MBtek Apollo Heat Pump
Has anyone used MBtek products before, or seen one of their new heat pumps? It seems they have been in the wood boiler game for a while, and I think maybe geothermal before getting into these air source heat pumps? Price seems very competitive, and their wall mount hydronic air handlers are also cheap, so radiant heat and wall mount cooling using the same heat pump becomes a good combo. And they do not seem to be subject to the large import tariffs that ArcticHeat is from what I can tell (or it’s already baked into the price), but I could be wrong there. But with very little info about the company, there is a decent bit of risk, so I figured I’d post here, see if anyone has used them or is considering it?
The link is for the 2 ton at $2300. The next size up is a 3.5 ton at $3200, that one is an EVI pump. The claim that it works down to -31*F seems bold…
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Hey Superman,
I have also been searching for any feedback regarding these heat pumps with hardly any luck. After enough digging I found they are built in Poland with credible name parts such as Panasonic, Emerson, and Siemens. With that I went ahead and bit the bullet and ordered a 5 ton unit, 3 ton fan coil, and heat pump station for my new shop I built. I plan to use it for radiant floor heat embedded in slab. Ordered it in early October and am told it arrived in US last week and should be delivered this week. So far customer support has been OK. They have always got back to me but sometimes I need to reach out a few times, email + phone call, ect. I'm not thrilled that they have not been able to provide me details regarding the heat pump station accessory, stating they did not receive it from manufacturer yet. All in all so far I'm just really hopeful this thing shows up and works out alright. I have a bit of electrical and plumbing background so I'm planning to install myself. I will let you know what happens!
-Eric
Scruffinator,
Has your Apollo 5 ton arrived yet? I like the price vs. the very few other air to water systems available in the US. I would be very interested in pictures of the inside of the HP, or the pump station. I emailed asking for details of what's in the pump station, but no info yet.
Thanks, Dale
I'm very interested to see how this does.
I believe that air-to-water will break out of being a niche product. There are too many fundamental advantages to piping water through your house instead of refrigerant. I know hydronics is expensive now but I believe if it were done at the scale of minisplits it would be cheaper.
I excited to learn how your experience goes as well. I am in the process of planning a whole new heating system for my house and want to do it using an air-water heat pump. There are very few options here in the U.S. so obviously this one stands out as a prime contender.
Wow, I totally missed the replies here. Please let us know how it goes! I just saw they removed the smaller unit from their site. Hydro Solar has their -20*C models on a 25% off now, looks like they are being replaced with -25*C units. I'm with DC on this, there likely will be a big turning point soon as some competition enters the market.
Frankly it is not a bad looking unit with up to date F&B found with the larger manufactures. I am hung up on the claims of -31f operation yet the data is to -4f. That is a major difference, -4f is basically like the majority of other manufactures. For the deep north -4f places you in the position of requiring secondary energy. Logically it should be fossil based or electric based secondary energy with auto changeover. I have designed dozens of A2WHP installs (I represent another manufacture) some systems requiring up to 6) 4 ton units. I very much want to know more about Apollo but getting a live person on the phone or return email is a challenge. I totally dig there stats! As far as the future of A2WHP's I predict an explosion starting this year. Even companies like Rellio in Italy a 100 year old oil burner manufacture (70% owned by Carrier today) have taken notice and that plant now manufactures A2WHP's as well as oil burners, I think they see market share drying up? Is A2WHP's the answer to fossil based heat? The technology is getting better but the answer from what we know now is nope, just part of the answer. The better question is do we even know what the energy answer is?
A2WHP's are good stuff - be cool!
A2WHP would be great to replace existing boiler systems if they could be plug and play with existing baseboard distribution systems or work with such systems byadding a little additional distribution (e.g., adding a panel boiler or two in the baseboard runs). Of course the big question is what is the outlet water temperature and how big (and expensive) of a buffer tank does it all need?
Still, one approach that might be interesting for someone like me (I have a HW boiler/baseboard system and have added a few low temp A2A mini splits to reduce the boiler use in much of the house) is to replace the boiler with a mix of A2WHP and several low temp A2A mini splits in a well designed mix. For instance, I would love to keep the baseboard system for heating bedrooms and bathrooms instead of having to put wall mounted mini split heads in each; and then put the mini split heads in the great room/kitchen areas...This might actually be cheaper than putting in all A2A mini split systems or running ductwork from a ducted mini split.
If you're in a heating-dominant climate that's the way to go. Add enough minisplit capacity to meet your cooling needs, the minisplits plus your existing radiators at a reduced temperature may be enough to meet your heating needs.
