{"id":4864,"date":"2010-03-22T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T05:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.olino.org\/us\/?p=4864"},"modified":"2010-03-21T19:06:54","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T00:06:54","slug":"cut-down-your-costs-on-natural-gas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/articles\/2010\/03\/22\/cut-down-your-costs-on-natural-gas\/","title":{"rendered":"Cut Down Your Costs on Natural Gas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gas\"<\/a>It is possible to fine tune your central heating system by balancing the radiators and applying a modulating thermostat in cooperation with a modulating boiler.\u00a0 The first measurements revealed a 37% reduction in gas consumption. Read further\u00a0\u00a0how I discovered this amazing fact.
\n<\/p>\n

The High Efficiency Boiler Setup<\/h3>\n

Mister Joep van de Ven (CV Tuning<\/a>) fine tuned my central heating system. This\u00a0involved lowering the maximum power-output from 11 kW (50% of maximum output) towards 40% (approximately 9 kW).\u00a0 The ‘comfort-setting’ mode, set\u00a0to deliver warm water instantly, had\u00a0already been\u00a0disabled.\u00a0 The temperature on the central heating circuit was lowered from a default of\u00a090 degrees Celsius:\u00a0 I already turned it\u00a0down to 65-70 degrees Celsius.\u00a0 During harsh winters, \u00a0the only thing I do is change\u00a0it\u00a0back\u00a0to\u00a075 degrees Celsius, \u00a0so that\u00a0there’s sufficient warmth.\u00a0\u00a0 All of\u00a0these settings are quite easy to adjust and can be found in\u00a0my central heating system manual.\u00a0 My goal is to maintain\u00a0as long as possible in the area where the boiler has it’s best efficiency: \u00a0107%\u00a0 due to the energy which is stored in water vapor,\u00a0 released in the emission of burned natural gas.\u00a0 This\u00a0heated air\u00a0will\u00a0settle on the condensor and transfer to the circuit to warm your house.\u00a0 This process stops when the returning central heating water circuit exceeds approximately 58 degrees Celsius.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That’s why\u00a0it’s important to monitor the temperatures!<\/p>\n

The Radiators<\/h3>\n

All radiators were set up and fine tuned by Joep with the \u00a0aid of a special socket\/key. After he finished his work, I could immediately feel how the bathroom got warm, while the living room and kitchen also warmed up. Before this, the living and kitchen would turn cold \/ cool down when the bathroom radiator was opened and got warmer.\u00a0 \u00a0The sound is also more noticeable:\u00a0 earlier, \u00a0I could hear the\u00a0ticking noises of expanding pipes, \u00a0but this is considerably less noticeable after the fine tuning. Now I could really feel\u00a0 the difference in the way\u00a0the\u00a0 central heating and modulating thermostat were cooperating.\u00a0\u00a0 After all, \u00a0I didn’t change any setting on the radiators after Joeps’ work was done.<\/p>\n

The Thermostat<\/h3>\n

When\u00a0I bought this house a simple thermostat was mounted in 2006: \u00a0a Honeywell Round Modulation model.\u00a0 \u00a0During renovation, \u00a0I exchanged this one for a more advanced clock thermostat,\u00a0 the Honeywell Chronotherm IV, which is an on\/off switching type thermostat instead of a modulating one (bad mistake, as I thought it was modulating…). As the central heating is capable of modulating to the desired output, you can imagine there’s room for improvement.<\/p>\n

So I upgraded the last one for a modulating thermostat and the old one got issued to a friend who needed one.<\/p>\n

During selection of a matching thermostat, \u00a0I also reviewed models of ATAG (in advance of upgrading to a Qsolar system).\u00a0 Though it wasn’t that obvious, the Z-protocol could cause some trouble\u00a0for my OpenTherm central heating system.\u00a0\u00a0Instead I opted for another Honeywell thermostat: the Honeywell Chronotherm Modulation model.<\/p>\n

\"Honeywell<\/a>
\nHoneywell Chronotherm CM937 Modulation Thermostat<\/em><\/p>\n

The installation of the new thermostat was easy:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0just turn off the complete system,\u00a0 disconnect the thermostat and re-connect the new one. When operational, you can see on the display the modulating of the central heating:\u00a0\u00a0 the more ‘flames’ that\u00a0are shown, the more output your heating system will generate.\u00a0 After this,\u00a0 it is clear the burner will start at approximately 80% and then throttle down to approximately 12,5%.\u00a0\u00a0 After a while, the burner shuts off\u00a0and remains off until the thermostat requires more.<\/p>\n

