Home Heating Oil - Boiler Monitoring

Gilby Dettori

Hey,

I know this topic is covered the world over, so I'm trying to actually find a slightly different angle.

I'm wondering if there are any home heating oil (condensing) boilers that have pulse meters built into them?

From what I see, the cost of a pulse meter is around the 300 mark! which is a bit too high to add on top of a boiler.

Just figured someone would have made one with them integrated, but can't seem to find them.

Appreciate any help/pointers on this matter!

thanks!
GD.

Moved to plumbing & heating, more likely to get an answer here.

MicktheMan

Gilby Dettori wrote: »

Hey,

I know this topic is covered the world over, so I'm trying to actually find a slightly different angle.

I'm wondering if there are any home heating oil (condensing) boilers that have pulse meters built into them?

From what I see, the cost of a pulse meter is around the 300 mark! which is a bit too high to add on top of a boiler.

Just figured someone would have made one with them integrated, but can't seem to find them.

Appreciate any help/pointers on this matter!

thanks!
GD.

What do you want to monitor?

Gilby Dettori

Hey Mick,

I should have specified, but fuel consumption ultimately.
I've looked into building or buying some ultrasonic monitors for the actual tank, but to be honest, they're just not reliable enough.

I want to be able to monitor fuel consumption.
I've looked at some of the pulse meters (puisi k600 pulse meter) for example, and well, frankly I'm surprised that there "appear" to be no manufacturers building these into the actual boilers themselves.

My plans are to run something with pulse metering, combined with the likes of this zwave meter(zwave NQ-9021-EU pulse meter).

The idea is to just simply have zwave tracking of the pulses, therefore enabling me to track with relative accuracy, the burn rate.

Cheers,
GD.

MicktheMan

A low tech solution I use (and has proven to be very accurate) is to fit a simple analogue hour meter across the burner circuit, so when the burner circuit is energised the hour meter records the cumulative time. I then record the meter reading on a weekly basis. Knowing the burn rate (i.e. 2.7 liters/hr in my case) gives me the oil consumption rate.
For example, last week my central heating boiler burned 27 liters of oil (10 hours recorded @ 2.7 liters/hour).

Gilby Dettori

Hey,

That's not a bad option really.
I already have power consumption monitoring in the house, so I could just track the power consumption of the feed to the boiler specifically - and use that to ultimately achieve what you're doing.

The main benefit of the ultrasonic option, is that I could use it to also trigger an alarm if someone decided to start stealing the oil.

But the flow meter option that I wanted to go with, was purely to have a nice solid view of oil flow - and not make any assumptions (though viscosity of the oil based on ambient temperature changes, and can therefore impact the flow meter readings - but it would be negligible I think).

thanks for the tip, I think that's a good enough option - if I can get comfort that the burn rate is pretty consistent.

thanks!
GD

Dtp1979

Gilby Dettori wrote: »

Hey,

That's not a bad option really.
I already have power consumption monitoring in the house, so I could just track the power consumption of the feed to the boiler specifically - and use that to ultimately achieve what you're doing.

The main benefit of the ultrasonic option, is that I could use it to also trigger an alarm if someone decided to start stealing the oil.

But the flow meter option that I wanted to go with, was purely to have a nice solid view of oil flow - and not make any assumptions (though viscosity of the oil based on ambient temperature changes, and can therefore impact the flow meter readings - but it would be negligible I think).

thanks for the tip, I think that's a good enough option - if I can get comfort that the burn rate is pretty consistent.

thanks!
GD

You'll need to put your meter on the feed to the burner and not to the boiler as the pump will be running as soon as the clock is activated

Gilby Dettori

need to think about that one a little more.

you're saying that within the actual Burner unit, that I should not specifically monitor the power consumpton of the overall unit, just the burner itself? I guess that makes sense, as the unit will be on, and the burner may not be running, when it's idling while at temperature.
- is that what you're getting at?

cheers Dtp1979.

Dtp1979

Gilby Dettori wrote: »

need to think about that one a little more.

you're saying that within the actual Burner unit, that I should not specifically monitor the power consumpton of the overall unit, just the burner itself? I guess that makes sense, as the unit will be on, and the burner may not be running, when it's idling while at temperature.
- is that what you're getting at?

cheers Dtp1979.

I'm assuming that your boiler is outside and the circulating pump is out there too. IF that's the case, then don't put your meter inside on the power out to the boiler as the pump will effect the readings. You'd have to put your meter on the wire going to the burner itself.

Wearb

Have a gander here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057313993

Gilby Dettori

Hey Wearb - nice one, thanks for that post, I see you've been here.
Also, just out of curiosity, where were you measuring the temperature?

I think I need to get the finger out and get this in asap. I'm interested in seeing the difference in run times/burner % NOW vs when I replace the burner, and indeed when I have the beaded cavity installation pumped into the house.

nice one,
GD.

Gilby Dettori

oh and what did you actually use in the end? which specific counter?

thanks!

Wearb

I use an Aldi weather station.

I got two hour counters from Radionics (I think). The face of the counter is about 50mm x 50mm. Numbers are a little small, but ok.

Irish Steve

A very long time ago, I fitted 2 meters to the boiler, one monitors boiler live time, which is the time when the pump is active, and the boiler might be required to provide heat, and the other is connected to the burner live feed (after the boiler thermostat), so I get a number of hours of actual burner operation. I read the meters today, (they get read once a month, along with the electric and water meters) the total boiler on time is 22017 hours, the burner active time is 11537. I deliberately use the boiler in the summer months for hot water only, as that means the pump, motorised valves, burner and related items are all kept operational, and we get fewer problems with things not working at the start of the winter heating system, the only issue in recent times has been a couple of the thermostatic valve stems sticking, which takes about 30 seconds to solve when we use the rooms that are affected, and I've had to do a bit of maintenance on the motorised zone valves over the years, both on motors and valve stem seals, but that's about it. We did replace the pump and burner after they were damaged by a major flood in 2002, and we used to have issues with the external hot water heat exchanger furring up until we fitted an all house water softener, but the rest is all original fit.

The clocks I have are relatively cheap and cheerful Radionics mechanical timers that are motor driven, that can be found here but as they're in a separate boiler house, the slight noise from them is not an issue.

Gilby Dettori

Hey guys,

thanks for the info from you all.
One thing about the monitoring of the burner.. will the burn rate differ based on the temperature you set the thermostat at?
- and if so, then I guess it's a matter of knowing what the burn rate is at specific temperatures.

Cheers,
GD.

Wearb

Gilby Dettori wrote: »

will the burn rate differ based on the temperature you set the thermostat at?
Cheers,
GD.

No