Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pumps and the Small Addition

The popularity of ductless mini-split heat pumps has grown tremendously in recent years. They’re a great way to add cooling to a hydronically heated home because they don’t need bulky ductwork. But like many new things, there’s a tendency to apply them to as many situations as possible, including some that they may not be well suited for. One such misapplication is as the sole heating and cooling source for a small addition.

Ductless mini-split heat pumps are usually an air-to-air heat pump — meaning it takes outside air and strips it of its heat value and transfers that heat to your home to provide space heating. For cooling, the cycle is reversed — it pulls the heat out of your house and expels it to the outdoors. You could think of a heat pump as an air conditioner that’s capable of working in reverse.

Heat pumps are nothing new, but the configuration of the ductless mini-split is. The condensing unit is located outdoors and a refrigeration lineset, small drain and wiring are run into your home through a 3˝ opening in an outside wall. They supply the indoor unit, which is usually mounted high on a wall and contains the blower and indoor controls. Ductless mini-splits are incredibly quiet (inside and out) and efficient.

I’m often asked to design a heating and cooling system for a small addition to an existing home (less than 1000 sq. ft). The first thing I look at is the capacity of the existing system to handle the addition’s extra heat and cooling load. More often than not, especially with forced air, the existing system can’t do the job. The system in a hydronically heated home can almost always handle the additional heating load but it obviously can’t provide cooling.

That usually leads to someone suggesting a ductless mini-split heat pump for heating and cooling the addition. It’s tempting, because it’s a relatively easy, quick and inexpensive installation. And here’s where the misapplication comes in. As an example, let’s apply a ductless mini-split heat pump to a typical 700 sq. ft. master bedroom, bath and laundry addition.

An addition like this would typically have about a 14,000 Btu/hr heat load on the coldest day of the year (considered 0˚F in the Rochester, NY area). It would also require just under 1 Ton (12,000 Btu/hr) of cooling on the warmest day of the year (considered 90˚F in this area). Both design loads would keep the indoor temperature at 70˚F.

Now, when sizing a heat pump, you size for the greatest load (heating or cooling) so you can be sure there’s enough capacity for both seasons. In our example case, as with most applications in this climate, the largest load is the heating load. So wouldn’t logic dictate that we’d need a heat pump rated for 14,000 Btu/hr? Not so fast.

We also need to consider the fact that as the outdoor temperature drops, so does the efficiency of the heat pump. In fact, even though some of the newer models are capable of providing heat down to an outdoor temperature of -4˚F, at those temperatures their heat output drops to near 50% of rated capacity. So now we realize that we need to DOUBLE the capacity of the heat pump to have any chance of maintaining our 70˚F indoor temperature on a 0˚F day.

That means we’re looking at installing a heat pump with a 28,000 Btu/hr minimum capacity, which actually works out fairly well, because heat pumps come in a 2-1/2-Ton size (30,000 Btu/hr). So now that we’ve decided that we need a 30,000 Btu/hr unit for heating, let’s see how that works for the cooling side.

Remember, the cooling load is 12,000 Btu/hr on the warmest days (90˚F). And there’s a 30,000 Btu/hr capacity. Simple math tells us that on even the warmest days, our heat pump is oversized (for cooling) by 250%. And, as you’ve heard me preach before, in cooling (and heating), bigger is not necessarily better.

Most of the better ductless mini-split heat pumps these days use inverter technology to modulate the compressor speed, which tailors the output to the load. With our example, the compressor would modulate down to 40% of capacity on the WARMEST day. That means that on a milder day it may need to be operating in the single-digit-capacity numbers. The problem arises when the compressor is only capable of modulating down to 30% of capacity, meaning that anything less than 75% of the maximum cooling load (in our example) will be asking the heat pump to work below its minimum capacity — which will be the bulk of the cooling season!

When a heat pump is asked to work in a range below its minimum capacity, it will short-cycle and, as a consequence, fail to properly dehumidify. We’ve discussed short-cycling and its consequences before — less comfort, less efficiency, increased maintenance and shorter equipment life.

For this example addition, the ductless mini-split “kind of” does the job. It can either do an acceptable job of heating with not-so-good cooling, or an awesome job of cooling with unacceptable heating performance.

