small heat loads

radmix

 I'm getting a lot of calls from landlords to separate apartments so each tenant pays there own heating bills from one existing boiler. Most of the apartments are only 1000 sq ft or less. Is there an inexpensive heat source I should be looking at or does anyone have any ideas on how to approach this? All are hot water heating.

hot_rod

A heat metering

standard is being developed currently, in the US. Once that is in place and accepted, various BTU meters can be listed to the standard and AHJs should be able to approve the installation if certified equipment is installed.



Heat metering is common in Europe, many of the hydronic manufacturers over there have satelite metering stations all ready to go. The US standard will no doubt be real close to the European standard..



Basically a sealed, certified rotary meter, like a water meter, and two temperature sensors to calculate BTUs.



In some areas the PSC likes to have a hand in any energy sales and billing procedures, Im not sure how this will shake out.



The biggest push is from the solar thermal installation so rebates can be paid on actual production, not just installation costs.

nicholas bonham-carter

Metering the heat

If the apartments are separately zoned, you could use an hour meter to monitor the time that the thermostat (or pump ) has called for heat. You would have to read the meters, in order to figure the appropriate usage.

One of the best things to do is to make sure the system is well enough maintained so as to be very economical.--NBC

mark schofield

hour meter

I put in an hour meter to measure usage of my boiler. A small digital one. very inexpensive. They come in 110 and 24 volt. If each apartment has it's own circulator that might be a place to start.

Jack

Have done

Many of these types of conversions with Rinnai Energysavers. Simple install, individual control, significant savings. They have plenty of case studies on these systems.