I have Ecobee3 connected to Furnace, AC and humidifier and I'm installing ERV now
I went over the forum and read the treads about Ecobee and HRV, but there is still a few things I can't understand.
I understand that ecobee can control only humidifier or HRV/ERV, but not both at the same time.
This is more or less ok and I think I might be ok with it since I'm installing ERV and it might eliminate the need to run the humidifier (I think that I loose a lot of humidity during the winter since my house is having a negative pressure and it allows the cool/dry air from outside to the house)
So the plan is to try to install ecobee and ERV (worst case I will deal with humidifier latter). ERV is going to be installed using "simplified install" so I need the FAN of the furnace.
As far as I understand I dont need to interconnect the ERV and the furnace since ecobee will run the FAN ?
What I dont understand is how ecobee is going to run the ERV. Lets say I selected 20 min each hour.
Couple of options/questions:
1. Lets say that furnace wasn't running for an hour. What ecobee will do? Is it going to run ERV and FAN for 20min or (if ecobee is in heating mode) it will run heat for 20min ? Same question about cooling ?
2. Let complicate things. Furnace was running for 10 min in heating mode. What ecobee will do ? Run ERV at some point for 20min or when ecobee will "see" the need for heating it will run ERV too just in case ?
3. Depends of course what would be the answers for the first two questions, but is there a way to configure ecobee to run ERV anytime furnace is working?
And the last question not related to ecobee. Is there a different thermostat that can deal with controlling furnace, ac and ERV better then ecobee?
You won't need to run the interlock wiring. The Ecobee will start the furnace fan anytime the ERV is turned on.
The Ecobee ERV / HRV runtimes are strange. I had mine set to 20 min / hour. I checked the logs and it seemed it would turn on my HRV and run for 2 minutes and do this about 10 times per hour.
The Ecobee also has different setting options for the ERV / HRV depending if you're home or away.
The best control to use if you want to control the ERV and humidifier would be the Honeywell Prestige 2.0. It uses ASHRAE algorithms to control the ERV / HRV and I find it much better than the Ecobee regarding run times. You may need to buy the interface module and Redlink Gateway to use this thermostat.
Thank you very much for such a quick and informative replay
Considering this strange behavior of ecobee with HRV do you think it worth replacing it ,by Prestige for example, even in case I won't be using humidifier (only furnace and HRV)?
I understand that Honeywell are in the thermostat business way longer than ecobee, but when I go to the Honeywell website https://www.honeywellhome.com/en/products/thermostat just to try to understand the different products I just loose it. very difficult to understand and half of the time I can't even open a manual of the selected product because links are broken.
Yeah my ecobee is not controlling my hrv as I would like it too either, set to min 20 mins per hour, I would prefer to be able to set it to run max 20 min per hour. Currently it runs 10 mins on 5 minutes off continually throughout the day.
QuoteThank you very much for such a quick and informative replay
Considering this strange behavior of ecobee with HRV do you think it worth replacing it ,by Prestige for example, even in case I won't be using humidifier (only furnace and HRV)?
I understand that Honeywell are in the thermostat business way longer than ecobee, but when I go to the Honeywell website https://www.honeywellhome.com/en/products/thermostat just to try to understand the different products I just loose it. very difficult to understand and half of the time I can't even open a manual of the selected product because links are broken
This is what I installed at my house and it controls the furnace, HRV, AC and humidifier.
https://www.honeywellhome.com/en/products/thermostat/prestige-iaq-comfort-system
Quote from: Admin on October 29, 2019, 01:51:06 PM
QuoteThank you very much for such a quick and informative replay
Considering this strange behavior of ecobee with HRV do you think it worth replacing it ,by Prestige for example, even in case I won't be using humidifier (only furnace and HRV)?
I understand that Honeywell are in the thermostat business way longer than ecobee, but when I go to the Honeywell website https://www.honeywellhome.com/en/products/thermostat just to try to understand the different products I just loose it. very difficult to understand and half of the time I can't even open a manual of the selected product because links are broken
This is what I installed at my house and it controls the furnace, HRV, AC and humidifier.
https://www.honeywellhome.com/en/products/thermostat/prestige-iaq-comfort-system
I used to use that as well.
Quote from: Admin on October 29, 2019, 01:51:06 PM
QuoteThank you very much for such a quick and informative replay
Considering this strange behavior of ecobee with HRV do you think it worth replacing it ,by Prestige for example, even in case I won't be using humidifier (only furnace and HRV)?
I understand that Honeywell are in the thermostat business way longer than ecobee, but when I go to the Honeywell website https://www.honeywellhome.com/en/products/thermostat just to try to understand the different products I just loose it. very difficult to understand and half of the time I can't even open a manual of the selected product because links are broken
This is what I installed at my house and it controls the furnace, HRV, AC and humidifier.
https://www.honeywellhome.com/en/products/thermostat/prestige-iaq-comfort-system
Thanks I will check it
Quote from: Admin on October 29, 2019, 11:29:53 AM
You won't need to run the interlock wiring. The Ecobee will start the furnace fan anytime the ERV is turned on.
The Ecobee ERV / HRV runtimes are strange. I had mine set to 20 min / hour. I checked the logs and it seemed it would turn on my HRV and run for 2 minutes and do this about 10 times per hour.
The Ecobee also has different setting options for the ERV / HRV depending if you're home or away.
The best control to use if you want to control the ERV and humidifier would be the Honeywell Prestige 2.0. It uses ASHRAE algorithms to control the ERV / HRV and I find it much better than the Ecobee regarding run times. You may need to buy the interface module and Redlink Gateway to use this thermostat.
A discussion in other tread made me think about defrost
As far as I understand this strange ecobee HRV behavior will totally mess up the defrost cycles
Many models of HRV/ERV I checked basically suppose to circulate indoor air for a few minutes if the temperature of the outside air is too cold
So ecobee will start the HRV for two minutes and while HRV is still in defrost mode it will stop ...? Since ecobee is doing the "interlock" between the HRV and the furnace we will end up with HRV running defrost without the furnace fan (actually I'm not sure if it good or not)
Then after some time it will start again and if its going to be for a short time HRV wont be able to finish the defrost again and basically we will end up with a total mess ?
BTW any idea how Honeywell is dealing with defrost ?