Heat Pump Question...


  #1  
Old 01-25-05, 06:59 PM
juju151
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Heat Pump Question...

I have a ADP air handler, but not sure if this is the brand of heat pump I have??? The heat pump seems to be working correctly from what I can see, and works great above 40 degrees. Heat pump alone works fine, emergency heat alone works fine...but either of them alone is not enough to keep the house up to thermostat setting. You can set the thermostat to 85+ when outside temp is 30 and below and it will only get up to the mid 60's in the house. So my question is...Aren't the two supposed to work together?

When the outside unit/compressor is running, the big line is hot, and the coils are giving off warm air in the handler...96/98 degrees coming from vent. But when I turn on the emergency heat with the thermostat switch, the outside unit/compressor doesn't run, and the big line cools down. So the air coming out of the vent is about the same...mid 90's, which is coming from the electric coils. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Juju
 
  #2  
Old 01-26-05, 04:38 AM
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The only time the heat pump and electric heat run together is when the stat is in regular heat mode and if the temp drops 2º - 4º below setpoint with the heat pump running the electric heat coils will kick in to help. Putting the stat in emergency mode kills the connection to the heat pump and only runs the electric heat.

96º-98º from the vent isn't that bad. Do you have a clean filter in the airhandler and are all the vents and returns open?

If it's all clean and the vents are open and the unit is putting out that kind of air the system may be undersized or you have insulation problems in your house.
 
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Old 01-26-05, 07:18 AM
juju151
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Ok...thanks for the info. That make sense, when the heat is on normal, the AUX light is on most of the time. I'll check to see if the vent temp is different when the AUX light is off verses on. But it just seems that no matter how high you turn the heat up, it just won't get above 65-68 degrees in the house when the outside temp is below 35 degrees. I believe the unit is a 3-ton and all the duct work looks good, no leaks that I can find, filter is new. The house is 1500 sqft with a 1000 sqft basement heated...so about 2500 sqft total. The house was built and unit installed in 1999...the whole rear of the house is windows from basement to loft, so that may be part of the problem...vaulted ceiling in upstairs living room doesn't help either. But the unit and installation from what I can see looks great and I would think that this setup would do a little better than it does.
 
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Old 01-26-05, 01:13 PM
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Wink

If you want ,that it wont hold the temp when it is real cold out . In most blower coil units there is room to add more heater strips/ You could look into this if you want as more back up. Does the attic there have a R 38 or more in it. That can help????

ED
 
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Old 01-26-05, 04:48 PM
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Red face

Juju
ADP is made by Lennox and they over engineer their controls. There might be a sensor in by the blower that won't let all the aux. heaters turn on. These can be wired to have equal amounts of heat energized in the aux. heat mode and the emer. heat mode. It is real hard to say what is what. I would have to look at a shcematic on this or just run down the wires one by one.
 
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Old 01-27-05, 08:28 AM
juju151
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I appreciate the help guys... The attic has a ton of insulation in it...the floor of the attic has the kind that is blown in...and the inner walls of the attic have the type that comes in a roll. I had to work in the stuff when I install the attic decking up there, so I could use the attic for storage. Also, the front of the handler has part numbers for all of the different KW heat strips...so getting hotter strips is a possibility. Unfortunately, these strips are behind a panel that has alot of HOT wires connected to relays and switches, etc...which is right above the fan, so I'd say it would be just about impossible to know how may KW's these are or if the strips are working as they should, or if they are not working at full power with the unit running and calling for aux heat. There is a wiring diagram on the inside of the unit, which is straight forward...I can see the incoming wires from the breaker, which comes into a block with multiple wires coming out...those go to the heat strips, fan , etc. Doesn't look too complicated, but I wish that I could actually see the heat strips while the unit was running. There are 2 heat strips in this unit, and it looks like it wouldn't be real easy to get to them. All of the returns are open and pulling air very good...but I do have a few of the vents closed in unused rooms to try to bring the heat to the other parts of the house we need it in more, so would this be a problem? But I did close these vents because of this problem in the first place, so even with them open it still wasn't getting the house up to the thermostat setting.
 
 

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