Are there any further updates for this issue?
Has Vaillant acknowledged there is a problem and improved the design or a component etc?
I’m currently getting quotes and the 7kW Arotherm was a contender, but this thread has put me off!
Vaillant are replacing their Arotherm Plus heat pumps with new models. They were announced in March and will be available in Germany in September. Vaillant claim they are quieter and more efficient. They look better and have fewer restrictions as to placement near doors and windows etc. Hopefully they will be available in the UK soon.
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Not necessarily related to compressor noise but for anyone interested in max output capacities under defrost conditions we’re looking for help this winter in establishing if the pump speed setting max or auto makes any difference. A couple of systems indicate that the max pump setting might enable higher outputs Vaillant maximum output capacity testing - #183 by TrystanLea
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Tristian, higer speed and narrower DT will give higher MWT so should give marginally higher output
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Thanks @UrbanPlumber seems more than marginal on these two units, they are hitting 6kW both on 5 kW units, one is over a 7 hour period and the other a 1.6h period, there’s more in the post here Vaillant maximum output capacity testing - #183 by TrystanLea . Like I said I think it’s a bit early to be conclusive, would like to see what difference toggling the setting makes on a single unit going flat out during defrost conditions.
hello everyone, had my 7KW installed in June this year. ill start by saying its not that noisy outside like the videos ive seen here with the horrible buzzing sound like a trapped wasp. but i am suffering the resonating inside the house in the quite long 28mm primaries that run through the ceiling/floor void to the hw tank cupboard. what noise the outside unit does make is around 8khz which sounds like the electronic inverter and 90hz which im guessing is the compressor.
inside im getting 70-90hz at just over -50db depending on compressor power output. which is noticeable even in the lounge and bedroom which are opposite corners of the house to the heat pump. being low frequency it tends to travel through the building fabric more.
my situation is that the straight 28mm runs between the outside wall and hw tank cupboard were run by my plumber who used nail fixed white plastic clips the installer used some in the hw cupboard that have 2 screw holes and are a solid plastic. when i spoke to Vaillant tech they said they should have isolated the primaries from the house using maybe some rubber gromet clips, he wasnt very fourth coming with a part number. anyway the installer says they cant do anything, they havent actually visited site to listen to the noise, but the put a warranty call into Vaillant. this is where im stuck at the moment. Vaillant want £98 if they think the heat pump is ok and im not prepared for them to come round and blame the plumbers pipework and charge me for the privilege. the installer has only done the pipework outside to the heat pump and the pipework inside the hw cupboard. it ended up being done like this as needed to get ceilings back up and install date wasnt set. but it does mean 3 parties are involved in the finger pointing game.
what i would like to know before i potentially put my money on the line is do the primaries once they enter the property need to be mounted in any special way as its been like trying to pin jelly down getting a yes or no answer out of Vaillant with any part numbers of clips. my primaries outside are on stand off bolt rubber lined brackets with primary pro flexis about 750mm long and im still getting internal resonance, have i got a warranty case?
I am in a similar situation with my 7kW Arotherm plus. I have had it just over a year now so coming up for second winter. I have vibration noise throughout the house as well as angry buzzing from the compressor. This wasn’t there from new. It took around 5 months for it to develop. Initially I contacted my installer who visited and contacted Valliant. Engineer came out and measured the sound and said it was within spec. He turned the build pump down to 70%. I don’t think this made any difference to the noise.
Over summer only dhw use on eco so system near silent. A service engineer from my installer did 1 year service and was shocked at the noise. He recommended getting Vaillant out again. I did this and installer came at the same time. Everything was run up to max and although some noise it wasn’t that bad and valliant said nothing wrong.
I’m now not sure what to do. It’s the fact that the system ran through negative temps when new and was fine and the noise developed later. To me that means a fault. I’m thinking of changing how the primary flow is attached under my floors. I can crawl under there.
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hello fellow noise buddy. mines only been in since June so early days i guess on the trapped wasp symptom rearing its ugly head. when you had them come out to it did you get charged by Vaillant? as when my installer tried to get them out Vaillant called me to arrange it and said if no problem found they would charge me £98 even though it was the installer who had put the call in. so at the moment ive declined.
do your primaries run partly inside the house like mine through floors\ceilings?
is yours still driving you nuts with the droning inside the house? one thought ive had is to try and isolate the primaries from the house more, by either adding another set of primary pro flexi hoses, or abandoning the internal primaries totally and running the primaries round the outside of the house to where the plant room is.
