Ecobee 3 Lite Thermostat

06honda

We just moved into a new apartment that has a HRV & Ecobee 3 Lite wall thermostat. When the thermostat is off the HRV continues to run 24/7 with neither cold or warm air. The building manager said this is the way it is designed to run. When I live in a house my HRV never ran 24/7 due to the fact that their are many times when you want the windows open so their would be no point in having it on. The closet the HRV is in is locked and we are not suppose to touch it. Is there a setting on the Ecobee 3 Lite that would allow the heat and or air to just come on and run when needed. When we go to bed the Ecobee shows equipment is off but the system is still circulating air 24/7. The temp outside here in Ontario is 9 Celisus and the indoor temp with the HRV running usually stays around 22.5 - 23 Celisus.

Gilmorrie

Excuse my ignorance - what is an HRV? I'm unfamiliar with an Ecobee 3 Lite. Is this all for a hot-water or steam boiler?

06honda

Heat recovery ventilation (HRV), also known as mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR), is an energy recovery ventilation system using equipment known as a heat recovery ventilator, heat exchanger, air exchanger, or air-to-air heat exchanger which employs a cross flow or counter-flow heat exchanger (countercurrent heat exchange) between the inbound and outbound air flow.

It is for heating and cooling.

Ecobee 3 Lite: https://ecobee.com/ecobee3-lite/

SuperJ

It maybe that there is hardwired link from the HRV to the furnace fan to circulate whenever the HRV is running. Most HRV's come with a control panel that lets you select a humidity setpoint for the winter, and offers some control. You can often choose high speed, low speed, or minutes per hour of runtime. It's often a waste of energy to run the HRV 100% of the time. Even with the heat recovery it still adds a lot of heating load when it's cold out to bring in fresh air constantly.

I suspect the Ecobee is probably just controlling the heating and cooling but not the fresh air. I believe it has an aux terminal that is configurable for a bunch of different purposes.

You could simply pull the Ecobee off it's base, and see if the HRV stops. If not then the HRV is not controlled by the ecobee.

HVACNUT

Every apartment has their own HRV?
I'm thinking, much like a VAV, the building HVAC system runs the fan constantly and is probably branch ducted through the HRV.
Does the Ecobee control a motorized damper that's faulty.
My wife's cousin had a similar problem in her Boston apartment. Bad damper.

06honda

My understanding when we did the walk around with the building manager that it works the same in all the apartments for all 14 floors, but couldn't explain exactly how it works IE: wiring etc. This morning where I live it is 5 Celsius outside and 22 Celsisus in my apt with no heat on. They may be a good thing for the up coming winter for heating.

krimm

This is odd. I think Ecobee can take over the HRV. We didn't encounter this with our ecobee so far. I hope you got this figured out soon though. Have you tried checking for your neighbors if this happens to them as well?

Jamie Hall

It's not a problem with the Ecobee -- rather it is the way that particular building is set up, seems to me. If the building management wants the HRV on all the time -- and there may be a building code requirement for a certain number of air changes per hour which will require that it be on -- you're pretty well stuck.