Are the sensors attached to the pipe work or in sockets from the 449?, if they are then you can scroll down through the menu to the power reading and although not bang on the button will be close to the cop you are actually achieving. I used to do this before I purchased all my kit from here to go with my 449 meter. Just had a quick look at mine and emoncms is reporting a cop of 3.18 and the heat meter is reading 3.6. This at least will give you an insight if there is a massive difference between Mel cloud and the heat meter. I would try and get accurate information first before changing anything on your system.
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Absolutely agree Mike, this is what i’ve told my friend.
We need to get all the info we can before deciding on a course of action. 
And part of that is ensuring what we are seeing now is accurate.
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Thanks David
I’d only ever seen photos of shiny coloured LLH before. I didn’t realise you can get them this big, or looking like buffer tanks. Learn something every day about heating! 
You’re right about pumps either side. There’s a main pump on the return (heat pump side) and then a secondary pump the other side of the buffer/llh heading to the heating circuit.
The heating circuit is just one big rad circuit. All open, with TRV (but set high/open).
Which makes me wonder why they have the LLH/buffer… unless the main pump hasn’t got the power to push through the small bore pipe? So need the secondary pump to help?
And my next question, how do you work out how what flow rates you need on either side of the buffer/LLH? 
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I’m gonna post this here, but there’s long story of original installer going bust, MCS getting involved, different installer coming and doing ‘remedial work’ and the outdoor unit being replaced just a few months ago.
All in all, seems like a usual MCS approved installer mess. 
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Hi there,
I thought I’d respond (owner of the system) - sensors are attached to the pipework (on the primary flow / primary return) - cable tied and then under insulation.
Ill see what I can get to from the menu’s and report back - may need a pointer to the menu layout if I get stuck!
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I also have an 11 kW EcoDan, so I’ll add what I know about my system.
The EcoDan has it’s own temperature and flow sensors, so is theoretically able to estimate the COP based on those readings. They won’t have been calibrated though. It would be worth tracing where those sensors have been connected to the plumbing, and double-check they’re in the correct location. [see this thread]
I’d have expected the Sontex to have been wired into the EcoDan, so that Melcloud would report real, calibrate heat measurements. Assuming it’s been correctly configured that is.
There should be an electric meter somewhere nearby too, installed at the same time, also wired in. What are the kWh readings from both meters? That will give you another COP to compare. Possibly worth taking weekly readings for a while…
This sounds like it’s running well, except for the COP.
Looking at the MelCloud chart, the COP is way lower during the second year compared to the first. Something has changed with their system such that it is performing worse now. Have they had it serviced recently? Also note that the COP in the summer when only heating water is particularly poor, suggesting there’s an issue on the heatpump side rather than the heating side. The electric usage for hot water has also risen over the 2 years, so assuming that household consumption is the same, it is taking more energy to heat that water.
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Also, what flow temperatures are being reported? The Hourly Temperatures report could be enlightening.
Tip: If you view the Energy Report for the last month, you’ll see bars for each day. If you select the same start/end date then you’ll see energy per hour.
We found both the ecodan and sontex temp probes. They are cable tied to the copper pipework, but nothing more. We could look at refitting those with some thermal paste/cable tie/kitchen foil etc as per @johncantor recommendation
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I’m hoping most of the volume of that black ‘tank’ in the photo is insulation covering the actual LLH pipework.
Quite. If it’s just one emitter circuit then some concern about pump spec / capacity seems most likely. It would be good to understand the installer’s rationale for specifying a LLH in this scenario.
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For heat meter use, the sensors must be in a pocket. heat (Kw) is proportional to dt, so if the dt drops to say 3, then small sensor errors make a big difference. I need to look though my old notes… they are quite old now. For general flow/return sensing. strap-on should be good enough.
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I’ve attached an example of the flow and return temperatures, and delivered and consumed energy as reported in Melcloud.
Let me know if these where not what you meant.
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To my mind, this provides a bit of a buffer to stop the HP short cycling. If something reduces the flow through the heating circuit while the HP is running, the buffer will fill up with heat until the DT drops too low and it stops. The Heating circuit can continue to run gradually draining the Buffer until the DT drops again and the HP kicks in.
Yep.
Significantly reduces the accuracy.
Someone mentioned that they needed to clean the filters regularly and it did make a difference to performance.
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It would be nice to see a graph of the temperatures of the 4 sensors on the buffer/LLH. This would give an idea if its passing healthily, or if there is unwanted ‘dilution’
re heat readings. Someone should attempt to calibrate the Mitsi sensors (after strapping on VERY well) and see how this affects the heat readings. I assume it will… Simply running the circ pump with HP stopped and seeing if the flow & return temperures come together would help (being mindful of potential pipe losses) Sadly, Mitsi don’t display decimal points (what were they thinking?!) so not sure how to calibrate them.
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The unit has been serviced yearly and the filter regularly checked. Last time it was serviced there were no issues as far as I recall. (Thanks for the suggestion though!)
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Yes John, I need to work out the most cost effective way to get all this into emoncms for Kev.
Based on the stats i’ve seen, I think the pump speeds look like this.
So why is the primary side running at 1260 for a 6 metre round trip in 28mm copper, but the secondary side, battling with 22mm plastic and 3 floors to cover is only 1100?
I’ll be honest, I don’t understand the relationship between the primary/secondary side and how you decide the pumps speeds etc.
Yes, these are what I mean. Studying these charts may help you understand what the heat pump is doing. Also look at tank temperatures during hot water cycle.
I’m particularly curious about what’s happening around 10am when is only heating water, and the COP is less than one! How is the hot water configured? How big is the cylinder?
It is possible to scrape data directly from Melcloud into Emoncms without any additional hardware; that’s what I do (with apologies to OEM guys). There’s a python library somewhere on GitHub, a couple integrations for HomeAssistant, or can write your own.
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It’s a 200l Telford tempest cylinder - definitely a heat pump cylinder (I queried this before). Apologies - when you say how is it configured - do you mean physically i.e pipe runs or are you meaning actual settings on the heat pump/ftc5 controller?
It would be beneficial if you were pumping slightly more on the circuit side or at least matching your input from the heat pump. At the moment your heatpump is producing more heat into the buffer than is being delivered to your heating which will make your heatpump cycle more. So you are after trying to get your dT the same over the whole installation, if you have 40 degrees in at the buffer you want 40 out, 35 degrees back into the buffer and 35 out of the buffer back to your heat pump. That’s the ideal scenario.
At this point, both would be helpful to know.
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