Howdy Nick, traditional boiler designs use affordable high temp baseboard often designed for 176f. This keeps baseboard lengths to a minimum. Any A2WHP for res based use will supply no hotter than 140f and then it is directly tied to ambient conditions, at very low conditions your hot water supply may be down to 105f. Most well engineered A2WHP,s will see the decreased supply starting at about 14f. Today we design for 110f baseboard and these low temp/high output baseboards work well with an A2WHP. There are many rules to hydronic heat but it comes down to the lower the supply the lower your energy cost will be. Even with a well designed oil or gas fired system why 180f when 110f works? Think about your own boiler if you could get the same results in the home with 110f water just how much fuel could you save? Lastly, the buffer tank plays a major role in a well designed system.
thanks!
Hi guys,
Sorry for the delay getting back here. So far my experience has been somewhat disappointing. I finally received the heat pump and pump station on Jan 9th. This is after being promised delivery in October and then again in December. The two fan coils ordered did not show up with it even though they were on the packing list. It appears the carrier lost them along the way and I have no resolution yet. On to the equipment I did receive... the 5 ton heat pump and pump station appear to be robust and well constructed. My major issue is that the controls and wiring are not straightforward, the HP came with marginally useful instructions/diagrams. The station came with no prints or manual at all and they still have not provided one after asking several times. They claim its still being translated from chinese... The other issue I have is with the plumbing connections. Ports on the HP are 2x 1" FNPT and the station has 5x 1-1/4" MNPT. I knew the HP was 1" so I had everything ordered and ready to plumb based on that which obviously won't work, so had to order some reducers. I'm trying to figure the wiring and stuff out still and I'll update more soon. It really isn't too bad looking, but the worst is communication between HP and station and I really hate to guess on it. I'll attach a few pics of the inside also.
-Eric
If you go on AliBaba.com there are literally thousands of air-to-water heat pumps available. From what I've read millions are sold every year in China. Looking at the MBTek website it looks like they are an importer of Chinese equipment.
There's nothing wrong with that, but importing stuff from China has a lot of pitfalls, they should be taking care of that stuff instead of pushing it onto the customers.
Eric any new info on your system? I am thinking of pulling the trigger with MBTEK as well and would love any info or insights you have!
Just wondering Eric,
I assumed Polish manufactured but just read Asian. Most Asian products never make it main stream in North America over the absence of being listed which the code enforcement will want to see before he/she signs off. Do find any label for either Ul or ETL listing? There should be one on the HP tag itself and secondly on the control box. Should this not be approved you may sneak it by enforcement inspection but god forbid there is a fire.
A Google search tells me that Apollo is a rebadged PHNIX, which is Chinese.
Hello all!
Ive been through the SAME communication loop as Scruffinator3K. I purchased the 6 ton unit for my shop early last fall when the website claimed October delivery but I just picked up the HP from my shipping dock today (Jan 25). I've also been very hopeful for 'as promised' performance and am also a little let down by the detail in the user manual. This chat is the most relevant resource I've found regarding the Apollo besides the MbTek website.
I'm impressed by the build quality and must say that everything looks super solidly built. I'm still waiting on the station but will likely try get the HP to heat my space without the station in the mean time as it will likely be 4-6 weeks until that piece arrives. I've also ordered one of the smaller wood boilers as a 'back-up' heat source but am not quite certain of how I'll plumb it all together effectively. When I was communicating with them last year they said that the two units could work in tandem so I hope there is a straightforward way to do so. Will update this once I have some more info soon.
Any update on your system and install journey? I have been working with MBTEK on pricing a very similar system. A wood fire boiler with heat pump backup, radiant floor heating for a shop, fan heads for cooling, and we have an aquaponic greenhouse so we would be using the heat to warm that water too.
I am being told that it is simple and they can work with each other I would just have to have a valve to divert between the 2 different systems. I am worried that the instructions for install will not be all that cut and dry. I am confident I could figure it out, but I would like to get enough info to install without having to figure it all out on my own.
I look forward to hearing how your experience has been so far. Thanks for any info!
Yes I do have updates...sorry to be the negative nancy in the chat but I had nothing but an outright miserable experience working with the MBTEK crew. My heat pump did arrive after 5 months of delays but none of the rest of the system arrived with it. As you presumed of the instructions, they were pretty difficult to understand and even labeling between the instruction and the electronic control board were different from each other. Im a pretty handy guy but it was daunting enough that I wasnt feeling confident about the DIY. When my boiler finally arrived another month later, it was trashed. Not MBTEKs fault but of course just another challenge. For me, that was the last straw. With over half the system still not delivered and various valves still 'out of stock' after 6 months, I cancelled. We NEEDED heat last fall and they'd strung me along through a very cold winter and we'd had enough. Within a week I had functional heat using a different heat source, should've done that months earlier. Of course, I'm losing efficiency and capacity this way but despite my higher electrical bill, it'll take 10 years to even equal the upfront investment cost of the heat pump...still not sure how I feel about it now but at least we're warm.
Thanks for the update. I hate your experience was terrible. Certainly makes me think if I try them I'll need to get some schematics from them first and know that they have the units available.
