Coalpail.com Forum

mdrelyea wrote:

Rigar wrote:64 000 $ question.....
Whre is the THERMOSTAT locted in respect to all of these other thermometers ??

About 15-20 feet from the living room entertainment center thermometer.

...you should try monitoring the temps there for a while...you have another thermometer that will record temps you can put along side tstat?

Lightning wrote:Can you retrieve data remotely, like on your cell phone while yer at work?

Sorry, no. I've no interest in doing that. It's something I could probably set up. I've done similar things, but no real interest in doing it for this. If you are interested in it for your data it might be possible to do it with the [url=http:\\www.wunderground.com]Weather Underground[/url] I haven't really checked but it might be worth looking in to.

Rigar wrote:...you should try monitoring the temps there for a while...you have another thermometer that will record temps you can put along side tstat?

It will be interesting data if nothing else. I've moved the thermometer that was on the register in the master bath to right next to the thermostat. I'll leave it to collect data for a few days.

I'm at a loss though for what it'll tell me other than how closely my thermostat is holding the temperature. That's something I've already got a pretty good feel for I think.

at my place of employment we have environmentally controlled room, large rooms, like three or four pole barn size rooms. we controland monitor temp/humidity via ultrasonic humdification and a/c units. there are sensor located everywhere and they live feed to a central software that compiles and displays the info. also there are fans, about 16 or so, that keep the room environment "even". ive witnessed when the fans get turned off each of those sensors start to deviate from eacother. then turn the fans back on they all fall in line again. id be interested to see what happens when you turn some fans on throughout the house during the same hours.

Here's the first day's worth of data with the temp recorded right next to the thermostat. Looks like the thermostat and the thermometer have about a 1 degree measurement difference. Red line is the basement, blue line is the living room, green line is right next to the thermostat and the purple line is the thermostat set point.

On the right hand side you can see where the house started heating up as we cooked dinner and then sat down to watch some TV. The furnace didn't kick on then and you can see the basement temps dropping.

fuccillo111 wrote:at my place of employment we have environmentally controlled room, large rooms, like three or four pole barn size rooms. we controland monitor temp/humidity via ultrasonic humdification and a/c units. there are sensor located everywhere and they live feed to a central software that compiles and displays the info. also there are fans, about 16 or so, that keep the room environment "even". ive witnessed when the fans get turned off each of those sensors start to deviate from eacother. then turn the fans back on they all fall in line again. id be interested to see what happens when you turn some fans on throughout the house during the same hours.

Good thought. At my place of employment we also use room sized walk-in environmental chambers and the air turnover rate is quite high. I'll turn the ceiling fan on in the living room and let it run for the next day or so to see what that does to the temps.

Short Bus wrote:You seam to have some nice hardware to interface between sensors and your computer.
I hate to admit it, but that kind of stuff scraches an itch I have.
Where online would I find a relatily simple interface like this?

Or if you are into more of a do-it-yourself kind of thing, check out:

http://www.phidgets.com/

and

http://www.arduino.cc/

Wissaman, your second sugestion looks very interesting, that is the gateway to much computer controlled folly

The farthest I will ever stretch into this dark abyss of digital control is a non contact digital thermometer to make checking delta T faster

You will have to pry my ANALOG controls out of my cold dead lap

^^ A man after my heart.

I doubt any radical control system will be developed here but I'm jonens'en for a BTU meter. I want to know how many BTU I get into my hydronic system for the coal I haul home. With a couple of presusre transducers, a pump curve and a couple of temperature sensors on the inlet and outlet of my boiler I'll have a handle on cost per BTU. Not sure why I want to know, I'm confident coal is the best option here.

fuccillo111 wrote:at my place of employment we have environmentally controlled room, large rooms, like three or four pole barn size rooms. we controland monitor temp/humidity via ultrasonic humdification and a/c units. there are sensor located everywhere and they live feed to a central software that compiles and displays the info. also there are fans, about 16 or so, that keep the room environment "even". ive witnessed when the fans get turned off each of those sensors start to deviate from eacother. then turn the fans back on they all fall in line again. id be interested to see what happens when you turn some fans on throughout the house during the same hours.

I had the ceiling fan going in the living room for a day. That was as long as that idea lasted. The wife got cold with the air blowing on her. Oh well. I guess I've got the system fairly well set up and running well anyway.

Short Bus wrote:I doubt any radical control system will be developed here but I'm jonens'en for a BTU meter. I want to know how many BTU I get into my hydronic system for the coal I haul home. With a couple of presusre transducers, a pump curve and a couple of temperature sensors on the inlet and outlet of my boiler I'll have a handle on cost per BTU. Not sure why I want to know, I'm confident coal is the best option here.

Sounds like a cool idea! I wonder if something like this would work for my furnace?

You missed the 4 page thread about ceiling fan direction ????

...lol

im curious....do you have return air ducts going back to the furnce..? ( as opposed to just the basement)
Im guessing no...based on the temp deltas downstairs in relationship to temps upstairs...??

Sounds like the only thermometer you need to worry about is the Misses.....lol

You let her get cold, on Valentines Day.........