I turned off heat pump, so only fan ran, and aux heat would kick in after 5min staging delay, “comfort” works, and activates 2nd stage, “economy” doesn’t. Ran it for 15 min on a 5 staging delay just to be sur, and also used a thermometer on vent… stayed at room temp 70° the whole time.
Might want to have ADC figure out why that setting seems to not work at all. For anyone using this setting, switch it back if you want heat staging.
Ok follow up.
It does work, just not like I expected it to.
I set the temp to exceed the heating differential, which would normally bypass the staging delay and kick in the next heating stage immediately… and it did.
I then lowered the set temp so it was 1° above actual room temp, and the second stage turned off so only first stage ran.
This is problematic for those with heatpumps.
Scenario:
Say you have a 3°-5° heat differential. Set temp is say 70°, and temps outside are below freezing…
Room temp drops below 70°, HP kicks on, but can’t satisfy heat call. Normally, after the staging delay (lets say 10 min) second stage kicks in, and tstat satisfies call for heat shortly thereafter.
But with “economy”, that doesn’t happen. The staging delay comes and goes, HP runs and runs and runs, 10 min, 20 min, 30min, 1 hour, room temps have to actually drop 4°-6° (depending on the set heat differential), before the second stage is enabled… could be hours that the unit runs and it has to actually get COLDER in the room before the aux heat is called.
Perhaps it is just me, but I fail to see how this is in any way “economic” at all. Unnecessary run time, discomfort as room tempts actually drop, then on top of that… you still have to run the more expense auxiliary heat.
It would be different if say the staging delay actually kicked in second stage heat, and “economy” shut off second stage 1° from set point, but that isn’t how it works.
Honestly, those at ADC must be completely clueless.
I tested this multiple times, and this is exactly the way “economy recovery” works.
Perhaps it is just me, but I fail to see how this is in any way “economic” at all
Oops. Meant “economical”.
So what’s the deal on this?
Is this the way ADC designed the economy recovery to work, or is it supposed to be using the staging delay, and just isn’t?
Economy, as I understand it, will disable additional stages the closer you are to set point, overriding the delay.
It is (I would presume) not meant for use during extreme weather, but fall and spring seasons where the costly additional stages are not necessarily needed to maintain a comfortable temp. If outside temps are 55-60 and you want your home near 70, there would be little need to ever have second stage kick in.
If it is, say, 20 degrees outside, a heat pump is not efficient at all, and additional heating is needed.
Well that is just confusing. And counter productive for staged recovery (if not outright useless).
Economy, as I understand it, will disable additional stages the closer you are to set point, overriding the delay.
I tested this, and explained above exactly how it works. It will not kick in aux stages unless the temp differential is exceeded when heat is called. It then will terminate all aux stages when room temp is 1° from actual set temp or so.
Sure, but again, heat pumps specifically are less efficient the colder it gets, so it may not be a good setting to use with a heat pump in colder temperatures.
Ok
So… economy is only beneficial in mild weather and for those who use setback schedules and like to setback more than their temp differential allows for stage1 recovery (in situation where additional stages would be called anyways).
And in normal day to day use, Stage1 heat will run continuously without stop until either one of the following occurs:
In a nutshell, economy recovery is generally useless in Winter, (or when it is actually cold outside)…at least for HP’s. Awesome.