Before the first Vaillant visit my installer made the initial call then passed to me to organise a date. Second time the installer also contacted Vaillant who were going to call me. Installer kept asking me if Vaillant had called me so in the end I called them myself. There was never a mention of any fees and, so far, I’ve not had any.
All my pipes are run under the crawl space and attached to the underside of the floor joists. I’m thinking of changing the clips to clamps that go around the insulation. There is a plastic surround to stop it squashing the insulation.
Yes the humming noise can get very annoying. It’s very bad when completing a defrost cycle. You can hear it over the noise of the dishwasher and it is not quiet! Thankfully the bedrooms are at the other end of the house from the heat pump. Even so I had to go to silent mode first thing in the morning as, although not loud, it was waking me up. Obviously that affects the performance.
It’s odd that a flat out pump and compressor does not necessarily replicate the loud noise. I have heard it be quite loud at 50% compressor. Definitely noiser the colder it gets though.
The first thing the last Vaillant guy asked me was “Is it a 7kW?” so I’m sure they know there is a problem.
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Never Mind The Buzz Club.
7kW Arotherm plus - June 2024 – Mid Scotland - 3 bed bungalow
Copper primaries – 1 Open circuit – 7kW Arotherm plus – All rads changed
DHW set to runon schedule - 14:00 to 16:00 (To avoid overnight noise and take advantage of higher outside temp)
Legionella still set to overnight - 1 Per week.Same excessive buzz/vibrations noise experienced during the first winter months in 24 into 25
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Checked the plate where the primaries run from the unit through the wall. - all ok.
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Checked insulation through the walk and around - All ok.
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Unit mounted on 1 raised paving slab with standard feet/mounts.
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Paving slabs below that are not right up to the house wall.
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Ran some tests ramping up heat demand and recorded sound inside and out, also with the Spectroid app to get graphical reperestations of the noise levels before and after ramp up.
My installer came out to service the unit after 1 year, and agreed it was noisy and that he had heard of other 7kW units with the noie issue.
I logged a call with Vaillant, who passed me to a good tech and we discussed all of the above, and agreed that an angineer visit was required. @AdamK They mention the £98 for no fault found, but Tech was kind enough to say they typically dont charge that for ASHP, and it was mainly in place for Gas boiler callouts.
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Engineer appt within 3 weeks of the call.
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A good open minded guy ran through a standard set of checks and talked about settings and possibilities.
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The outside temp was around 11°
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A heat demand ramp up was set and the unit was running flat out.
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The tests with a dB meter at two distances from the unit (1 Metre being the guidance)
– Noise was not excessive outside or in. -
The engineer changed settings and re-ran the test several times. (100% Comp modulation)
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With all the panels off, there were no loose components, and applying pressure to internal pipes and components to check for vibration, or if it dampended by applying any pressure showed no change in the noise levels.
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The engineer did apply a known Vaillant dampening “fix” onto one of the panels, which was simply a sheet of stick backed plastic. We agreed that it was unlikely to reduced the noise/vibration and indeed it did not.
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The level in vibration noise internally was not as loud as it had been during winter
It was written up a no fault found, and that he suspected that the primaries may be clipped onto joists and resonating. (No £98 fee required)
I could not disagree with the approach, tests or conclusion and said it would be interesting suring cold weather where the delta to reach desired temp is greater. (Heat curve 0.6)
- My installer has heat curve at 1.0 initially as well as a number of other settings that have been changed since last winters noise.
I did try setting DHW from ECO to Normal in the last few days and ramped up demand to 70°
It did produce more internal noise than during the engineer visit, but i plan to repeat it with an empty colder tank tomorrow.I will keep trying, and thanks to all of the contributers to this thread.
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I think there are certain power levels that create a harmonic resonance in the pipe work and building fabric. This is why engineers running it flat out are not seeing the same results. I’ve used Spectroid myself and found I get -50db at 91hz inside the house when doing a non eco mode hot water run. I suspect if I could control the compressor manually it would be possible to find the worst power setting. What to a degree throws a spanner in the works when trying to re create the issue is the water pump and diverter valve position as hot water will be in a different position and probably different speed. I did notice in the Vaillant manual hot water default is supposed to be 65% water pump, mines on auto.
