Question for jpf321 on measurments

Ex Maine Doug

Will you be able to make a comparison between setback and no setback oil use?

It looks like you could, during a period of consistant temperature days, measure whether and how much night setback reduces oil use.

jpf321

give me a few days....

I just added a new rad. once that settles in, I'll run a few days of 4 deg setback. I base everything from HDD so consistent temps aren't exactly necessary.

jpf321

against my better judgement ...

i have now set my t-stat to come up to 70 beginning @ 5AM and go down to 65 beginning @ 10PM .. that's 7hrs of cooling.



let's see what happens ..



i just ran the most recent data, i'm settled in around 0.28hrs burn/HDD (0.3024 gal/HDD) see chart here: http://screencast.com/t/sdJvmy2aA

Dave in QCA

start set back an hour before bedtime

another $.02 here.  Don't know what time you usually go to bed, but you might think about starting the setback 1 hour before you normally go to bed.  It usually takes that long before you even begin to sense that it is beginning to cool off.

I will be interested in the outcome of your data.

jpf321

well as a quick result of this morning....

heat came on at 5A and ran until 7:30a ... 2.5hrs recovery. in a few days i'll have more standardized data. and my bedroom had overshot by 8degF even with TRVs in place in bedroom .. where I had been maintaining an even 69-71 this morning it was up to 78.

Dave in QCA

Not good

That is not good!  It will be interesting to see if that continues.

One thing about the TRVs, they will prevent steam from entering a radiator in a warm room, but once the steam is in the radiator, it's there to stay for the duration of the firing cycle, even if the TRV closes.  Once the air is out of the system, the TRV has no effect.



I use a 4 degree setback in the home I live in.  But it's not steam, it's hot water.  Old cast iron system, large pipe sizes, slow to react.  We start the warmup at 4:30 and by 6 it is always dead on the 69F setpoint.  Last year I did not use a set back at all.  2 years ago, I did use 2 setbacks, one at night, the other during the day while we were both at work.  It seemed like the boiler was runinng for 2 very long cycles per day, and probably not saving anything at all.  We went to no setback without any effect in usage. 

This year I am retired and home most of the day.  It seemed like it was worth the experiment to turn down from 9:30 PM - 4:30 AM.  Last bill did not reflect any savings, but our avg temp was 5F cooler than last year.

Overall, we are pleased with the hot water / cast iron radiator system.  I have lived in several houses with this type of heat and it is about the most even and comfortable heat I have ever experienced.  My experience with Steam - Vapor  with cast iron radiator in a residential setting is relatively new at the L P Best Mansion Apartments.  I have finally gotten that system balanced between the various units in the house.  The time that I have spent in the house while redecorating vacant units, I would say that this system is very even too.

By the way, it would be interesting to see some additional pictures of your residence, both interior and extererior.  It is interesting to me to see the rest of the picture, beyond the basement and the boiler.

jpf321

i posted some...

exterior pics here...

    http://screencast.com/t/hHQJHmkHgs

    http://screencast.com/t/W6N1l7dYzoc

    http://screencast.com/t/LZHpuxd03aQu

interior I will leave to the imagination :-)



FYI, i had TRVs on my near-t-stat rads (although all the way open) .. I have just swapped them out with regular G#6 vents .. perhaps they screwed up this morning's recovery.

Dave in QCA

Beautiful!

What a beautiful home!  I am guessing it was built in the teens or 20s, maybe as late as the 30s.  Wonderful wire-cut brick and half timbering on the 3rd floor level - a definite Tudor influence.

The pics were pretty fuzzy, and difficult to see the roof clearly, but I think I can make out terra cotta roof tiles. Perhaps I'm seeing architectural asphalt. 

jpf321

nope you're right ..

ludowici red-clay  tiles .. and the tiles have stamped imprinted dates of 1925 and the name Ludowici from one of the long closed manufacturing plants, I believe in Illinois. http://www.ludowici.com/



thanks for the compliments ..



if you want to see some of my neighbors .. http://www.foresthillsrealestate.com/ ... this part of the neighborhood was designed by Grosvenor Atterbury .. and supposedly was the first "planned" community in the U.S. forest Hills also hosted the US Open Tennis until late 1970's.

Dave in QCA

Ludowici

Cool!  That is a permanent roof you know!  The property that I have posted on this site under the thread, The Best Heating System, originally had Ludowici French interlocking tiles on the roofs.  Around 35 years ago, they were torn off and taken to the landfill.  A new 3 tab asphalt roof was installed.  They would have been better off to carefully remove all of the tiles, refelt, and reinstall.  A subsequent owner, about 5 years ago did the same thing to the garage roof.  Fortunately, they saved a few of the tiles and left them in the boiler room.  I had a quote a couple years ago to replace the whole roof with Ludowici French Tiles..... $140,000!!!   That is close to what we paid for the property!  I sure wish we still had the tile roof!  You're lucky!

jpf321

it's a mandate in the community here ...

to have ludowici red tile rooves. and therefore, the roofers in the neighborhood are very good at remove, refelt, replace ... the nice thing about the tile rooves is that you can remove a section or fix an individually broken tile .. the bad thing about the tile roof is that you can't really walk on them without the risk of breaking a few.



most of the roofers here use salvaged tiles since new ones cost a pretty penny .. especially for the end caps, hips, and ridges. the field tiles aren't that much.



i don't know if you recall the tornado that came through NYC back in Sept .. it happened to hit our neighborhood quite hard .. and hence there were a great many tile roof repair jobs (due to trees falling on houses) .. you can see how close this particular Oak came to a red tile overhang in this article. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/nyregion/18weather.html ... here's another shot I took personally of a house nearby .. luckily, their sunroom stopped the tree .. but look at that brick corner damage .. http://is.gd/j9R0P .. their chimney was the luckiest part of all .. the tree fell right around it .. http://is.gd/j9Rxt

Dave in QCA

AMAZING!

That is absolutely amazing!  The storm gods must appreciate a beautiful chimney!

I think I recall that you had recently posted a comment about replacing windows.  If you are interested in additional information, there is a ton of information available from various sources, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, and many others.

You have a beautiful home!

jpf321

last night's numbers...

again, just a quick note while running in my 65/70 nighttime setback mode...



at 3am I had a 5minute DHW call

at 3:30 I had a 40min run (presumably the stat dropped to 64.5 and came back up to 65.5

at 5am the recovery began and ran until 7:30a

please note these numbers do NOT discount pressure cycling times.



2.5hrs + 0.75hrs = 3.25hrs



one thing to note .. presumably, I'm going from 65-70.5, 5.5deg in 2.5hrs .. where normally I go 69.5-70.5 in 40mins. this does seem to point to moving about 2deg/hr in the recovery vs. 1.5deg/hr in normal maintenance.



see images below .. when the green line is DOWN .. the burner is on...the sample rate of the chart is 90secs...the "noise" on the right end is pressure cycling. on 12/21 the setback started at 12-midnight .. on 12/22 the setback started at 10pm.

   



a note about yesterday's number .. I did NOT overshoot in the bedroom, actually the thermo was on the wrong side of the room and just 18" from a radiator .. that's why it was reading 78 .. today when I popped my eyes open at 8am .. the thermo on the properside of the room read 72.