So if a ductless mini-split isn’t the answer to heating and cooling your small addition, what is? Be sure to check next week’s Heidronics blog post for the answer.

Heidronically yours,

Wayne

When More Power Isn’t Always the Winner

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The Daytona 500 is all about speed and power and getting to the finish line first. Hydronics is basically the opposite — but you’d never know that from the way most hot water heating systems are installed these days.

Historically, North American hydronic designers and installers have specified and installed circulating pumps that pump more water and use more power than what is actually needed. It’s called “over-pumping.” And if a system underperforms, the first reaction of many technicians is to install a bigger, more powerful pump. But this almost never solves the problem.

It’s a chicken vs. egg thing. Installers either don’t have the knowledge or won’t take the time to calculate the pumping requirements for the system, and wholesalers don’t stock more than a few different pump models. I’ve heard installers justify their pump choice by the “bigger is better” mentality. And wholesalers have told me that they’d stock a wider variety of pumps but the installers aren’t asking for them. That’s a shame.

In hydronics, like stock car racing, the object is to go round and round until you cross the finish line and meet your goal. But unlike stock car racing, the winner in hydronics gets there with as little effort and speed as possible. The goal is delivering the right amount of heat from the boiler to the heat emitter (radiator, radiant floor panel or baseboard heater, for example). Pushing the water faster doesn’t make that happen any better. It just wastes energy!

Over-pumping can also create a condition known as velocity noise, which is caused by the water traveling too fast through the pipe and fittings. It can also cause erosion corrosion — a wearing away, or eroding, of the pipe wall due to the scouring action of high-velocity water flow.

But there’s hope. A new generation of circulators uses variable-speed technology and highly efficient electronically commutated (ECM) motors to vary their output to the specific needs of your system. If a zone valve closes, the pump slows down. If another opens up, the pump speeds up. Some are

Variable-speed ECM circulator

designed to operate on a pressure difference. Others operate on a temperature difference. But either type delivers just the flow necessary to heat the space, and either will consume much less electricity to accomplish the same results as compared to a bigger pump.

I’ve been using these variable-speed ECM pumps for several years now and have found them to be incredibly energy-efficient and versatile — especially for systems subject to changing flow-rate requirements. But they’re not the answer for a poorly designed system. While these pumps are capable of responding to a wider range of conditions, they still have their limitations. The application of solid design principles will determine the best application for these new-generation pumps.

You could compare great hydronic pumping to the tortoise and the hare. A bigger, faster pump will just wear out your system while a slower, steadier, variable-speed pump, like the tortoise, will win the race — every time.

Heidronically yours,

Wayne

# 5 - Quiet: Why a hydronic heating system is quieter than forced air

This week's entry in the Heidronics blog is installment # 4 of the top 7 reasons why a hydronic heating system is a better choice than forced air — quiet operation.

Any well-designed, installed and maintained hydronic heating system will be virtually silent. This is true of hot water baseboard, in-floor radiant and even a steam heating system. If there's noise, your system's telling you it needs attention. These are not normal sounds.

A forced air furnace is inherently noisy compared to a hydronic system. Blower noise is the most common complaint. The mechanical whirring of the blower and the velocity noise of the air moving through ducts and across register grills are quite noticeable in most homes. Furnaces marketed as "high-performance" equipment are an attempt to minimize this noise by using variable speed blower motors that keep blower speeds as slow as possible — but the only way a furnace can match the silence of a hydronic system is when the furnace is off.

The ducts of a forced air heating system can also be noisy. The ducts will expand as they heat up and "balloon" as they're pressurized by the blower. This can create the popping or creaking sounds you've heard when the furnace starts up. At its worst, it can be like living in a tin can.

I've also seen forced air systems actually blow doors closed, move curtains and rattle blinds on windows.

Not convinced? Oh — there's more. Electronic air cleaners snap away. Humidifiers hum, hiss and rattle. Dampers shake. I think you get the idea.

Because a hydronic heating system uses a completely different distribution method, you don't get the "side effects" of hot air moving around your home. Water or steam move gently throughout your home via small tubing or piping. Water and steam can do their jobs silently, going unnoticed for months and years at a time.

The bottom line: Silence is golden, especially when it comes to your heating system!

Stay tuned  – next week's topic is cleanliness.

Heidronically yours,

Wayne