Aside from the shilling damage did it seems like the units were built well? If you had been able to have all the pieces and get it hooked up, did you get the feeling that use/operation would have been good. Or did you get underwhelming impressions on the quality too? I realize that more of a hypothetical. Thanks again
That's very unfortunate. Seems like the wait for an affordable heat pump goes on! Hydrosolar having their outgoing model at 25% off is probably the best price for now. But especially with the niche market these have, a place that has good tech support for a DIY'er would be key. I don't know how that is at the different suppliers.
Were you able to get your money back when you canceled. I have now paid for my 6 ton unit and am going through a similar round of commitments and delays. I don’t trust what they tell me anymore. I think I need to cancel.
I am very interested to hear more about the experience. Literally the only cost effective ATW heat pump I have found. (Also why is it so hard to get pricing on HVAC equipment??? Like what is the big secret...).
The big secret is they're sold through installers at a markup. The manufacturer doesn't know how much the installer is going to mark it up. So the manufacturer doesn't want to embarrass the installer by saying, "This unit costs $X" and then the customer gets a proposal from the installer with a price much higher than $X.
Hi All, I just saw this post and I'm a little late to the party but wanted to share my experience. Like Scruffinator3K, I ordered the 5 ton air to water heat pump around July 2022 was told it would arrive October and I finally received in January. I installed it myself and commissioned in April so my experience is only for Summer and late Spring so far. I don't have experience with the pump station or fan coils but have gotten pretty into the weeds on how the 5 ton unit functions. If anyone still has questions let me know and I can elaborate but I'll touch on some highlights:
-As already covered, shipping time is a crap shoot, I am transitioning from an aging but still in service oil boiler so I could afford to wait. Having time to plan and be patient, and probably not fully relying on this as your only heat source would bring the stress level down (not ideal I know). It seems like their lead times have improved though.
-The installation manual leaves much to be desired, but has been improving. I've been following the various iterations of installation manuals on the website and it looks like new iterations of controllers and hardware have been swapped willy nilly so its hard to know what you are going to get. On the plus side, the newer controller looks much more feature rich and improved from my model so its a plus with buying later.
-MBTEK support does always get back to me but I wasn't impressed with their knowledge. They forward all technical requests to the manufacturer and are not particularly organized about it so you may need to ask several times before getting an adequate response.
-Their hardware looks nice and well made, but I am really disappointed with the controls. Its buggy, lacks features, and isn't particularly effective at managing the variable speed hardware. Like I mentioned, if you order now you'll get a new controller which looks much better but I don't have experience with it. The controller was so bad I have resorted to building my own. I have a background in electronics so this was fun for me but clearly not a good product experience.
-The main problem with the controller is a lack of built in outdoor reset control or weather compensation. You can only select one static temperature and have to change it manually.
- Also with mild temperatures, the 5 ton has way more capacity than the load but the controller is very aggressive with the compressor frequency, operating it way higher than it needs to be and not reducing until its already too late. It essentially takes away some of the value of the variable speed. I sized the unit expecting the output could be modulated to 1/3 of nominal but it rarely if ever operates that way in practice, so that was another thing I changed to improve its efficiency.
-The water pump control is either always on, follow the compressor or turn on in 50% duty cycle intervals. There's no option to run for a delay after the compressor shuts off to purge remaining heat. A time delay relay can help with this.
-If you are using a buffer tank, the heat pump does not know the tank temperature unless the water pump is running. If you are planning for the buffer to supply a zone for a while with the heat pump off, I guess the heat pump just has to guess when to turn back on or you need to keep the pump running which would be a big waste. I think this type of control is better suited to not having a buffer at all, and the heat pump output perfectly matched to the load, if the flow rates work for your system.
-Related to above, MBTEK does not have flow resistance data published for the heat pump. That makes it harder to calculate flow rates for sure. After about a month of asking I received this data which I can share if it helps anyone.
Overall, you can see I was very motivated to get this project done, and MBTek helped get equipment but its far from a polished system. I can't yet speak to reliability or longevity, and how MBTEK handles warranty claims etc, but they ultimately helped me achieve my goal of transitioning the house off oil in the most cost effective way. I sure hope the situation gets better to allow others to do the same more easily. I am excited not to screw around pre-buying oil contracts this heating season, and the unit has been successfully supplying domestic hot water for us all Summer. Let's hope for a successful winter!
Are these heat pumps CSA certified?
Bumping this up once again... Looks like MBtek is getting a new pump soon. Appears to be an R290 pump (propane). Global warming coefficient is just 3 on propane, so that's a bit improvement. They also claim it has an output of 175*F. I'm a little skeptical of that. But I have seen other R290 heat pump manufacturers claim similar numbers. PHNIX just came out with an R290 heat pump, so I'm wondering if that's what this is. Bosch and LG also announced R290 AWHPs for Europe.
https://www.mbtek.com/products/apollo-heat-pump-max-heat-36k-btu-3-ton-air-to-water-evi-inverter-dc-technology?currency=USD&variant=42985806987441&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=d198bed80d89&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Heat+Pump+-+US+-+2023/06&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8032062895&hsa_cam=20146627096&hsa_grp=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt=&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiApaarBhB7EiwAYiMwqhVFcukTYelshuC2cw93eNboCCd-_OQbejYHKNBnRQeViPInzIlIJhoCnocQAvD_BwE
Why not go with the Phnix system instead?
