Small 4 apartment building,best way to control heat bill

Henry

We install Tekmar indoor outdoor resets. It helps if the boilers are piped p/s because otherwise your minimum boiler temp is 130F, not very efficient during cool spells. You can ad a locked room sensor to the Tekmar. That will keep a maximum room temp and help the minimum boiler temp problem. It is the cheapest and most efficient system that cannot be tampered by the tenants.

Dave Mcarthur

Multi apartment heat control for single water boiler

Hello, I have a client that just bought a small apartment complex with 5 buildings. Each one holds 4-5 apartments and is heated by a single boiler with t-stats and zone valves. The landlord pays for the heat and some tenants like it real hot.
He asked me for a solution to control the apartments and some how range the heat from 64-72 degrees so his gas bill will be lower. I thought of t-stats in the basment with sensors but I not sure how I can range the temp.
Any ideas?
Dave.

Steve Garson_2

Consider Accustat thermostats with fixed temperature sensors. They are tamperproof, so you select the temp you want, install that sensor, and you can't change the temp.

I believe they have a unit that allows two temps, so you can use it for night set-back, but many cities mandate the temp that the landlord must keep a place, so setbacks are not always legal.

tim smith

Go to useage meters at the zone valves and tell tenants they

will be billed based on percentage of use vs bill. This will cure the over useage problem. Tim
We have Hobbs hour meters on several jobs that the client reads and calculates % of use and then charges back to tenant. Now this cannot be done if lease intact with heat included so then the idea of remote sensors and thermostats in locked room will work. We do this all the time, put stat in boiler room with remote sense in unit, that way we can check thermostat any time we want and fire and test while working on boiler.

Jack

Would your building owner

like to sub-meter and have the tenants who "like it hot" pay their own fuel bills? If so, we have done a few tens of thousand apt conversion using Rinnai DV modulating gas valve and blower wall furnaces. They work very well. I represent them and have sold about 125,000 of them in New England. They are excellent and ideal for this application.

j a_2

jack

I am looking at a 6 unit condo with one old tired gas steam boiler I would like some info about your systems..Owners have agreed on some type of hvac systems..thank you JA of boston

Greg Mahley

Suggestion for apartments

There are two things that come to mind that you could do. First, a outdoor air reset on the boiler is a must. There are several of these out there. Personally, I recommend the Honeywell T775, the model with reset. It is a very nice control with a lot of features and not a huge price tag. It even has a modulating output so that you could use a mixing valve to control the water without worrying about boiler condensation. Second, Honeywell makes new thermostats that can be programmed for a maximum heating setpoint. I'm not 100% sure but I think the VisionPro 5000 gives you this capability, and it is reasonably priced.

Timco

My wife and I have hour meters on each pump and the usage is billed accordingly. Brad helped us figure the correct percentages based on actual heatloss calcs so it was done fairly. No complaints...

Tim

tccoggs_2

The Honeywell AQ2000 control allows you to lockout changes to the programs, and set max and min points for the tstat settings. Would probbaly set you back $400-600 in materials Per building assuming 4 zone valves. The AQ250 is the lower end unit without ODR, and the AQ251 is the higher end unit with ODR. Not sure if the 250 has the ability to do the lockout and schedules, as I have never used it.

Kirkland

I bought a 6 unit apt building that had 1 boiler with a zone for each apt. The tenants would crank the heat and some would leave the windows open. I installed 6 seperate boilers and told the tenants your on your own. Wow did those windows close, air conditioners came out and a few put plastic on there windows.

Steven Eayrs

I agree with Henry....

Tekmar or other ODR control. Can reset some boilers down quite a bit. Have done injection mixdown, odr, using tekmar controls on a similar apartment problem. Great results. The odr control only allows the baseboards to maintain what it takes to get up to 72 degs, or so, while the boiler can still run hot and supply dhw demand. Took care of the problem. IF someone wants to open all the windows in colder weather, they will get cold. Had one problem tenant move out. Some people just can't stand the idea that they are not allowed to waste more than their share of the heat....and over the next few years average found out the fuel consumption was cut about 30%, compared to the 10 years or so before we did this.

ODR speaks for itself, and anyone who says it doesn't help on the fuel bill, doesn't know what their talkin about.

Jack

You can contact me

on my phone at 617 834-8751. Be happy to help!

Rich L.

Simple 'stat

If the landlord JUST wants to control hi temp settings how about a simple t'stat like the Honeywell 511 series. You can set it up for heating only and set the upper and lower limits of the heating range. Wholesale in my area is very reasonable on these. It's already been mentioned but if the owner wants to save some serious money he needs to install outdoor reset too.

Dave Mcarthur

I want to thank all of you for your input, we have used tecmar in the past but with 6 buildings thats quite a expense up front. We will be starting off with t-stats with stop points at 71 for heat and using outdoor resets.

Dave Mcarthur,
Dave Mcarthur Heating and Air Cond.