Options for Ducted Heat Pump

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lokhor

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Topic # 230500 26-Feb-2018 20:57

I am in the process of designing and building a house and the company has proposed a Daikin FDYQ100LB as we want a ducted heat pump system. I found some reviews from an Australian site, and it doesn't appear to be very highly rated. I am also unsure if it supports zoning, or a wireless controller or any sort of smart home APIs (very doubtful).

Does anyone have experience with installing a ducted heat pump system that is able to provide advice on good models and brands? I have seen a Mitsubishi one that looks ok, the PEAD 100

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Reply # 1966214 1-Mar-2018 06:14

Bump. any advice would be much appreciated.

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timmmay

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Reply # 1966222 1-Mar-2018 06:59

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There's a few people on GZ that have them, have a look through some other heat pump threads and maybe message them. You might be best off talking to a couple of businesses that work with them regularly, most people have simple split systems.

If I was building a new house I'd go for an integrated heating and ventilation system. The Mitsubishi Lossnay ventilation system can integrate with some of their heat pumps I think. There's also a Fujitsu ducted heat pump system that does I think three rooms you might want to look at.

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Fred99

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Reply # 1966321 1-Mar-2018 09:31

timmmay:

You might be best off talking to a couple of businesses that work with them regularly, most people have simple split systems.

I think that's the key - so long as it's a reputable company.

I'd earmarked $15k for a ducted heat-pump system for our place which has easy sub-floor access. The heat pump supplier spent about an hour or more on site inspecting the place and discussing our heating needs, and ended up strongly recommending two split systems (one floor / one wall) instead, rationale being that they'd be more energy efficient, simpler, and total cost about 1/3 of the ducted system would have been up-front. Downside - the indoor units are visible.

At about the same time a neighbour put in an in-ceiling ducted system, and has since expressed regret as he considers that our system works much better for heating in winter, which was the primary reason for installing the things in the first place. I'm not sure of the reason for that, but possibly that the in-ceiling vents just don't seem to get warm air circulation down to floor level. I don't know if that's a negative feature, or just a flaw in how the system was designed and installed. Both homes are similar age, size, and insulation standard. I assume a sub-floor system could be much better.

timmmay

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Reply # 1966351 1-Mar-2018 09:54

Fred99:

At about the same time a neighbour put in an in-ceiling ducted system, and has since expressed regret as he considers that our system works much better for heating in winter, which was the primary reason for installing the things in the first place. I'm not sure of the reason for that, but possibly that the in-ceiling vents just don't seem to get warm air circulation down to floor level. I don't know if that's a negative feature, or just a flaw in how the system was designed and installed. Both homes are similar age, size, and insulation standard. I assume a sub-floor system could be much better.

A ducted system will probably have less airflow. If they're turning it on when they need it it's probably going to be a lot slower than wall mounted systems.

We've found that leaving the heat pump on all day, even if a few degrees lower, helps make the place feel a lot warmer. I suspect that approach would help a ducted system.

We turn heat both out standard units on high / 25 degrees at 5am (during our Electric Kiwi free hour), down to 21 / 22 at 6am, if everyone's out it goes down to maybe 19 until 4pm when it ramps back up to 21 / 22 for the evening. We turn it off around 10pm, but because the house and everything in it is warmed through the temperature doesn't drop all that much by morning unless it's a super cold windy night. This is with an old house that's quite well insulated and double glazed.

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robfish

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Reply # 1966372 1-Mar-2018 10:05

One of my sons is a Building Services Engineer (specialising in air-conditioning). He designed systems for his own house and for another one of my sons.

They are both in ceiling ducted systems using Daikin equipment but the different house designs meant different specifications for the aircon system.

I trust his expertise over that of a showroom salesperson who probably does no calculations.

Rob

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Reply # 1966388 1-Mar-2018 10:23

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robfish:

I trust his expertise over that of a showroom salesperson who probably does no calculations.

That's why I suggested dealing with a reputable company and mentioned the extensive site visit where quite a lot of time was spent discussing our specific heating needs related to how we use the house.

lokhor

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Reply # 1966491 1-Mar-2018 13:44

robfish:

One of my sons is a Building Services Engineer (specialising in air-conditioning). He designed systems for his own house and for another one of my sons.

They are both in ceiling ducted systems using Daikin equipment but the different house designs meant different specifications for the aircon system.

I trust his expertise over that of a showroom salesperson who probably does no calculations.

I would be interested in having a chat to him as I have received advice from Fantail Services, which is the supplier we have to use with our building company. Apparently we are highly recommended to go Daikin, not recommended to have zones and the only other brands we can consider are Hitachi and Toshiba.

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lokhor

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Reply # 1966496 1-Mar-2018 13:45

timmmay:

There's a few people on GZ that have them, have a look through some other heat pump threads and maybe message them. You might be best off talking to a couple of businesses that work with them regularly, most people have simple split systems.

