the heat pump fan wasn’t turning so based on the Temperature Curve setting it must have sensed the water available was warm enough to move through the rads.
    • It feel like we are using less energy but keeping the house more consistently warm.
    • Chart below showing the daily usage (combined DHW and Heating).
  • Next Steps
    •  Going to capture the data for all of November, as it is really starting to get cold now and see how it pans out.

 

 

Tim_OVO
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Such a good summary. 

 

I have heard very similar things from heat pump owners about that low and slow approach:

 

  • Findings
    • House is more consistently warm.
    • Heat Pump isn’t working as hard but possibly working more often.
    • Have noticed that the rads were turning on but the heat pump fan wasn’t turning so based on the Temperature Curve setting it must have sensed the water available was warm enough to move through the rads.
    • It feel like we are using less energy but keeping the house more consistently warm.
    • Chart below showing the daily usage (combined DHW and Heating).

 

 

If you keep this topic updated, with your permission I might convert this into an article topic so other Ecodans can see and factor in your findings…

 

  • Next Steps
    •  Going to capture the data for all of November, as it is really starting to get cold now and see how it pans out.

 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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@Tim_OVO yeah that’s no problem.  I am recording data for November and separating out DWH from Heating so will post another update in a month’s time.

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This is a new system, the ecodan 11.2kw, UFH and radiators. I was running it on fixed flow temperature mode of 40C till my thermostats got installed. When I got my thermostats installed the engineer came back, setup 2 zones, changed it to weather compensation curve which is default 50C for cold temps and 40C for anything warm outside. I set the UFH to 20c, a wireless room thermostat set to 20C and all radiators on 5.

Each morning I've got up since the UFH rooms are lovely, reaching 20C and coming off/on as it should. But the radiators are all cold. I checked the panel, the play symbol is showing for the heating, the ASHP symbol is showing, I can hear it running. Quiet mode is off. I got the thermistor readings. It shows a flow of 40 (shouldn’t this be trying to reach 50 with TH7 showing 0?!) and return of 29 but why are the radiators cold?

 

 

juliamc
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I don’t have an Ecodan but a couple of things occur to me to help diagnose what’s going on. 1) are the rooms with the radiators at your target temperature already? 2) if you switch back to a fixed flow do the radiators get warm?

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I don’t have an Ecodan but a couple of things occur to me to help diagnose what’s going on. 1) are the rooms with the radiators at your target temperature already? 2) if you switch back to a fixed flow do the radiators get warm?

ive switched back to fix now to see what happens

 

What is interesting is I have felt the flow pipes to each of the radiators, some are hot, some are ice cold

Abby_OVO
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Hey @PaulRLondon 

 

Did you get to the bottom of why the radiators were still cold? Is it still happening? 

 

We’d recommend getting in touch with the manufacturer directly if this is still an ongoing issue so they can assess what may be the issue.

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Looking for a bit of guidance from this helpful forum. Have an Ecodan installed and it's been working great. Just recently had some time to review settings and potential for improving efficiency. Watched HeatGeek videos and read a number of posts but still ended up confused with applying principles to Ecodan settings.

So questions are:

If on weather compensation does that just give one temperature or can you have a lower temperature overnight?

Do people use auto adapt to have set back temp?

Can you rely on the energy usage for a relatively accurate COP?

Do you only set the timer through app or on the unit. Does uisng app reset heating ethod to room temp from curve if you set room temp?

For setting hot water timer can you use app or better to use screen?

Sorry for myriad for questions but getting lost down the rabbit hole of Ecodan settings!

juliamc
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@Kingstonkerr can you give a few more details of your set up, do you have the wireless room thermostat? @amanda1 is a big fan of those!! @M.isterW also has an Ecodan so they can both make some suggestions. Could you post a photo of the controller screen too.

M.isterW
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I can answer some of these.

The energy use/produced figures shown on the controller are useless. They're really inaccurate, unless you have additional monitoring attached to your system.

Use the FTC controller to set your hot water timer. The app doesn't update the settings on the controller. It stores them on Mitsubishi's server and sends triggers to your system. It's much more reliable to change the settings on your FTC.

If you have a Mitsubishi wireless thermostat use that to manage your heating. Most people find auto adapt mode gives the best results.

1992 4 bed detached house. Solar PV + battery, Zappi EV charger, Mitsubishi Ecodan ASHP and i-life2 fan assisted radiators.... No gas 😊
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Have a wireless and thermostat. Set hot water for twice a day and temp to be 19 in day and 17 at night. 

 

Emmanuelle_OVO
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Hey @Kingstonkerr,

 

Brilliant to hear your Ecodan is working great! I’ve added a badge to your profile so other green tech enthusiasts can identify you 😊

 

Good to see juliamc is on the case, these topics may have some helpful advice:

 

 

I’ve tagged some fellow Ecodan owners as they’re far more knowledgeable than myself and might have some information for you! 

 

@sylm_2000 @M.isterW  @Cwriggers @Mimi @OrphM62 @Nicllb @amanda1@James_N @Speps @zzzzz @New ASHP any words of wisdom for this community member? 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
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Hi. New owner here, it came with the house we bought and are currently renovating.

Right now it's -20 degrees here and things are not working properly.

A month ago we had some issues which were corrected by setting up the correct DHW setting (by pressing the settings key for 4 sec)

The max operation time was too low and it didn't have time to heat it DHW correctly.

Now we are seeing that the DHW sensor go below 20 degrees celcius. I normally detects this by noticing that it's getting colder and feeling the radiators, which are cold. So I go down to the Ecodan and sees that heating is paused and all is going to DHW. This is often at evening after some showers. I have read this can affect the sensor reading, but it should not cause heating to turn cold...

Max temp is at 45 degrees

Max drop is 6 degrees

Operation time is now at 105 (had it at 120 minutes this weekend)

So it's should have enough time to heat up.

But it seems it's not and I assume it then pauses heating, which is bad.… We have three radiators up and running now, will install 2 more for living room (45 M2)

Is the sensor wrong? Do I need to replace it? I don't believe we have any other sensors than the ones inside the unit.

juliamc
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I can’t answer with specifics for the Ecodan but with heat pumps generally. There will be a motorised three port valve in the pipe work which sends the heat either to the radiators or the hot water cylinder, but not both at the same time . If you schedule the hot water to be heated when you least need the radiators you won’t notice this. I heat mine at night during my cheap rate hours, and again at 3pm when the house is warmest.

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