newbie: hai rc2000 thermostat with ELK M1Z

[zebmina]

Hi all:

Recently purchased an ELK M1Z, M1XSP, M1XEP, M1XRF2G (thanks to all for valuable tips and hints that got me going in this direction!).

I also want to control a heat pump that has an electric heat bar. The heat pump unit is a Goodman ARUF364216BA.

I believe that the HAI RC2000 thermostat can be used with that heat pump and controlled via the M1.

Before I order it though, I wanted to see if there was any thumbs-up/thumbs-down on this.

Thanks in advance for your continued support and guidance.

 

[TheEther]

Is your heat pump single stage or dual stage? Single speed air handler or variable speed? When you mean heat bar you mean auxiliary heat right? If the unit just has auxiliary heat and doesn't have a variable speed fan, you can go with the RC1000. The only thing missing is the Humidity Sensor and you couldn't do anything with it but look at it anyway as the Elk cannot receive humidity sensing as it's not supported at this time.

I have two RC1000's as I have a Trane XB-13 2.5 ton and 2 ton unit in my house with non-variable fan.

 

[zebmina]

HI Ether:

Thanks! I didn't provide complete information earlier (sorry, just a DIYer, not a professional!).

The air handler is the Goodman unit I mentioned above (ARUF364216BA). This is sitting in a crawl space. The heat pump outside is a Goodman GSH130421AD.

The air handler is a multi-speed unit. I read through the GSH130421AD manual but it makes my head spin to figure out whether I have a multi-stage/variable fan unit or not (or whether it applies to a heat pump or just the air handler). I know for sure we have electric aux heat (this is my first experience with a heat pump, and last winter I wound up doing things like setting a night-time temp of 62, daytime of 68, and of course the aux heat kicked in, and I found out the hard way when my next electric bill came in!).

The air handler has a multi-speed motor, but I am not sure how to find any additional info on the heat pump itself.

The RC2000 is more expensive than the RC1000, so it would be nice if I could use that instead, but then I don't want to get one and find out I need something different....

Also, the main reason I wanted to get one of these units is to set up a rule to do a 2-degree increment when I need to temp adjusted from 60 to 68... I plan on executing this rule remotely using an internet connection several hours in advance of when I show up at the house.

Regards,

Zeb

 

[zebmina]

So I asked for info from HAI, and here is the response I got:

"
As far as controlling the unit itself, our thermostats are mechanical meaning that we return 24VAC to the unit when a mode is called for. (cooling returns 24VAC on Y1 and heating returns 24VAC on W1) If your unit requires dry contacts, a 24VAC relay would be used in line to provide the contact. Our thermostats do not communicate with the HVAC unit with any protocol.

Concerning the Elk unit, as far as I know we do no communicate with their board. They may have developed an interface to our protocol and I would check with them to see if they can communicate to our stats.
"

Given what I've read on this forum, the second paragraph appears to be inaccurate.

I'm not sure what the first paragraph means.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Zeb

 

[tmbrown97]

You can generally look at the wiring of the existing tstat to see if it's wired up with one or two stages... but it sounds like you need the 2000 - it supports the multi-stage and auxillary heat with a heat pump.

I had heat pumps for about 8 or 9 years - the nice thing with the HAI is that if you use its internal programming rather than the elk, it'll intelligently learn your system and figure out how long it takes to heat up, so if you tell it to get the house to 72 by 6:00AM, it'll learn when it has to start heating and how to get it there the most cost effectively. Of course if you set the temp by the Elk, it will just respond right away, and may have to use aux heat.

The other thing is you can actually program the setpoint different before aux heat kicks in - I set mine to 5 degrees instead of the default 2 at my last house. Also, when I had heat pumps, I rarely used setbacks - I just left the house comfortable 24/7. I was lucky - when I moved into the house and called the electric company to set up service, they informed me that the house had a heat pump and how it worked and how to best manage it - awesome service.

Anyways - the aux heat is a standard feature of any heat-pump system so you don't need any special consideration for it - as long as the unit supports heat pumps... then you need to account for single or multi-stage... it sounds like you have multi-stage. There's actually nothing special or difficult about what you're describing - it's all normal stuff.

As far as HAI's response regarding the Elk - that actually sounds like kind of a flippant answer - how could they possibly not know that Elk works with HAI Thermostats? I don't believe that at all - I think they just don't feel like helping in any way since Elk is a competitor... but Elk supports HAI tstats just fine - they work great.

 

[zebmina]

Thanks, W2P!

I suppose the HAI folks wanted me to buy their HA system! I have electric aux heat, so I too usually set the temps at one setting; but since I travel, I wanted to be able to set the thermostat down to say 58 in winter, and have the ability to kick off a rule about 10-12 hours before I arrived back home (that way I could gradually raise the temp in 2-5 degree increments to ensure that the aux heat didn't kick in). I'm assuming that the ELK will give me the ability to set up such a rule:

(1) check current temp
(2) if temp < 65 set desired temp to current temp + 3 (where 3 is an example of whatever increment is preferred) else go to (5)
(3) wait an hour or so
(4) go to (1)
(5) done with rule

Does this make sense to do with ELK?

Regards