Introducing HeatpumpMonitor.org - a public dashboard of heat pump performance

Thanks all

Agreed.

Good point, we could add some text to the effect of, we recommend asking asking the installer if they are happy for the system to be listed.

@Vinny good points, including that information in notes makes a lot of sense.

We are working on an upgraded backend for heatpumpmonitor.org to include these fields and many of the others raised before around system boundaries etc. Hopefully have something to show soon! :slight_smile:

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Has something gone awry with the heat pump list? @Timbones

image

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Looks to have been a temporary hiccup that was fixed shortly after. Carry on!

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Weā€™re making progress on the next version of heatpumpmonitor.org. Thought I would share a couple of screenshots of what we are building:

Login system

List of systems / option to add multiple systems per account

System details form / editor

More to share on all of this soonā€¦

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Looking good Trystan. Iā€™ve already asked my installer and theyā€™ve very happy to be listed.

One thought about the tick boxes at the bottom of that screenshot; would it be worth providing (links to) definitions of terms like Buffer and Low Loss Header? Maybe you have that covered elsewhere on the page, especially if weā€™re including details of system boundaries where we need everyone to be using the same definitions.

I have a two-pipe Buffer (on the flow side, which purely adds volume) and a four-pipe Low Loss Header (which does hydraulic separation for three emitter circuits, each with their own pumps) so I would plan to tick both boxes (although my Buffer doesnā€™t actually do hydraulic separation, so maybe that would be wrong).

Maybe using terms like Two-Pipe Buffer versus Four-Pipe Buffer would be clearer - or maybe that would cause more confusionā€¦

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I have a three-pipe buffer!

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Is it possible to automatically add weather data if people put their postcode into the heatpump app?
Almost like a default addition to the data collected.

Many of the installs on the big list arenā€™t showing outside temp data and I feel this is very important to show when trying compare performance between units.

Is there a free weather data stream that could be used?

In my install I provide the outdoor temp from a probe connected into the heatpump hat, but obviously not everyone is going to go to those extremes.

OpenWeather

From Weather model - OpenWeatherMap

With our APIs, you can get data for any location on the globe: minutely forecast for the two hours, hourly forecasts for one week, current weather, and history for the 40 years back, with a vast range of meteorological parameters. All these remarkable products are available for free with up to 1 million calls per month. For those who are looking for a bigger service, we provide several paid subscriptions and a range of historical products.

Although the page at the link above says 1 million calls per month for free, this page:

says 1,000 calls per day, which should still be sufficient. :wink:

With the amazing recent chatter on Twitter about hot water performance, iā€™m wondering how it could be possible to isolate just DHW performance of the heat pumps on the list?

I know weā€™ve talked about this before, but it seems more relevant than ever. And Iā€™m keen as anyone to understand my own performance to try and improve it.

Could some hardware be created to somehow know when the diverter is in hot water mode?
Or can we use a CT clamp or something?

Iā€™m just thinking about a generic way that would work on all installs, regardless of make/model etc.

Many of us could isolate pumps watts in a feed cos we monitor that stuff via extra emontx etc, but thatā€™s pretty hacky and not for your average installer to want to mess with. Itā€™s almost like we need an out of the box way of doing it?

Any thoughts? @glyn.hudson @TrystanLea

I feel it would be amazing to create comparisons between heat pumps on hot water runsā€¦ especially outside temp, target temp comparisons?

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Some systems already do this (though I donā€™t know how many), so the data aggregation could be provided with an extra feed to indicate heating or DHW, and provide analysis of that data from those systems where it available.

Ecodanā€™s Melcloud, for example, provides 0/1 values for each circulation pump, as well as separate energy readings for heating and hot water. So I can setup a 2nd ā€œMy Heatpumpā€ app that only shows hot water: Emoncms - app view (compared to my primary one that has both).

Does the data youā€™re reading direct from Vaillant via eBus have any flag or register for DHW? This is how I do it for my Samsung, thereā€™s a modbus register for the position of the 3-port valve.

What 3-port valve have you got? Does it have a built-in microswitch? e.g the Mut Meccanica Tovo SV does, but a standard Honeywell does not.

The fallback solution would be to attach a CT around the 3-port valve live or neutral cable, this solution will work for everyone but requires extra monitoring hardware e.g emonTx V4, emonVS voltage sensor and 20A CT. The power used by the three port valve will be very small, so it needs a very accurate monitor, I donā€™t think the old emonPi with a 100A sensor would be good enough.

Iā€™ve fully played with the ebus thingā€¦ no time at the moment.

Oh, I already know when my system is doing a hot water run as I can see the watts rise on the CT clamp iā€™ve got attached to the Vaillant controller.

(iā€™ve got a honeywell 3-port BTW).

But I was thinking that we could come up with a generic method that could be used by everyone.
Rather than hooky solutions for us geeks?

Hi I am wondering whether it would be worth allowing the annual energy performance to be displayed as kWh/m2 in the same way as ā€œproperty infoā€ columns? That way both sets of data would be displayed as like for like.

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Probably a silly question but for the dashboard, when referring to ā€œHeat Demandā€ is this just for space heating or also for hot water?

I can see the benefit of both options but to allow for an apples to apples comparison would it be possible to either ask for both fields or to clarify which is required?.

Alternatively while it would require some additional scraping of data, for UK based users could you not ask for the EPC URL and pull the property type, city, floor space, heat demand directly from there?

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Hello @KnightPhoenix, good question, it should be both and could be clarified. The monitored data is both so as you say making sure the heat demand figure is both is needed for a apples to apples comparison.

It would be interesting to collect data for EPC heat demand and subsequent heat demand as calculated in the heat loss survey. Thatā€™s a good idea to try and pull in data from the EPC database.

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10 posts were split to a new topic: HeatpumpMonitor.org v2 discussion