Is there that much difference in price?
https://www.phnix-e.com/r290-greentherm-heat-pump.html
I believe PHNIX only sells through resellers.
You can only order by the 40ft container from PHNIX. But yes, I would like to find a reseller that would ship a PHNIX to the US, if that's not what MBTek's is. Based on the above comments, I'm a bit skeptical of MBtek's quality/support. I'd be more open to low quality support if I was paying closer to wholesale pricing. MBTek has a pretty large markup.
I wonder if we will start seeing R290 in other A2A heat pumps as well soon as fluorinated refrigerants are phased out.
Hi Tim,
I saw the R290 units as well, that is exciting about the use of low GWP refrigerant. There were a couple more things I was looking for too: 1) Improved efficiency: EcoForest and Vaillant in Europe are showing over 500% efficiency for 95F water temp in around 45F air temp with their R290 units 2) higher water temps for domestic hot water, efficiency will be lower at those high temps but at least you can do it if you need.
There isn't much info about the units other than efficiency data, but it didn't look any better than the current units, I'm hoping its wrong. Tim, what do you think MBTek's markup is, have you seen whole sale price quote? I'm fairly certain they are using PHNIX as their manufacturer, same with Arctic heat pumps and Spacepak.
Sorry, I missed your reply. I agree, it is exciting if it really has better performance. They are advertising $4k for the smallest one. I'm not sure what a PHNIX unit costs, but similar ones on Alibaba are in the $1500-$2000 range I think. Then you have to account for shipping from China, 25% tariff, other import fees... If you went through Alibaba or any chinese supplier, I bet you would be at $3000 at a minimum with lots of headache.
I didn't know Spacepak also used Phnix, I haven't given their heat pump much thought due to the price.
I've just installed an Apollo 6-ton HP with pump station. Lots of shipping delays like others. Nice looking gear. Been running for a couple weeks now. My system is a 6 zone hydronic system with about 17 loops at 300ft each. Took quite a bit of lengthy discussion with tech support to get it setup properly. The pump station is nice but ultimately not as well suited for the way my system is setup and run. My zones are radiant ceiling panels meant for both heating and cooling. The other issue for me is that nat gas is very cheap here, so even the best heat pump tech can't compete on run cost for heating when Temps drop below 30F.
What sort of controls are you using for radiant cooling? I didn't see that advertised on MBteks website.
By controls, do you mean thermostats or are you asking how to control the heat pump?
Do you have a way of controlling humidity? Or do you live in a climate where that isn't an issue?
Hi Brett, I’m about to set up my new 5 ton unit and was wondering if you’d be willing to help a bit. It’s a combo of infloor radiant and FCUs and I’m wondering how you wired multiple loops onto one zone.
Unfortunately, MBTEK misled me on the purchase. They claimed that the heat pump/pump station was capable of controlling up to 6 zones. This is false. There is no zone control on the units. They assume that you will purchase their actuators for the manifold and connect them directly to the Thermostats. I used a taco zone controller connected to Ecobee thermostats. However, I believe MBTEK now offers their own zone controler.
For multiple loops on one zone, I used Bluefin manifolds from supplyhouse. Each is controlled by a Taco Sentry zone valve.
I may be selling my Apollo Pump Station if anyone is interested. It's just not suited to my system.
Can you talk a bit more about how your zones are configured and how MBTEK wants them to work?
I may be selling my Apollo Pump Station if anyone is interested. Was only used for a couple weeks. Not ideal for my type of system.
Hi ,as I see You have beed talking about phnix heat pumps ..so please read about ovestrating COP,SCOp by this manufacturer its big problem in EU, Poland articles https://poland.postsen.com/business/420700/The-Office-of-Competition-and-Consumer-Protection-will-take-care-of-heat-pumps-Poland-is-flooded-with-products-from-China.html
https://www.moviesonline.ca/test-heat-pumps-those-arriving-from-china-are-of-particular-concern/ and files here You will see that phnix is not alone https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/13XNc0JD08WkncRkY6Ravw3muwORz5qXX
Thanks for posting this Pawel. I believe MBTek is a Phnix pump too. Their claims are a bit ridiculous. The upcoming R290 pump claims 175* water even in -31F/-35C weather. To even function in that temperature weather would be a huge leap forward for heat pumps.
Can anyone speak to the newer heat pump controller for the standard EVI units? There are so few air-to-water hp options that don't seem to be priced as a luxury product, which makes these Mbtek/Apollo units very attractive. My experience in talking to the Mbtek sales team is the experience of people who have actually installed them will have the most valuable information.
