Categories
All

Saving gas through better heating controls

If your community building’s heating controls are a bit short on energy efficiency features, part of what we do in HeatHack is meant for you. Read about how past groups have curbed their fuel use. We give help in our online guide and have a special event in Edinburgh to get you started.

Categories
All

Can we use alkaline batteries?

Our thermal monitors will work on non-rechargeable alkaline batteries, but we don’t know how long they will give readings, and when the voltage drops too far, the relative humidity readings will be inaccurate.

Categories
All

Sharing thermal monitors

Engineers, there’s a slight wrinkle if you want to put two thermal monitors in the same building. We explain how.

Categories
All

Enforcing a minimum temperature

If your heating controls don’t enforce a “setback” temperature, in this kind of weather the building can get cold enough to risk damage. Here’s what good control looks like.

Categories
All

Not-in-time heating

Not-in-time heating is a very common pattern in community buildings. We describe some common reasons for it.

Categories
All

Why get smart meters

We’re advising all of our groups to get smart meters. They should allow venues to see live energy use readings taken every half hour. In this blog post we explain why that’s useful.

Categories
All

Maximum temperatures

Here’s an interesting fact – between 1980 and 2013, it was illegal in the UK to heat public spaces to above 19C unless there was a specific reason. We’re currently looking at why one of our monitors often sees 30C.

Categories
All

A Good Reception

If you are thinking nice snacks and drinks I’m sorry to disappoint: not entertainment, but radio signals sent from sensor to hub. Not every temperature and humidity reading will make it to the hub, for onward journey to ‘the cloud’, if there are obstacles or a fair distance to travel. So how can we pamper […]

Categories
All

Plotting in Excel

Here’s how to plot our thermal monitor data in Excel.

Categories
All

Off they go

The stock of thermal monitors has been growing, but now it’s time to send them out to those engineers in the first group who have a venue and group who want to improve the comfort and carbon footprint of their building. Not all the boxes look the same. Firstly, there are sensors – with the […]