Home comfort on Ask This Old House

[Matt Meiser]

You said Ecovent didn't control the system. Semantics I suppose because they control the thermostat which controls the system. But indirectly they control the system.

[Matt Meiser]

Some updates after about 5 more months:
- Seems like since they got acquired and it seems like a good chunk of their already small team is gone. They haven't been forthcoming about what is going on either.
- There's been no updates to the app to fix some usability issues and I've found more.
- Ours eats batteries. Looks like we are going to get maybe 4 months per set of batteries (54 AA's for our house) which is unacceptable and not even remotely close to the 3-5 years advertised. They are sending me a box of batteries and are looking into tuning the system to get the advertised battery life. Sounds like it is making way more adjustments than it should and I'm not the only one seeing this.
- It does do a much better job keeping the upstairs of our house cool but we haven't seen our first electric bill with significant AC runtime. It looks they are dumping a lot of cooled air in the basement in the afternoon to keep backpressure down while feeding the upstairs vents but not the first floor to keep it from getting too cold. I was getting livable results by running the fan in circulate mode from late afternoon into the evening, mixing the naturally cool air from the basement with the warm upstairs air. Theirs I have to run the fan full on plus I think it runs the AC more. If our usage is way up this could be a deal breaker.
- I found yet another mistake the installer made where the vents and sensors in two rooms were swapped. The naturally coolest bedroom and warmest so that was pretty messed up.

At this point I have mixed thoughts. I still think it has promise but I'm glad I didn't pay for the system because I'm not convinced its viable long term and I wonder about the stability of the company. We've definitely seen some improved comfort. Gas usage we maybe had a slight savings over the first winter but its hard to say for sure. Like I said, we haven't gotten our first electric bill of the AC season.


Also, that ATOH episode that started this whole thread? That system was installed in the founder's own house. https://blog.ecoventsystems.com/2016...his-old-house/

[Harry Hagan]

Matt,

Thanks for sharing your Ecovent experience. I’ll be replacing my HVAC system sometime later this year and had contacted Ecovent because I’m maintaining a large single-occupant house and thought a zoned system would be ideal for my situation. I hope Ecovent gets the bugs worked out and the gas company finds you a competent installer. Please keep us updated on your experience.

If anyone has an informed opinion about HVAC manufactures that produce a quality product, honor their warranties, and properly train their installers; your input would be appreciated.

[Matt Meiser]

If anyone has an informed opinion about HVAC manufactures that produce a quality product, honor their warranties, and properly train their installers; your input would be appreciated.

From everything I've read, among the major brands (and their lesser-known siblings) quality is pretty similar and a lot of the parts are commodity items. Finding a good contractor is the important part. I've learned, at least in our town, that's not necessarily the place "everyone" uses because they've been around "forever." Here that means they are good at old technology, but will steer you away from newer technology, and screw it up if you insist.

Ecovent is advertising self-installs now. Looks like maybe they've gone to more flat-rate pricing too. Frankly, its way to expensive if I'm reading it right.

To be fair, some of my complaints are because I'm cheap on usage. I'll wear a sweatshirt and use more blankets in the winter and wear shorts and a tshirt around the house and sweat a little in the summer to save money. I'd rather spending it on something fun. Like other bills.

[Harry Hagan]

Finding a good contractor is the important part. .

That's the key. Finding someone competent and honest. Years ago I had a "Go to guy" in another town but he's pushing up daises these days.

[Matt Meiser]

Couple more months in and I simply can't recommend Ecovent. The architecture's reliance on the Internet is inexcusable, the battery life is terrible, and they haven't made meaningful improvements to the app since my system was installed. In fact, if I have another major problem, I'm ripping it out and going back to my $180 Honeywell thermostat.

[Matt Meiser]

One last update on this. The system lost control of the thermostat again tonight. At least it got stuck with a setpoint of 67 degrees instead of something crazy. I removed all the hardware and reinstalled our nice Honeywell wifi thermostat and standard vents. I also contacted our utility company and told them to make arrangements to pick the stuff up.

[Frank Pratt]

Thanks for sharing this experience with us. I love TOH, but they seem to increasingly promote ridiculous & unproven products. It's gonna come back & bite em if they keep this up.

[William Adams]

At least now it's more straight-forward since they're doing such things in their "Future House" segment and it's a bit more obviously experimental / promotional.