I think everyone who is selling air-to-water heat pumps in the US is importing and rebadging them. This is something you can do yourself via Alibaba.com if you wish.
My observation is that the reason they're priced as luxury products is that pricing reflects the true cost of supporting the product before and after the sale, since they are niche products there's a lot of wrinkles. Frankly, I think the reason MBTek has issues is that they're trying to do it on the cheap.
Importing items of that size from Alibaba costs a decent chunk too. Alibaba gets it to your nearest customs port of entry and that's that. You're on the hook for the rest, including the 25% tariff on Chinese built heat pumps. Basically, what I'm saying is, MBtek's price isn't as far off from Alibaba's as it seems.
I found MbTek after looking at Alibaba units. Obviously, there are huge advantages to (ostensibly) having support in North America along with a warranty tied to a domestic business.
Clarifying on the comment above about "luxury product" pricing, I was thinking along the lines of the Taco System M, which I assume is an amazing heat pump, but based on the one price I've seen online, you could get roughly 3-4 equivalent MbTek units (with pump, backup heat and buffer tank) or probably 2.5 Chilitrx units (I haven't seen prices for SpacePak online). I definitely could see the difference in price between SpacePak and an MbTek unit being support before and after sale, but I don't understand the difference between the MbTek units and say a $30k AWHP.
Before everybody gets too excited about an R-290 heat pump, please know that there is no building code in the US (and I am pretty sure Canada) that allows the installation of an HVAC heat pump with a charge of more than 114g of A3 refrigerant. A 4-ton unit will have a much higher charge. Further, no unit with a charge greater than 144g can be certified to meet CSA/UL 60335-2-40.
Good to know. MbTek is advertising an estimate of May for the R290 pump now. I wonder if they are waiting on regulatory change?
The EPA is proposing raising the limit to 500g.
That's unlikely, as you can see in the posting history on this thread, nearly every heat pump related item MBTEK imports has delays for this reason or that. Most likely because they are not high on PHNX priority list for allocating deliveries. I am curious though how/if these units are certified for sale in the US.
Doe anyone know if the outdoor unit is useable without the pump station? In the current iteration the pump station appears to be 3/4 the cost of the heat pump itself, and I'm not sure I see the value of the contents. In my planned application I just need on/off, heat/cool, and then pump the contents into a big buffer tank. System control (with heavy zoning) will be elsewhere.
My read of the installation manual is that these control inputs do exist on the main unit so I think it ought to work, as long as the LCD controller is not required or ships with the main unit.
From what I see the pump station raises the system price from attractive to Spackepak/Arctic levels. Your mileage may differ.
It's not required to have the pump station. Really it is just a convenience issue as they are trying to make full systems plug-n-play. I got the pump station but my system is so complex that I didn't end up using it. If you want the convenience of the pump station but not the price tag, mine is sitting in my utility room, not being used. I only used it for a bit over a month. I'll sell it to you at a nice discount. Just haven't gotten around to listing it for sale yet.
You don't need the pump station, you can fit whatever components you need outside of that. It looks like they have a new pump station version with some upgraded features but not worth almost 3x the price in my opinion. The controller module ships with the outdoor unit. Also that controller is for changing configuration and displaying information. Once your configuration is what you want, then it doesn't even need to be plugged in.
Has anyone managed to get a full schematic and sequence of operations on the heat pump unit out of MBTek? I’ve had a partially-functional unit for nearly a year, never have been able to get it to produce chilled water and an struggling to troubleshoot with the manual that is useful for install but has no real details on what is going on inside the unit. I’ve been asking them for months. I don’t think the tech support (out of Venezuela) has access but I’m at my wits end on trying to figure out how to contact someone who does.
Hi AndreaLaw, sorry for the trouble. I don't have any more documentation than you have access to but I can offer my experience. I likely have an older version of the controller than you do as it was changed at the end of 2022 or so, but I might be able to help somewhat if you describe your issues in more detail.
The unit claims to be producing cold water, as the sensor is telling us not only is it at the desired 55° but it’s constantly dropping well below it causing it to go into antifreeze mode. We’ve checked all of the piping from the unit to the house and found no blockage or disconnect.
But after a summer of tinkering, we still are not able to get any cold water to flow out of the unit and to the wall units, or even into the house. We’ve had to rely on portable air-conditioning all summer.
The other issue that is constantly giving us a high pressure alarm, a low pressure alarm, and a pressure delta alarm. Although the unit does produce domestic hot water (the only thing it’s ever successfully done) It doesn’t do so consistently because it turns itself off because of these alarms.
At one time it did produce hot water to go into the radiant flooring, Though it had the same problem of constant alarms. It never sent hot water to the wall units successfully.
MBTEK sent us an extra in-line pump, Which didn’t seem to resolve the issue, a replacement flow switch, that prevented the flow switch alarms, but we continue to get all of the pressure alarms.
They also sent us a replacement outdoor unit after our first unit didn’t have any refrigerant in it.
