Problems with Heat Pump during cold spell!!!

Callow Man

Did anybody here with a geothermal heating system have any problems during the cold spell in Dec/Jan????

I had a lot of low presure errors on my heat pump hence the whole system shut down as a result. The only remedy was to heat only one or two rooms at a time which during the cold weather we had was not the most convienient:mad:.
Just wondering did anyone else see similar issues???

items

Callow Man wrote: »

Did anybody here with a geothermal heating system have any problems during the cold spell in Dec/Jan????

I had a lot of low presure errors on my heat pump hence the whole system shut down as a result. The only remedy was to heat only one or two rooms at a time which during the cold weather we had was not the most convienient:mad:.
Just wondering did anyone else see similar issues???

You shouldn't of had any problems with heat pump due to only weather. Heat pumps work 100% in pretty much the coldest locations in the world, -30 and lower. Very had to tell exactly what the problem could have been all depends on your collector, gas? water? bore hole? ground collector?

If you've got loss of pressure errors then your losing pressure, leak? Have you a top up bottle, if so their should be a fill level marker check to see if level in bottle has lowered. As with everything, errors codes etc should relate to user manual so best look at manual first to diagnose problem. If system is still under warranty best call up who ever installed heat pump.

With heat pumps you have to do your homework, understand how to program correctly and understand the user manual. I've found when working on heat pumps any problems that occurred were fairly minor after final commission problems were due to system settling or homeowner lacking the ability to control heat pump correctly.

Best of luck with it.

ab20

Yeah Hi Lads,

Items is right I have a burst pipe and the pressure won't build up on the heat pump (Vertical Heat Source) at all. I have the plumber come to fix it. The problem is underground, nothing to do with the heat pump it is just that the water feed runs to another outside pipe and that is why the pressure is dropping. Apart from a problem I had at the start when the system was commissioned I find it works grand now.

The initial problems was that I was getting some rooms warm and other rooms not heating up. Now if my mind serves me correctly what was happening was as a result of the way the flow and return was situated coming out of the buffer tank. (This took ages to sort - even the installer didn't know. I ended up telling him what I thought it was and it worked).

The situation was the the pumps circulating the water from the buffer tank to the underfloor pipework must be working in a way that only one is pushing and one is pulling the water. In my case he had the pipework mixed he had the return water going into the top of the tank and the bottom of the tank was pulling cold water as well (I think! If I remember rightly) So we were only getting a small proportion of the hot water circulating round under the floor and some rooms were subsequently not getting heated. So make sure that your pumps are connected correctly.

Also I built an extension and connected it to the heatpump (I requested a pump strong enought to do the job at the start) it has been a situation that since the first pipework went into the first floor the centres were only 200mm apart and in the new extension they are 150. And I have to say in the extension the heating comes on and there is great heat out of the floors after it gets up to an ambient temperature. The 200 centers in the main house are good too. But you can really notice the difference.

Hope this helps.


Best of Luck.

AB20

Callow Man

Thanks for the input lads.

Everything working fine for now so will leave well enough alone.

On the plus side starting to get some return from the solar panels in the last week or two so that will take some of the pressure off the heat pump.

Cheers
CM.