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EP-4739951-A1 - MONITORING AND/OR ADAPTING AN OPERATION OF A PUMP OF A DOMESTIC HOT WATER SYSTEM

EP4739951A1EP 4739951 A1EP4739951 A1EP 4739951A1EP-4739951-A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method (10) for monitoring and/or adapting an operation of a pump (40) of a domestic hot water system (20). The method (10) comprises the steps of: activating (11) the pump (40) to circulate water through the hot water system (20); measuring (12) a temperature increase of the water in the domestic hot water system (20) in discrete time or temperature steps after the activation of the pump (40); determining (13) at least one parameter, wherein the at least one parameter comprises: a time required for reaching a steady state temperature after the activation of the pump (40), and/or an estimated system temperature of the domestic hot water system (20) at the steady state. The method (10) comprises the further step of: forwarding (14) the at least one parameter via a communication interface (44) of the pump (40), and/or adapting a pump setting of the pump (40) based on the at least one parameter.

Inventors

  • SKØDT LARSEN, Mathias
  • BECH-LISBERG, Ole

Assignees

  • Grundfos Holding A/S

Dates

Publication Date
20260513
Application Date
20240801

Claims (16)

  1. 1. A method (10) for monitoring and/or adapting an operation of a pump (40) of a domestic hot water system (20) , comprising the steps of: activating (11) the pump (40) to circulate water through the hot water system (20) ; measuring (12) a temperature increase of the water in the domestic hot water system (20) in discrete time or temperature steps after the activation of the pump (40) ; determining (13) at least one parameter, wherein the at least one parameter comprises: a time required for reaching a steady state temperature after the activation of the pump (40) , and/ or an estimated system temperature of the domestic hot water system (20) at the steady state; forwarding (14) the at least one parameter via a communication interface (44) of the pump (40) , and/or adapting a pump setting of the pump (40) based on the at least one parameter .
  2. 2. The pump (40) of claim 1, wherein the temperature increase is measured in or on a water carrying element of the pump (40) , and/or wherein the temperature increase is measured in or on a hot water recirculation line (21) of the domestic hot water system (20) .
  3. 3. The method (10) of claim 1 or 2, wherein the pump (40) is activated for a fixed amount of time and/or with a fixed flowrate.
  4. 4. The method (10) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the estimated system temperature is determined based on the discrete temperature measurements and/or based on the measured temperature of the water at the steady state.
  5. 5. The method (10) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the at least one parameter is forwarded to an external user device, to a central database and/or to a server.
  6. 6. The method (10) of any one of the preceding claims, further comprising the step of: estimating (15) a heat loss of the domestic hot water system (20) by comparing the estimated system temperature with an expected or known supply temperature of a hot water supply of the domestic hot water system (20) .
  7. 7. The method (10) of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the method (10) is carried out when the pump (40) operates in an analysis mode.
  8. 8. The method (10) of claim 7, wherein the pump (40) is operable in a normal operating mode in which the pump (40) is regularly or irregularly activated for a pre-set runtime and/or deactivated for a pre-set off-time; wherein the step of adapting (14) the pump setting comprises adjusting the runtime and/or adjusting the off-time of the pump (40) .
  9. 9. The method (10) of claim 8, wherein the runtime is set to the time required for reaching the steady state.
  10. 10. The method (10) of claim 6 and any one of claims 8 to 9, wherein the off-time is adjusted based on the determined heat loss.
  11. 11. The method (10) of any one of the preceding claims, further comprising the step of: issuing (16) an alarm or a notification if the estimated system temperature exceeds a first temperature threshold and/or falls below a second temperature threshold.
  12. 12. The method (10) of claim 11, wherein the alarm or the notification is indicated on a display or an indicator element (45) of the pump (40) , and/or wherein the alarm or the notification is forwarded via the communication interface (44) to an external device.
  13. 13. A pump (40) , in particular a circulation pump, for a domestic hot water system (20) , wherein, when activated, the pump (40) is configured to circulate water through the hot water system (20) ; wherein the pump comprises a temperature sensor (42) which is configured to measure a temperature increase of the water in the domestic hot water system (20) in discrete time or temperature steps after the activation of the pump (40) ; wherein the pump (40) further comprises or has an interface for communication with a processing unit (43) which is configured to determine at least one parameter, wherein the at least one parameter comprises: a time required for reaching a steady state temperature after the activation of the pump (40) , and/ or an estimated system temperature of the domestic hot water system (20) at the steady state; wherein the processing unit (43) is configured to forward the at least one parameter via a communication interface (44) of the pump (40) , and/or to adapt a pump setting of the pump (40) based on the at least one parameter.
  14. 14. The pump (40) of claim 13, wherein the temperature sensor (42) is mounted in or on a water carrying element of the pump (40) , and/or wherein the temperature sensor (42) is mounted in or on a hot water recirculation line (21) of the domestic hot water system (20) .
  15. 15. The pump (40) of claim 13 or 14, wherein the communication interface (44) is a wireless interface, such as a Bluetooth or a WiFi interface.
  16. 16. A domestic hot water system (20) , comprising: the pump (40) of any one of claims 13 to 15; and a hot water recirculation line (21) which is connected to the pump (40) .