So we have had the system installed for over a year, and have been unable to get heat, hot water, or cold air out of it with any level of consistency.
It’s been miserable, I built a brand new house from scratch only to have it constantly be cold or hot and regularly get cold showers.
Pressure alarms can certainly be caused by having no or low refrigerant, I can't believe that happened, wild. Did you ever get an explanation of what happened there?
Anyway, from your description that the heat pump seems to be producing hot and cold water but its not getting to where you want seems to be a flow and/or controls problem. The heat pump really only controls one circulator on its own, more if you have the pump station but you didn't say. If you have more circulators or zone valves in your system then those need to be controlled via thermostats and zone relays, so a schematic of your system would help. If the circulators are running, you may have too low flow due to pipe diameter too small or circulator undersized or both.
Heat exchanger area/capacity relative to your heat pump capacity also matter. If your heat pump does 5 tons but your water heater or fan coil can only emit 1 ton, then the heat pump will hit its temp/pressure limits. The variable speed mitigates that but if the imbalance is too great, the heat pump can't turn down enough. A buffer tank, less zoning may help. Also are the fans on your fan coils activating when you are calling for heating and cooling?
Some of these things may be specific to Apollo products but many are general hydronic system design which you need a good grasp of to work with Apollo products because they do not provide comprehensive system design as far as I know.
We have the heat pump station, and an extra pump.
We do have a buffer tank, but I am thinking of putting the wall units (1.5 ton) in serial on each floor, rather than in parallel/seperate zones as they are now, to deal with the flow issue. (Reducing the zones from 6 to 3) fans blow, but there is no cool or hot water for it to blow over. The radiant (currently the first of 6 zones) did work fairly well, so water was moving through some of it at some point.
Our next step is to up the piping diameter so there is no step down, leaving it at 1.5” as long as possible.
They sell it as “do it yourself” which blows. It never was made clear if the system never had refrigerant in it, or if it leaked out, either way I have a “spare” useless 5ton paperweight in my yard. I’m nearly 40k in to having HVAC guys help me, from three different companies now, for a system that was supposed to save me money. I’ve finally found a hydronic guy who is a spacepak expert so I’m hoping he can help. I got the spacepak manual for the other PHNX produced system which helped him with the particulars of the sensors.
I think there is still something up with the flow switch even though we replaced it, but we’ll have to evaluate that as we move though the troubleshooting.
If your zone circulators and fan coils are being activated but no water is running through there might be air in the system. For every parallel zone you need to flush and fill them separately. In general its more efficient to have parallel runs, not sure why you'd change to series. By reducing zoning I just meant to have all the zones on at the same time. Anyway if you have a pro looking into it I'm sure they'll figure this out, hope it goes well.
I agree. There is likely air in the system. My loops all have individual flow meters and I was getting terrible readings. Even after the plumber flushed the lines the problem remained. Turns out it was because the pump used to flush the lines was cheap and introduced a bunch of microbubbles into the fluid. Left to sit overnight, certain high spots in the loops would create large air pockets and the small circulator pumps were too weak to push it out. Also, the plumber located the air bleeders in bad spots. I moved the Caleffi Discal from being just downstream of the pump to being just upstream of the pump so the fluid inside the discal was seeing lower system pressure and larger bubbles instead of higher system pressure and smaller bubbles. Then I added a little Watts auto-bleeder to the return line just before the buffer tank.
The moment I added the bigger high head pump, there was 40 minutes of audibly listening to both valves releasing air from the system. Even after doing everything we could to flush the lines. A few weeks later and the system doesn't have any air and the flow gauges are all steady at 0.8-ish gpm.
FWIW... my system was throwing a lot of faults on the factory settings. I spent a few hours on the phone with Jesus from tech support and he was fairly helpful, but then I just dug into each parameter and figured out what each was and what the result of changing it would be. I got it mostly dialed in but still got alarms sometimes. In the end one of the biggest issues was not having fast enough flow through the 5-ton unit. It can really on modulate down to about 20% output without throwing faults. If the water isn't pumping through the unit fast enough there is no amount of fiddling with the controls that is going to help. It's easy for them to throw another pump at it, but most circulator pumps are low head, so if your loops are too small, or too long (or both), of if the main trunk is undersized, or if you have too many separate zones for such a big unit, you'll keep getting pressure and temp alarms.
In the factory settings, the startup RPS on the compressor stay too high for too long which causes the heat or cold to way overshoot the target temp. Also the factory settings likely have the control temp set to Inlet Temp (controlling the compressor speed based on the temperature of the returning water). That was entirely useless for me amd was causing the system to overshoot the set temp and resulting in pressure and temp faults. I can't really think of a good reason to leave it set to inlet temp, because there are too many variables affecting the return water temp, the primary ones being flow flow rate and conditoned area. A proper system shouldn't use inlet temp as the control knob to balance the system. I changed it to control for the Outlet Temp, and I adjusted the startup time and RPSs down so that it ramps to the set temp slower. I also had to increase the rate at which the compressor down modulates, because the factory setting is so slow it was taking too long to ramp down and then giving the pressure or temp limit fault.
