Automated Home Heating - Energy Consumption

[more control]

Hi All

I am looking for some assistance with a new application that I am looking to promote which can automate the heating of radiators foe both home / commercial use.

The radiator valve allows you to customise / preset energy outputs to optimise your heating resources.

The only problem I have is in finding the actual running costs of a radiator to establish what are cost / benefits you can get with this device.

I know how to measure the BTU/KW usage of a radiator, and the approximately room size, energy loss.

What I am looking for is a means of analysing the actual running costs of a radiator.

Basically, from how much it would cost to heat up a room from X to Y and for how much energy it would take to keep the room running at a consistent temperature of terms of mins/hours.

If anyone knows how to calculate this, it would be most appreciated.

If you require anymore info about this, feel free to contact me.

All the best
Steve

[Rob]

I'd suggest you need to start speaking to heating system design engineers and you'll probably need a specialist forum for that rather than one which is concentrating on cable broadband and television tech.

If you want the software to be accurate for running costs of a radiator your going to need to understand the energy input of the boiler, rather than just the radiator, together with any heat losses from the pipework. Some how you'd need to allow for changing external temperatures, and of course the temperature you are heating up from as well as the rate of heat loss through the structure which might even be affected by someone opening a window. You can probably get a rough idea without some of that stuff, but if this is to be accurate you are going to have some fun.

And of course strictly speaking running costs should include expected maintenance costs for a system, or are you simply going to redefine this as energy use cost?

[more control]

Oh eye, I do agree.

One option was to create a controlled environment to measure each variable as you have put it. Although the idea was to be able to setup an approx calculator / means of measurement to allow a person to understand their heating costs and would they could save with this application.

I can get approximate measurement on room / energy / temp loss. (But that does not take into effect external factors)

Maintenance costs would not be included in the initial running of the radiator system as the application is quite robust. Although I do agree that would be an important factor to take into account.

With the boiler, one option was to install a flow meter for the measurement / temp of water in and out of the boiler.

I get the feeling I may need a long chat with a design engineer on this one.

Many thanks.

[Rob]

A flow meter on the input and output water on a boiler isn't sufficient. You need to know the energy going into the thing as well since no boiler is truly 100% efficient even the modern condensing type things. Only then would you be able to start measuring the proportion of that energy the individual radiator is using from the distributed hot water.

And if you are going to look for accuracy there are other operating costs too. The pump, programmer and boiler all use some electricity along with any wired room thermostats.

[Lord Nikon]

Add to that the heat loss through the copper pipes dependent on distance from the boiler, types of media the pipes pass through, whether or not the pipes pass through a heated room, rates of thermal loss through various walls in the house, whether the room on the other side of the wall is heated. It's a mass of variables.

[LSainsbury]

My head has just exploded....