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Ecodanwarrior
Rank 2
October 17, 2023
Solved

Have I setup my Ecodan Correctly?

  • October 17, 2023
  • 31 replies
  • 8344 views

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

    Best answer by James_N

    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

    31 replies

    Show previous replies
    M.isterW
    Rank 6
    M.isterW
    Rank 6
    December 20, 2023

    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 😊
      K
      Newcomer
      Kingstonkerr
      Newcomer
      December 20, 2023

      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
      Retired Moderator
      Emmanuelle_OVO
      Retired Moderator
      December 21, 2023

      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.
      T
      Newcomer
      Trashcan
      Newcomer
      January 8, 2024

      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
      Rank 20
      juliamc
      Rank 20
      January 8, 2024

      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.

      T
      Newcomer
      Trashcan
      Newcomer
      January 8, 2024

      Hmmmm

       

      Well, Ecodan is supposed to be smart😅 and regulate this based upon max temp and temp drop for DHW.

      There are some settings for timer as well that I haven't set up, but I can look into that as well. Not sure if I will run out of DHW if I have it on restricted runs...

      juliamc
      Rank 20
      juliamc
      Rank 20
      January 8, 2024

      I have mine set to ‘schedule and reheat’ which means if the tank temp drops below a given setting (30 deg in my case) it will reheat to 40 deg. For a scheduled heat the tank temp is 49 deg, actually it very rarely triggers a reheat. The tank is 210 litres, it loses very little heat as is well insulated.

      R
      Rank 5
      razor
      Rank 5
      February 16, 2024

      Hi there!

      I have been looking at my hourly temps with the Home Assistant integration and it looks like there is a constant swing in temps, almost 10 degrees ever 30 minutes. Then overnight it settles.

      I have WC set to 45 @ 0 and 25 @ 20 home heats well and energy usage seems OK. Just trying to understand if this is a problem or if there is something I can do to increase efficiency? Also why the flattening of the curve over night?

       

      Abby_OVO
      Community Manager
      Abby_OVO
      Community Manager
      February 23, 2024

      Hey @razor 

       

      Really great question on the flow temperatures.

       

      We’ve had some really good conversations from other users previously on flow temperatures on heat pumps, and even specifically on the Ecodan itself. I’ve linked below to some of those helpful topics:

       

       

      There’s also lots of community members who may be able to give their own perspective of things, @M.isterW @amanda1 @Ecodanwarrior, any thoughts would be appreciated.

       

      Hopefully some of the topics are helpful to you, I know it’s been a fairly common question on the Forum.

      Currently Playing: She's Electric
        R
        Newcomer
        Reistrap
        Newcomer
        January 26, 2025

        Hey there I have the Mitsubishi air source heat pump in my house, zero complaints with anything now that it’s working but at midnight every single night the heating setting goes from 20c to 18c meaning I have to wake up in the morning and set it back to 20. 
         

        Has anyone had trouble with this and know a solution?

        Show more replies
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