So I have 6 hydronic zones in a 5,500sf house. Any time that there was only 1 zone open, the flow was just to slow through such a big unit. Because the unit really wants to see something like 6-10gpm flow rate. But my zones generally have four 1/2" pex loops running at about 0.8 gpm. Even at that flow rate, my delta-T is only about 5° F in cooling mode. As I type this, it's 90F outside and sunny and I've got 3 zones open with a 5° F delta-T and the house is at 70F inside. The compressor in the 5-ton unit is running steady at 24% capacity (27rps). So you can see the problem if only 1 zone is open. The HP simply cannot modulate down to 5% output. So I had to ensure that there was enough flow. First, I installed a bypass valve that opens if there is too little flow through the loops. It just bypasses the loops and goes straight to the return line to the buffer tank. Second, I chose a zone that could be left open all the time without a problem (my conditioned storage) and manually opened that valve. This ensures that at least two zones are open any time the HP is running.
The final thing I had to do was change the pump and upsize the main trunks. My hydronic loops are 1/2" pex at 300ft length with some fittings mid run. That was producing enough head loss that it didn't really matter how many pumps I added, the flow was limited. You cannot just add more pumps if head loss is the flow problem. The small circulators in the pump station and in most hydronic systems simply cannot overcome the friction. So I changed the main trunks up to 1 1/2" copper which helped as the main trunks were no longer adding almost any head to the system. But because the loop lengths were a bit too long, I ended up swapping for a larger, higher head, pump. My loops went from 0.25gpm to 0.8-0.9gpm with this change. Adding more small pumps would've only helped if the GPM rating on the pumps was too low for the system. But those small circulators have plenty of volume. The two pumps inside your pump station are each rated at something like 19gpm without friction. But just not high enough head rating. With typical system head loss, they can only give you about 6-7gpm. And because head loss is exponential, adding a 3rd pump will only increase it to 8gpm. And a fourth pump would only increase to 8.5gpm.
After making these adjustments, my system just purs along at about 35% capacity and almost never throws a fault. If I had setup my system with just 2 zones and limited all my loop lengths to 200ft, and started with main trunks at 1 1/2" ID, the two small pumps in the pump station would've worked fine and I'd be spending about $5 less per month running them. But I still would've had to adjust the parameters on the HP to prevent it from constantly overshooting the set temp and shutting down.
I think this is the issue why these system will have such a hard time taking off. There are too many ways to build it wrong.
It sound like the problem with your setup isn't per say the euqipment but how it is plumbed.
If you have properly plumbed setup with a buffer tank, the flow rate through your emitters should have nothing to do with the flow rate through the heat pump. These need to be two separate circuits with their own pumps. Pretty much no electrical connection between the two side. Done properly, everything would have worked right out of the box. There also would not have been any issues with smaller zones.
It is good that the equipment can be programmed to run as a single loop but this is beyond what it was intended for.
If you look at MBTEK's diagrams, they suggest to use the buffer tank in series with your zones so that it provides system volume but not hydraulic separation as you alluded to. I plumbed my system with a 4 port buffer tank so that there is hydraulic separation however I wouldn't say it worked properly out of the box. The heat pump does not know the buffer tank temperature, it only knows the temperature of the water flowing through itself so if you want to run your zones from the buffer tank and shut down the heat pump circulator, the heat pump is very likely to turn back on before the buffer tank temperature falls below setpoint. I had to piggy back more controls to get the longer off times I designed for.
Nice information, thanks for sharing. What is the minimum speed the compressor will run on your unit? You mentioned as low as 27RPS, but that maybe you could go lower but not without more alarms? I'd be interested to hear more about that. The data in the manual had 30Hz as the lowest so I figured that was the practical lower limit but not sure. My controller is older and doesn't allow to change anything like this.
Thanks- this is all really helpful- this has been a massively frustrating process.
This sounds like exactly our problem, which makes me feel optimistic that our plan to re-pipe that area and lower the zones will work.
I really don’t understand is why MBTEK recommended a 5 ton unit, knowing I was trying to do 10 zones (5 radiant, 5 wall + dhw) in an 1800sqft new build with 12 inches of spray foam, extra under slab insulation, and super ee casement windows (a single oil filled electric heater kept us toasty all last winter) but, at least I’m confident of I get it working I can heat a greenhouse and pool as well.