If I was building a new house I'd go for an integrated heating and ventilation system. The Mitsubishi Lossnay ventilation system can integrate with some of their heat pumps I think. There's also a Fujitsu ducted heat pump system that does I think three rooms you might want to look at.

We are limited in that we can only go Daikin, Hitachi or Toshiba due to the supplier. Only other option is to not get one built in, and instead do heat pumps / ventilation separately.

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mattwnz

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Reply # 1966501 1-Mar-2018 13:51

I look at the ducted, but decided on the multi heatpump system from one outdoor unit instead, using Mitsubishi designer series in silver. Mainly because I didn't have enough roof space for the ducting, as it is a skilion roof. Also there was just a total lack of info and help form the installers. I can't stand the white units which go yellow over time.

robfish

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Reply # 1966509 1-Mar-2018 14:06

lokhor:I would be interested in having a chat to him

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Talkiet

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Reply # 1966527 1-Mar-2018 14:34

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I recently built a home and wanted a ducted heat pump system that could be smart home controlled...

I eventually got a Daikin as I found that their network interface was trivially usable through HTTP etc so if all else failed I could do something myself.

I'm happy with the unit. It's quiet and works well, but the Daikin zone control is total bullsh1t. They have withdrawn their multizone residential controller from the market because it had so many issues and they have repeatedly refused to provide any indication as to whether they will ever offer another version.

Their IP interface is VERY flakey. It does work, but there's no feedback to confirm if a command had been processed and they fail 10-30% of the time.

On balance, if you want home automation integration, I would strongly recommend AGAINST Daikin.

Cheers - N

Talkiet

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Reply # 1966528 1-Mar-2018 14:36

Also, I spoke to every HVAC supplier in Canterbury. If there is one that understands what home automation means, they were away the days I called. They all pushed the cloud and proprietary smartphone apps for controlling the system and called those Home Automation.

Cheers - N

Talkiet

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Reply # 1966533 1-Mar-2018 14:39

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There's also a never mentioned issue with 'zones'... In 90% of cases they don't have remote temperature sensors in the other rooms, so the amount of cooling/heating given to a remote zone is based on the temperature in the main zone.

The way around this is to have out of band temperature measurements for each room and use a 'duty cycle' approach where you modulate the time and fan speed for those zones through an external system. No-one does this for residential systems that I could find - you'd have to do it yourself (and with a reliable API and motorised ducts) it shouldn't be that hard.

Cheers - N

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Reply # 1966577 1-Mar-2018 15:49

We went ducted in our current house, removing a high wall in the living space at the same time.

I briefly considered a split system, but since I needed to reach the entire house, it didn't seem all that practical. I considered zone control, but on the Panasonic and Fujitsu units, zone control is just opening and closing a damper on the outlets to enable or disable output to those outlets. There didn't seem to be any smart systems that would reduce flow to a zone if it was closer to the desired temperature than another zone.

There have been two unexpected upsides to ducted over standalone or split systems:

1 - The system is very very quiet compared to the high wall we had. At low speeds the only sound is from the intake vents (and it is just a gentle hiss). At full blast, it still isn't all that loud... definitely no need to turn up the TV or anything. With the highwall, we were constantly fighting the noise to hear the TV etc.

2 - With it having outlets in virtually all rooms of the house, there is good airflow throughout the house so even with closed windows in some rooms, they get a supply of fresher air from elsewhere in the house. Add an optional ventilation intake and it can be drawing a percentage of intake air directly from outside.

It is a lot more expensive to install a ducted system and probably more expensive to run since it is running for the whole house or not at all, but depending on your use case, these two additional benefits can soften the blow. For us, in a house that has massive thermal gain so it needs cooling even during the day in winter, ducted is much easier to live with due to the fairly constant temperature throughout the house and quiet operation. The only thing I'd add is the ventilation intake option.

lokhor

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Reply # 1966579 1-Mar-2018 15:51

Talkiet:

I recently built a home and wanted a ducted heat pump system that could be smart home controlled...

I eventually got a Daikin as I found that their network interface was trivially usable through HTTP etc so if all else failed I could do something myself.

I'm happy with the unit. It's quiet and works well, but the Daikin zone control is total bullsh1t. They have withdrawn their multizone residential controller from the market because it had so many issues and they have repeatedly refused to provide any indication as to whether they will ever offer another version.

Their IP interface is VERY flakey. It does work, but there's no feedback to confirm if a command had been processed and they fail 10-30% of the time.

On balance, if you want home automation integration, I would strongly recommend AGAINST Daikin.

Cheers - N

Does it work ok if you don't use any zoning?

Lead Consultant @Intergen
All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

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