Last Weeks Natural Gas Consumption<\/h3>\n

The\u00a0Enymate<\/a> is mounted onto the main gas meter and after a week with this fine tuned and water balanced central heating system, \u00a0I collected the data from Enymate and made a graph of it.<\/p>\n

The modulating thermostat\u00a0has been\u00a0mounted since January 18th, and during the period of\u00a0 of January 17 & 18, \u00a0a temporary solution was installed. \u00a0Some of the \u00a0extreme figures indicate a moment where I took a shower or needed warm water or cooking (on gas).<\/p>\n

With the gathered data, \u00a0you can visualize the behavior of the central heating system. You can immediately see the results of an optimized heating system (fine tuned and water balanced)<\/p>\n

\"nachtverbruik-voor-inregelen\"<\/a>Here on the left side, you can see the data extracted from the Enymate. Since 12 Midnight, \u00a0the boiler\/heating system is still active, while no energy is requested even though\u00a0the program’s ‘sleep mode’ is active.\u00a0 Take notice,\u00a0 this is the night before the heating system was fine tuned and water balanced, \u00a0and a on\/off switching type thermostat. Even the built-in (embedded) hot water reserve (which holds up to approximately 8 liters of\u00a0warm water) was disabled.<\/p>\n

To compare, I also used a day (December 2009) and plotted the data from the late night\/early morning (until 6:30 AM) to visualize \u00a0consumption of natural gas.\u00a0 In total, \u00a0that night, \u00a02.8 cubic meters were used.<\/p>\n

Below you see the second graph: the time during night\/early morning in December 2009. A typical behaviour of an un-balanced central heating system with a switching-type (on\/off) thermostat and default radiator-setup. Notice the extreme activities.<\/p>\n

\"gasverbruik-ongeregelde-ketel\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For your information, in the\u00a0above graphm \u00a0the interval of measurements is set at 3 minutes (20 measurements\/hour).<\/p>\n

On Friday,\u00a0 January 15th,\u00a0 the company “CV Tuning” visited me and adjusted some parameters.\u00a0\u00a0 And what was the impact on the central heating during the night\/early morning?\u00a0 Sadly, there isn’t any activity at all: zero consumption! \u00a0And this is also many nights after the moment of optimization:\u00a0 no activity, no consumption!\u00a0 This saves me approximately 2 cubic meters of gas a day. That is about 5 kg of CO2 emission that hasn’t been expelled by 1 household,\u00a0 with a one time and simple action. That’s approximately\u00a0 \u20ac 1,30 you don’t have to spend on natural gas.<\/p>\n

In my household, which uses approximately 800 m3 of gas on an\u00a0annual basis,\u00a0 this would imply\u00a0that 150 nights (Autumn & Winter) if\u00a0about 300 m3 of gas.\u00a0 A reduction of\u00a0 gas usage\u00a0of approximately\u00a0 37% (calculated\/estimated).<\/p>\n

Thats amazing, Mike!\u00a0 \u00a0And it is still very comfortable:\u00a0 the kitchen and living room are on the same temperature when I arrive.<\/p>\n

\"nachtverbruik-na-inregelen\"<\/a>To make things visual again, here on the left you can see data extracted from the Enymate on the first night after fine tuning and water balanced settings.\u00a0 The last moment the central heating uses some gas is on 10:27 PM, \u00a0and it returns to ‘deep sleep’ mode.\u00a0 It is set to be\u00a0activated at\u00a0around 8:15AM\u00a0 and start warming up my house, so\u00a0at 10:00 AM the temperature is right where it should be (19 degrees Celsius). To conclude:\u00a0 mission accomplished!<\/p>\n

It makes you think:\u00a0 if only this setting has so much effect on 1 house, \u00a0imagine the impact when you scale this up!\u00a0 In my area, where about there are about\u00a0300 houses,\u00a0 it could save 600 cubic meters in gas usage and prevent approximately 1.200 kg of CO2 emission every night!\u00a0 On an annual basis,\u00a0 it would be about 216.000 kg!<\/p>\n

That makes you think\u2026 Think global, act local \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\n

Niels Thijssen, Weblog: Renewable Energy: NOW!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is possible to fine tune your central heating system by balancing the radiators and applying a modulating thermostat in cooperation with a modulating boiler.\u00a0 The first measurements revealed a 37% reduction in gas consumption. Read further\u00a0\u00a0how I discovered this amazing fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[28,30,29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4864"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4883,"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864\/revisions\/4883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}