Did you not perform a Manual J heat load analysis of the house? It is cheap and easy. The Manual J should determine the size of the unit. 5 ton is very large for 1800sf. My guess is that you are WAY oversized. I would guess that a 3 ton unit is sufficient. This is because of how the sizing is flawed for cold weather. If you are like me, and live in a cold climate, the HP output capacity drops.dramatically when the outdoor temp drops below 20F. This results in a unit that is sized properly for the stated output in the coldest conditions, but way oversized for more moderate average temps. The better thing is just to recognize that air to water HP is not appropriate for heating in places where temps get below 20F. That doesn't mean to abandon the HP, it just means to size up the auxiliary heater and change the HP min outdoor temp setting to shut off the unit when the outdoor temps drop below 20F and just use the auxiliary heaters. This allows you to appropriately size the HP for the conditions that make sense for using it.
So why not just let the HP run down to its stated min ambient temp? Even though they say that these HP units can run down to -20f, that ignores the reality. At those temps, the unit is terribly inefficient (barely better than a COP of 1.0) and they must go through very frequent defrost cycles to stay running, which interrupts your heating cycles. It's better just to set them to shut off once the outdoor temp drops below 20F and use backup heating (either electric or nat gas).
If you run the heat load calcs assuming a min outdoor temp of 20F, you'd see that the proper unit size is 3 ton at most. And this unit would be better at running your system under all the other less extreme conditionsb; not constantly overshooting and sending pressure and temp faults.
With an appropriately sized buffer tank oversizing shouldn't be a problem.
You want an air to water heat pump oversized. This lets it run at lower modulation most of the time which improves COP. You do need to size the buffer tank properly but that is pretty straight forward.
None of this helps if the system is split into too many zones. You have a 60,000btuh heat pump trying to down modulate to like 1,500btuh. Even if you bypass to allow for enough flow through the buffer tank, it results in lower COP. The unit isn't just slightly oversized, it is WAY oversized.
With the right sized buffer tank and plumbing the 1500btu zone is not a problem on a 5 ton unit. This is done all the time and works.
The way this works is the heat pump monitors the temperature of the buffer tank (directly through a sensor or indrectly through return water temp) and only turns on when it falls bellow the setpoint. From there it will run at min modulation until the tank heats up again and shuts off. If the tank and hydraulic circuit is sized correctly this runtime is above the min runtime of the system (usually 15min), so there is no short cycling.
In the mean time that 1500BTU zone can run continuously or cycle on/off it simply doesn't matter. Once it uses up enough heat to lower the tank temperature, the heat pump will start another heat cycle.
This is not as efficient as if the system was running at min modulation all the time (return water temp is higher due to mixing, so COP is slightly lower) but works well.
Post a diagram of your as installed setup, some pictures will also help. Might be able to help narrow down the issue.
DIY in this case means you don't need a refrigeration license to install. The setup still has to be be designed for it to work properly.
My calculations showed a 3-ton, but MBTEK said I should go with the 5-ton and since I’m new to this type of system (other than in theory from working at DOE), I folded and took their advice. They designed the system for me and shipped all the pieces.
I’m in Maryland where it seldom gets cold & will be adding a wood stove this year for backup heat.
I do think the plumbing down to smaller pipe sizes is the problem. We do have a buffer tank, though it is not very large. Jesus did mention needing somewhere else to hold the extra heat, but that is further down the troubleshooting list (excuse for a hot tub?). The guy who helped me install was new to this type of system and I think we made some errors while trying to figure it out- for a system that sells itself as being DIY, it lacks a lot of details.
The heat pump has a minimum modulation and a minimum run time. The purpose of the buffer tank is to allow it to absorb the output so it can run for minimum run time at minimum modulation when there is no heating or cooling load -- keep it from short cycling.
The piping between the heat pump and the buffer tank has to be big enough to carry the flow to support at least minimum modulation.
Five tons = 60,000 BTU = 12 GPM @10F delta. That needs to be at least a 1" pipe if not bigger.
Bigger. No question in my mind. Especially if using PEX which has a smaller ID. If using PEX, no smaller than 1 1/2" main line. Personally, I'd still go with 1 1/2" copper, which offers much less head loss, allowing those small pumps to work as intended.
But with their system, the buffer tank will only solve the problem if there is a bypass valve that will allow more flow when only a single zone is open. If not, the HP will just overshoot its set temp during startup and throw a fault. It'll restart like 5 times and then just shut off with an alarm.
Can you use a Nest thermostat with the pump station. I don’t think I can connect my Nest thermostat to the Heat Pump Mate app. Is there a way to do this or should I just get the expensive MBTek thermostat?
I used Ecobee, but they communicate through a Taco zone controller.
The Apollo HP factory settings do not expect that the thermostat will communicate with the HP. Either the HP just runs all the time or runs intermittently to check for the temperatue of the return water. The thermostat just controls the valves or pump that sends water into the house.
In my case, I've wired the HP to only run when the thermostats are calling for it. This requires you to change a setting on the control module and also remove a jumper and run an additional wire to the HP.
What does “Error syncing time with master node 1 while in startup mode” mean?
Turns out the extension I added to the telephone cable that connects to the controller was not working. Removed it and the error went away.
I need some instructions on how to connect my nest thermostat to my Apollo Heat Pump Station. Can anybody help?