My Heat Pump Manufacturer is Out of Business?
Failed Heat Pump Manufacturer's
We
May be Able to Help
During my time in the Geothermal Industry I have seen
a number of manufacturers go out of business including names
such as:-
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These might be familiar names to some readers. All were reasonably good to great products in their days. Some of the smaller manufacturers actually drove innovation in the industry as they were willing and able to implement new ideas into their product lines and applications.
Some of the manufacturers listed above went out of business in the early 90's and their products still operating in the field are approaching the end of their service lives. Depending upon the condition of said 90's equipment, it may be better to install a new heat pump onto their existing ground loop, rather than fixing the unit itself. A new unit would have a new manufacturer's warranty and would certainly be more efficient than equipment manufactured in that period.
A couple of companies shown above have shut down more recently, i.e., Northern Heat Pumps and Enertran. Northern was a relatively new company that manufactured heat pumps for northern climates in Manitoba. Most of its sales were out west and I have never seen an installation in S. Ontario.
Enertran on the other hand was a much older company that had manufactured equipment since the late 70's and in fact was one of the pioneers of geothermal heating in Canada. Enertran had a broad line of products including multi-compressor residential heat pumps as well as indoor swimming pool dehumidification equipment.
Parts Availability for Failed
Manufacturer's Equipment
Although companies spend a lot of time in R & D to determine
which components suit their needs best, heat pump manufacturers are really
assemblers of components. This is good news for the most part because
many refrigeration and most electrical components are used by a multiple
manufacturers and are available from other sources, such as wholesalers.
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Enertran Geothermal With Demand
Hot Water for RFH |
Complete New Upgraded Electrical Control Packages for Enertran and Other Heat Pump Brands Any components other than proprietary control boards then are usually available for replacement therefore your out of manufacture heat pump may just be serviceable.
In 2013, when the long time Canadian heat pump manufacturer Enertran closed its doors many of their machines were having repeated control board burn out failures which would essentially shut down and disable the units. Further to this, many of the replacement boards were just as bad, some failing again right away. The cause of this problem lay in the tolerances of the components used in building the control boards. This was a nuisance to the consumer and pain for the installer or serviceman to even diagnose because the equipment could use 2 or 3 boards depending upon the model and a burn out on one board could have been caused by an incorrect voltage sent from another board and a cascading board failure could occur.
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Burnt
Resistor on an Enertran Demand Hot Water Control Board |
I should add that not all boards failed, only some and Gerry on Geo is happy to be able to provide a solution for this situation. We have secured complete drop in to place control boxes for Enertran heat pumps built since 1995. Note: To the best of our knowledge there are no more Enertran Demand Hot Water control boards in existance and no more will be made.
This package can control water to air, water to water and demand hot water units. Multiple compressor Enertran heat pumps would require multiple control boxes.
Within a day we can have your old heat pump working like new again. Good news!
They
Died Way Too Young
Recently we came across two 8 year old geothermal heat pump
systems that were installed on the same estate. They were replaced
with new heat pumps of a different brand because the mechanic could
not find a refrigerant leak on one unit and because the second unit
had control board problems.
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| Replacement Control Package |
The answer to the control board issue would be to install one of our pre-assembled heat pump control packages, but on the other hand, I know from experience that some small refrigerant leaks can be very difficult to find. There is however, a finite number of places for a leak to occur in a heat pump, so leaks can always be found with diligence. Had I known about this situation early enough, and if we could not find the leak on site, we would have probably recommended removing the heat pump temporarily to find the leak and repair it in the shop.
Factory Rebuild
of a Heat Pump
To find a leak that was difficult to locate we have occasionally
taken heat pumps of various brands to a local heat pump builder and
found the leak there. the units were repaired on
the bench. At the customer's option, we can update most parts with
new one, in effect we can have the heat pump rebuilt. Their arew some
limitations to this because some air coils are simply no longer avaialable
in some sizes however air coils can sometimes be repaired. The two
heat pumps mentioned above could probably have been repaired for about
20% of the unit replacement cost and on an 8 year old heat pump I believe
it would certainly be worth doing. I don't think I would ever want
to scrap a heat pump unit that has at least 2/3 of its useful life
still ahead of it.
The same goes for electrical issues such as a blower motors. Motors always fail for a reason. A troublesome electrical system can be upgraded, for much considerably less than replaceing a heat pump unit. I believe the owners of the systems mentioned above were not well served by their technician. The technician's company did very well though by selling two brand new replacement heat pump units and connecting them to the existing earth loops.
Specialized tools of the geo-trade are something that most heating contractors don't carry.
We Do!
So Call Gerry on Geo to have us clean and service your Geothermal System today!
Tel 226-377-3987
or if you prefer, send us your details by filling in the contact form: