Bubbles...

Unknown

Foreign crap day!

Check these out. Remember this job? Soldered the last joint today and put the pressure to it. All my threaded joits held. Seeing the tank hold on the inlets was very relieving. Touched up 3 solder joints. Guess I'm getting old. Pressure it up again. Still losing pressure. Then I notice "the bubbles". Just HAPPENED to get soap on the couplings checking the threads. I went from elation to misery in about .008 seconds. LOL...

Both couplings at that spot were seeping like that. Ones, as you can see, had multiple pinholes(3). There's 2 more couplings at the other end of the ecoflex, they were not leaking. I pretested the two new ones prior to changing them. Same couplings, no leaks.

All fixed now, we'll see what it's holding in the morning.

Yes it's ok to put the tank upside down. I called the mfg. ;)

Paul Cooke

Robur

Please tell me about this heat pump. What size home or business is it serving?

Is it made in the US or Germany?

Is this for a radiant floor system?

So many questions.

What a drag to have to deal with crummy fittings.

Unknown

Well,

It is assembled in Italy using mostly off the shelf US components.

If you go the the "Gas Absorption Heat Pump" thread I just posted a down and dirty on how it works.

http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&Thread_ID=63019&mc=2

Unknown

Link...

It's coming up a little wierd so you have to scroll up to the first post to see the pics.

http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&&Message_ID=439643&_#Message439643

Unknown

Another link

Same thing, scroll up to the first post. This is the first series of pics I posted with more explanation

http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&&Message_ID=434942&_#Message434942

Paul Cooke

Robur

Thanks for the info.

Any idea how these units compare to an all electric heat pump? Seems as thought they would out-perform them.

It would also be nice if they made one with a smaller output.

Unknown

It

will outperform air source conventional hp on the heat side. It will operate down to -20* ODT but SHUTS OFF below that. A consideration for the colder climates. I put it to my custmers here in CT like this. "If you'd like we can install a backup boiler to cover the one time every few years where it might go below -20 outside." So far noone has wanted me to. My thought is if it DOES go below -20 it will only happen between say 3 AM and 7AM plus if you're heating concrete with it the heat stored in the concrete should carry you through. I can't ever recall it getting that cold here but truth be known the record for CT is -32* if you can believe that. Now A/C wise Robur claims it performs at about a 14 SEER but can't qualify that because SEER calculations do not apply correctly to ammonia based chillers. I'll say one thing negative though. This job cost a lot more to install in real life than it looked like it should on paper so A. I'm not getting rich on this one (even though it looks like I should LOL) B. If I had charged what I SHOULD have on this it probably wouldn't have gone through. C. The local gas co paid a substantial rebate to this guy, nearly 1/3. Without this, even at my cut rate price, it wouldn't have gone through either. So I question whether it would really be worth it in the long run if it was priced more realistically.

Unknown

Oh,,,

yes, I've been after them for a 3 ton unit for a while now. They claim it's not worth it because it would still cost nearly as much to manufacture. The thing about it is even if it was grossly oversized, like 5 tons for 2.5 ton needs, the unit will only put out the amount of cooling/heating necessary to satisfy the load. So in effect it is a variable output unit but again, the amount of $ you'd spend to just use 2.5 tons of it is way out of proportion when compared to a conventional 2.5 ton system install.

Paul Cooke

The future

I think we are going to see quite a few new air to water heat pumps coming on the market in the next couple of years. I just wish some American manufacturers would get out there and start producing them.

From what I have heard, the Chinese will be leading the way.

Unknown

Guess what...

Robur has released a MODULATING heat pump in Europe. If it works ok over there for a couple more years they'll probably release it here. They are very careful about making sure stuff works before they send it out anywhere. I'm reading it exceeds 170%.

If China doesn't start producing better quality than those couplings I got from them they're going to have a tough time selling me anything. I still owe the supply house owner an earful about what kind of cheap junk he's trying to sell me. He loves it when I do that. We go back a ways.