Hydronic Heat Pump. Help!!

beetwice

Hi, we're planning to change our heating system to a hydronic heat pump. And a local manufacturer, WISELIVING who is known in my area released their new product which is a heat pump. Do you have any recommendations or suggestions on the brand?

Jamie Hall

At this stage of your thinking, the brand is almost completely irrelevant. You need to establish what heating load the device is expected to handle -- the heat loss of your structure. Then, since it is hydronic, you need to establish what temperature water will be required. If you are using existing emitters, that will be determined by their characteristics. If you are using new, they will be selected in conjunction with the heat pump. Then you need to determine what heat source (air, ground?) the heat pump will use and the characteristics of that (if air, for instance, what is the minimum air temperature you will expect the heat pump to actually work at?).

Then you can come up with some specifications for the heat pump.

Then you can begin to look for heat pumps which meet those specifications... at which point you need to consider not only the brand but the skill and experience of the installer. These things aren't plug and play; an inexperienced installer can make even the best brand into junk in about 10 minutes.

EBEBRATT-Ed

I would look at "Water Furnace" I installed a few and liked the quality

Hot_water_fan

This is a good resource:

https://idronics.caleffi.com/magazine/27-air-water-heat-pump-systems

as is the 25th edition:

https://idronics.caleffi.com/magazine/25-lowering-water-temperature-existing-hydronic-systems

Air to water is less common than air-to-air, this is probably true in Australia too. Do you have existing ductwork?

motoguy128

beetwice said:

Hi, we're planning to change our heating system to a hydronic heat pump. And a local manufacturer, WISELIVING who is known in my area released their new product which is a heat pump. Do you have any recommendations or suggestions on the brand?

WISELIVING is in Australia. The product is a Air to water inverter heat pump. Not sure who makes it for them or if they built their own in house.

This is primarily a US & Canada site with more specific info like that.

But as mentioned, you really need ot know what your heat loss in in the home and make sure its sized right. These type of heat pumps have been around a while but they aren’t mainstream. They are pretty expensive. The one challenge with them is there a lot of sensors and control crammed into a small box. The sensors and controls are pretty cheap quality. They can be tricky to service.