Maybe these compressors are different (cheaper?) than the ones fitted to the unicorn silent 7kw units.
It’s good to know we’re not alone.
Interesting hearing of a dampening sheet. The first Vaillant guy I had fitted a rain shield for the electronics but I didn’t see it.
My noise developed towards the end of last winter so in some ways I hope it just develops more and breaks. That way I have a genuine fault!
Hi Adam,
You can control the compressor speed manually, take a look at Mick Wall’s excellent article here:
Vaillant Arotherm Sweet Spot Hot Water Mode | Energy Stats UK
R.
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Very good comment on a resonance point, rather than a flat-out test.
I may structure some tests with multiple conditions, settings, speeds and calibrated spectroid results, as well as pure audio.
Looking through the Sweet Spot article now to see what the control options are.
Another good point on compressor type/part number differences to Unicorn 7kW devices.
I’ll see if there is a detailed parts reference for the models and ages of unit.
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this is what one Vaillant engineers fix was apparently:
not going to help with compressor life if thats whats buried in armacell tape.
It’s 5 degrees C outside and the noise is going to drive me insane. Humming and noise through the house over the sound of the TV.
Not sure I can handle this through the winter. My only hope is that it seems to be getting worse. I can feel the vibrations through my feet on the floor. Maybe a complete failure is what is going to be required to get a fix.
At what point can we say that the heat pump is not fit for purpose? Yes it heats the house, but when the noise and vibration levels are such an annoyance and Vaillant say there is no fault then surely there is a case.
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Welcome to the never mind the buzz club. Mine isn’t as bad but I think it because the hp is oversized so it modulating down to 900-500w then turning off. A blessing in one sense as it means the only time it makes the humming noise is if I use normal hot water mode or when it first starts up from cold for a few mins. My biggest problem is crap reducing the flow so I’m having to clean the strainer once a week ast the moment, my cop being 3.2 for heating and about 4 for hot water (might be because rads not balanced yet), and the thermix plinth heater cycling like mad even though I’ve tried some lower flow temp settings on them (currently 28c). In hindsight I should have fitted ufh in the kitchen.
In one sense the circulation pump is now more annoying with its random rumbling and vibrations in the pipework.
I had a similar issue in my kitchen with nowhere to fit a radiator so ended up oversizing the neighbouring rooms rads.
The noise inside the house is my major annoyance. It is louder than external. I worry that my neighbours are going to complain one day from the outside noise but they haven’t yet.
What I’m not sure about is that for say DHW on eco, so 50 percent compressor, at 5 degrees external temp I am getting the noise and vibrations through the house but if the external temp was say above 10 degrees I would hear nothing inside or outside the house at the same compressor speed. Does the build pump alter much on DHW ? I’m getting around 1200 as expected.
If it had been really cold for a while then dampening rubbers etc may be harder but surely not yet.
Same with heating. If it’s cold the noise is worse the higher the compressor speed but warmer weather at same comp speed is less noisy. Yesterday at 800w I was hearing the noise still through the house and when above 2 kw it was horrendous.
When Vaillant looked at the issues the build pump wasn’t making much noise at all compared to the compressor and they said it was normal.
The joys.
ive found mine is inaudible in the kitchen when doing an ECO hw run, but can still hear it slightly in the utility which is further away, go figure. i havent listened to it when its below 10c though as ive moved the hw heat up time to the early morning as on an EV tariff now and want to save the power in the batteries.
it was a bit noisy over the weekend when it got almost down to frost levels, but as my pump seems oversized it will run hard then modulate down. i might find it more noisy once ive balanced the rads as it will have more water to deal with, plus havent got a rad in the bathroom upstairs yet.
i think im going to have to insulate the bottom of the cupboard that is mainly an issue because we had planned to put food in it, the other one has pots and pans so not a problem, because the constant fan on off or just running even when the kitchen is upto temp is annoying. at the moment ive adjusted the temp to 28c so it doesnt overheat the cupboard.
on the circulation pump noise ive reduced it some by cleaning out both strainers this weekend. flow rate jumped from 820l/h @100% to 1530l/h @100%.