Sup man? Hey in trying to find out where all our propane is going here at work, I decided to install hour run meters on all of the gas furnaces up here. We were using between 400 and 500 gallons of propane a week, and that's just not going to work anymore. I moved one gal that was in a lab being heated by its own duct heater down to an area with everyone else since that area was already being heated. As you know any room labeled "Lab" has to have air in and out 100% of the time its occupied. I understand that if its a chemical lab, but a GIS lab?

Anyway I discovered that one lab accounted for about 30% of the total propane usage. 200,000 BTU's heating nearly 8 hrs a day 5 days a week. That comes out to be about 2.18 GPH X 40 or even conservatively 30 hrs a week was still using 65 gallons of propane a week. We have 20,000 feet of space here at the facility and that lab was only about 500 sqft and yet it was using 25-30% of the propane. Here is a picture of the meters installed. Now I can track by week, or even by event and see if we are recovering our cost here.



24vac connected to the common and white on the board



Installed last week and I already have an idea what these furnaces are using in some of the areas. I also discovered that the Ethernet thermostats I installed in the apartments have a usage counter in the programming, and I can reset the heat or the fan or both and can track those areas as well.







So all of that is great! But not good enough. I still have another appliance that I want to keep track of. I have 6 Gas hot water tanks from 69,000 to 120,000 BTU's, unfortunately only one has a 24vac circuit. The other 5 are pilot only with no voltage.



I was wondering if you knew of any hour meter that will read heat? If could install some sort of meter that used heat, I could install a probe in the flue as it heated up. But I'm not sure a meter like that even exists, Any thoughts? Thanks Drag.

 

Deej you can buy data logging temperature unit and use a thermocouple in the flue to indicate time on for each unit! Try Omega Instruments.com!

 

That site is weird, it's either been hacked or something most of the stuff went to 404

 

It is usually a stable web site, but oh well. Try Transcat and look for a multi channel temperature datalogging unit! They even rent most kinds of instruments and devices if I'm not mistaken. If you cant find what you want online, give them a call!

 

hmm, not really knowing how to answer this. Why log the flue temps continuously to begin with? I just got done with two 750 gallon 199,000 btu hot water heaters and a good combustion analyzer was needed to help fine tune the efficiency. Prints out stack temps, CO, etc. A good tool to have on getting the most from your appliances. Keep the temps at 120 degrees water temp as well. You will see a big cut in useage. Not sure if this helps any, but a good startup and maintenance is necessary. I would not worry about monitoring flue temps just yet and/or get it downloaded to your phone just yet either.

If that first pic is of an 80% furnace, then all 6 need manometer checked and maintained and the stats locked out.

 

Worlok- Omega is a good resource but still remains a good brain storming resource for me. Otherwise, nothing bad or good

 

Actually I think you misundersood what I'm trying to do. I want to be able to see how long each hot water tank runs, and since there is not 24vac to 5 out of the 6 I thought maybe there was an hour meter that would work on temperature. I dont need analyzer, I neeed a meter that will start running when lets say 120 degrees comes out of the flue.

 

I have not monitored flue temps before as far as recording, but water temps on circ systems yes. I have used some digital monitors from mcmastercar with good results. Spendy bastids though. I would almost go off of the control voltage/ stat demand to meter this and not the flue temp for your demands. A call for hot water signal/demand to time completion. You are making me think deej, sheesh.

 

If the hot water tank gas valves had a 24v circuit I could just use that but they don't. They are pilot only no wires...

 

So if you data logged flue temp duration, you would get a trend on duty cycle. Yes I know the temps are not a critical concern, but the burn time could still be recorded that way. So there!