Description

MONITORING AND/OR ADAPTING AN OPERATION OF A PUMP OF A DOMESTIC HOT WATER SYSTEM TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The invention relates to a method for monitoring and/or adapting an operation of a pump of a domestic hot water system. The invention further relates to a pump for use in a domestic hot water system. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION A domestic hot water system delivers hot water via pipes to various fixtures in a building, such as sinks, showers or other appliances. If no hot water is withdrawn from the system for a longer amount of time, the water in the pipes cools down. If there is an extensive piping, it may take a relatively long amount of time to replace this cooled down water with hot water from a hot water supply (e.g. , a boiler) , which can cause long waiting times at a tap and waste of water. If provided with recirculation pipe, circulation pumps can be used to generate a flow inside the pipes of the system and to circulate the water back to a heat source (e.g. , the boiler) , even if no hot water is withdrawn. This ensures that the water in the pipes is always relatively hot and the waiting time for hot water is reduced. Ideally, the configurations and settings of such a circulation pump (e.g. , runtime, flow rate etc. ) should be adapted to the individual hot water system (e.g. , dimension of the piping, temperature of boiler, etc. ) . This is often done by manual calculations . However , it is dif ficult to provide and/or calculate accurate information about a domestic hot water system and to determine the optimal pump settings in this way . Thus , it is an obj ective to provide an improved pump for a domestic hot water system and an improved method for monitoring and/or adapting an operation of such a pump which avoid the above-mentioned di sadvantage s . SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The obj ect of the present invention is achieved by the solution provided in the enclosed independent claims . Advantageous implementations of the present invention are further defined in the dependent claims . According to a first aspect , the invention relates to a method for monitoring and/or adapting an operation of a pump of a domestic hot water system . The method comprises the steps of : activating the pump to circulate water through the hot water system; mea suring a temperature increase of the water in the domestic hot water system in di screte time or temperature steps after the activation of the pump ; determining at least one parameter , wherein the at least one parameter comprises : a time required for reaching a steady state temperature after the activation of the pump , and/or an estimated system temperature of the domestic hot water system at the steady state . The method further comprises the step of : forwarding the at least one parameter via a communication interface of the pump , and/or adapting a pump setting of the pump based on the at least one parameter . This achieves the advantage of that the pump can be configured and/or adapted to a specific domestic hot water system in an efficient way. For instance, this can reduce the efforts during an installing and/or commissioning of the pump, when attempting to provide the most efficient operation for the individual installation . The at least one parameter or information derived from the parameter can be used internally by other control algorithms of the pump, e.g. , for determining the optimal recirculation times. However, the at least one parameter can also be accessible to an installer of the pump and/or of the system, e.g. , for troubleshooting, configuring, and/or commissioning of the pump and/or the system. The (estimated) system temperature may refer to an estimated average temperature of the water throughout the hot water system (e.g. , between a hot water supply and the pump) . For instance, at steady state, this temperature is expected to be somewhat smaller than a temperature measured directly at the pump due to heat loss effects and/or expected temperature differentials in the hot water system. The estimated temperature could differ from the actual media temperature, due to several factors such as delay, offset error, etc . With continuous recirculation the delta temperature across the entire system is low - depending on the heat-loss. Theoretically, the average system temperature would be higher than the temperature at the pump. The system temperature is measured/estimated directly at the pump and i s not an average of the system temperature . If anything , the temperature at the pump should be lower than any other place before the pump . The pump can be a circulation pump or a recirculation pump . The pump can also be a water transfer pump . The pump may comprise a pump body which is connected to a piping of the domestic hot water system, in particular to a hot water recirculation line . For example , the pump is arranged downstream of all consumers and/or f ixtures for extracting hot water f rom the system . The temperat