dimming lights from large geothermal heat pump

Speedy Petey · 01-13-2011, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by atuel

Is the 190A on each leg a total of 380A out of the 400A service or when they say 400A service, will it do that much on both legs?

Yes. It is 400A @ 240V.

In simple terms, what you have is 190A out of 400A available.

atuel · 01-13-2011, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Know It ALL

What in the world would add up to 190 amps? Your power bill must be near $1500 per month. Just curious.

Its not 190A continuous... it hit that high for a few seconds. I dont have the actual data, but I suspect it was probably something like 120A and then had about 70A inrush when the heat pump kicked on and then dropped back down to 140 give or take.

And I doubt that was sustained all day long. My elec bill has been in the $200-250 range (I think high, but its a small town coop, so its high even for the area in general). When they first came to hook up the monitor, we had a late start day and were still sleeping when they got here with nothing on in the house. They knocked to ask if we had anything on as they didnt see hardly anything at that time.

So guessing I might have a high usage when I'm actually home and awake, but when at work or sleeping, I guess I dont use much of anything. Wish I had a branch monitor to tell me where and what...

3 legged dog · 01-13-2011, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by atuel

Well crap... seems its user error here on the voltage drop at the can lights. I thought it was turned all the way up, but apparently theres a few more higher settings even though the top LED indicator was on.

So its actually reading 111V and can drop as low as 107-108V when the heat pump kicks on in low mode. That'd be about the same 4V drop the poco measured before during the soft starts they caught the previous week. I havent caught a start directly into high yet.

I was reading on another forum though that these scroll type compressors have a high in rush particularly when its cold. Its something about the oils inside them having a much high viscosity when its cold.

Prior to reading that, I had my crawl space entry (inside the non-heated garage) open (mostly from being lazy), so my crawl space was 30-40F when it was 20F or below outside. With my new HVAC, we sealed the crawl space with insulation on the walls and liner on the ground. We also installed some air inducers there so its semi-conditioned. Essentially, its within 10-15 degrees of the inside temp of the house. Since I've done this, it has not have a case of the very significant dimming in the past 2 days.

What size compressor. Scroll compressors usually have lower inrush than recips. Maybe the start components are going south.

Still 120 amps is a lot. With 4 people in my family, I dont think I even come close.

atuel · 01-13-2011, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3 legged dog

What size compressor. Scroll compressors usually have lower inrush than recips. Maybe the start components are going south.

Still 120 amps is a lot. With 4 people in my family, I dont think I even come close.

Its a 5 ton heat pump... though I remember it seemed to be underrated when I looked at the specs before deciding on this. Its a WaterFurnace envision dual capacity 064 horizontal model with a copeland ultratech scroll. The 064 number seemed to correlate to the actual compressor rating (meaning 6.4 ton). I found this on some doc the water furnace rep sent me when they were trying to win me over against FHP.

Its just me and my wife in the house... 3000sq ft. $230 for a recent power bill with useage at 1740kwh.

I think I'd have to damn near get everything in my house running to get that high. I guess I can have a tendency to do that as a lot of days I will come home and swap in the laundry (washer, dryer, water heater), do the dishes (dishwasher, water heater), and start dinner (range, fridge, microwave). I feed the cats at the same time which in turn causes them to go use the cat genies shortly there after and get them going at the same time.

Just taking a really rough estimate at current draw mostly from pulling averages off the internet and some based on power labels I could easily read. Given, these numbers are maximums and probably are not running at maximum all the time and not all running at maximum at the same time. I guess I could get there, but it'd be only for a few hours a night before things calm down.

heat pump - 20-40A
dishwasher - 10-20A (30-60A total)
dryer - 20-25A (50-85A total)
washer - 5-10A (55-95A total)
water heater - 20-30A (75-125A total)
2 cat genie - 10A (85-135A total)
router/server - 5-10A (90-145A total)
fridge - 5-10A (95-155A total)
range (induction) - 30-50A (125-205A total)
microwave - 5-10A (135A-215A total)
2 laptops - 2-3A
TV DLP - 4-5A
TV LCD - 3A
2 playstations - 6A
2 DVRs - 1-3A
LR light (6x65w) - 4A
LR fan (2) - 2-3A
Kitch ligth (10x26W) - 2A
Hall light (5x26W) - 1A
security light (back) - 1A
security light (front) - 4A
air filter
tabletop humidifier

3 legged dog · 01-13-2011, 11:35 PM

A 5 ton scroll will draw about 20-25 amp on geo with a proper sized air handler. If the circulating pump(s) come on at the same time I would expect 30-40 amp inrush for a split second. Any higher and there is a problem at the geo.

atuel · 01-14-2011, 05:16 AM

Ratings from the mfg:

Code:

                                                                                      
---------------------------------------------------------------  HWG     Ext    Fan    Total    Min    Max
Model    Rated            Voltage    ------Compressor------      Pump   Loop  Motor   Unit    Circ    Fuse/
Model    Voltage          Min/Max    MCC  RLA   LRA    LRA**     FLA     FLA   FLA      FLA    Amp    HACR

 064     208-230/60/1  197/254    40.0   25.6  118.0  41.0       0.4      5.4    7.0     38.4   44.8     70

NOTES:
* With optional 1 HP ECM2 motor
** With optional IntelliStartTM
Rated voltage of 208/230/60/1
Min/Max voltage on 197/254
All fuses Class RK-5
HACR circuit breaker in USA only

Page 16 if you want the original table: http://www.waterfurnace.com/literatu...n/IM1000AN.pdf

01-13-2011, 11:35 PM	#65
3 legged dog MXer Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: South West Coast Posts: 128	dimming lights from large geothermal heat pump A 5 ton scroll will draw about 20-25 amp on geo with a proper sized air handler. If the circulating pump(s) come on at the same time I would expect 30-40 amp inrush for a split second. Any higher and there is a problem at the geo.

01-14-2011, 05:16 AM	#66
atuel Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 43	dimming lights from large geothermal heat pump Ratings from the mfg: Code: --------------------------------------------------------------- HWG Ext Fan Total Min Max Model Rated Voltage ------Compressor------ Pump Loop Motor Unit Circ Fuse/ Model Voltage Min/Max MCC RLA LRA LRA** FLA FLA FLA FLA Amp HACR 064 208-230/60/1 197/254 40.0 25.6 118.0 41.0 0.4 5.4 7.0 38.4 44.8 70 NOTES: * With optional 1 HP ECM2 motor ** With optional IntelliStartTM Rated voltage of 208/230/60/1 Min/Max voltage on 197/254 All fuses Class RK-5 HACR circuit breaker in USA only Page 16 if you want the original table: http://www.waterfurnace.com/literatu...n/IM1000AN.pdf Last edited by atuel; 01-14-2011 at 05:37 AM. Reason: formated table to make it readable

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dimming lights from large geothermal heat pump