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Data and monitoring: iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

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    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 9th 2011
     
    Thanks to SteamyTea's generosity, I'm monitoring the thermal performance of our newly aerogelled smallest bedroom:

    http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-iButton-temperature-monitoring-of-aerogel-drylined-bedroom.html

    Nothing much to announce yet, but I intend to keep that page updated at least monthly up to the end of the year, lining up Christmas decoration retrieval with data retrieval if possible, for example.

    Rgds

    Damon
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 11th 2011 edited
     
    Just for a giggle I got myself two combined temperature/humidity loggers and have placed them in my loft. One is on the cold side and one on the warm side. They are set to capture a reading every half hour on the hour. Shall leave them up there a few days and see what the readings are. Hopefully this is a good time of year as we are getting a few misty days and I should be able to tell if there is a condensation risk on the cold side of the insulation. Never felt any moisture yet but it is hard to check it all. All going well I can display it with the info from the local weather station too.
      Clipboard03.jpg
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 11th 2011
     
    Ooooooo, a stats arms race... B^>

    Well *I* went to a energy expo today and blagged two rather good MR16/12V LEDs and found lots of people claiming 100lm/W. Oh, and a company that has recently been taken to task on here for selling snake-oil: if I'd had more time I'd have tackled the blighters... B^P

    Brief write-up in progress tonight while it's fresh in my head being done tonight: http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-Energy-Solutions-Expo-2011.html

    Thanks again ST for the iButtons. That's going to an interesting font of data.

    Rgds

    Damon
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 11th 2011
     
    Data is where the truth lies:wink:
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2011 edited
     
    Definitely think that I have an air infiltration problem under the floor in the room just drylined, see attached graph.

    See the last day or so where the red (under floor) temp has dropped a lot more than inside the room, partly due to the draught that can be felt putting your hand in there! I may at the very least try to lag the exposed CH pipes a little.

    http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-iButton-temperature-monitoring-of-aerogel-drylined-bedroom.html

    Rgds

    Damon
      20111016-1.png
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2011 edited
     
    Does that mean you have turned your heating on a couple of times or is that bath night?
    Has the wind changed direction causing the infiltration problem to be worse?
    If so is it time we resurrected the 'Heating On' thread?
    http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=6260&page=5#Item_24
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2011 edited
     
    Heating hasn't been on and we're trying to hold out at least a week or so more!

    The last two nights the windows have been closed at night allowing the room to stay warm, but external temperatures have been plummeting allowing the leaky underfloor void to get cold.

    Rgds

    Damon

    PS. Yes, was thinking that we needed the HO thread again!
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2011
     
    Still got windows open here, sun is out and people where sunbathing. I wanted to join them but my 'wave energy mate' wanted to make a new river on the beach.
    I shall try and get my loggers out the loft for reading tomorrow and see what is going on there.
    Have run a simple power test on my fridge this week to see what happens when I add extra insulation to the sides, seems to work but only had both sides insulated 29 hours now so the drop from a mean of 30W to 20W is a bit rough and ready as usage is a bit different at weekends.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2011
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: SteamyTea</cite>Still got windows open here, sun is out and people where sunbathing. I wanted to join them but my 'wave energy mate' wanted to make a new river on the beach.</blockquote>

    Out digging a trench across Loe Bar, then?
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2011
     
    Tempting to, There are two outlets there, one down the 'cliff' from somewhere and the other from the Loe, I want to put a turbine on it as it just goes across a few metres of beach and out into the ocean. What a waste. I know someone that is involved with the 'restoration' of Loe Bar, may have a word with him now he has retired.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2011
     
    When I used to live down there, as a youth, I used to ride my dirt bike across the Bar from time to time. As I recall, apart from the underground drain at the Porthleven end of the Bar, there was always a fair bit of flow through the sand from Loe Pool in the centre of the Bar, especially at low tide. I remember the Bar bursting at least once in a storm, maybe around 1980 or thereabouts. Given that the Cober feeds a fair bit into the Pool all year around, plus there is also a fair contribution from the outflow from the sewerage treatment plant and some of the old mine adits, I'd have thought it was a resource worth exploring for a micro hydro installation.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 19th 2011
     
    Here is the data from my loft/roof.
    The Sensors are fitted at the highest point, one inside the loft but on the warm side of the insulation, the other inside the roof but on the cold side of the insulation.
    Hard to tell what any future risk is but currently the roof temperature has never gone below the Dewpoint temperature. So risk is currently zero.
      Dewpoint Risk.jpg
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 21st 2011 edited
     
    OK, some more iButton temperature data with works more-or-less complete, see attachment.

    There'll be a little more air-tightness (and other tidy-up) work done in a week or so when the builder gets back from hols, but from tonight I hope to see the underfloor temp much nearer room temp as we've foamed into oblivion what we take to be the major leak... B^>

    Rgds

    Damon
      20111021-1.png
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 25th 2011 edited
     
    First trace with all 4 sensors (under floor, eye-level in room, above plasterboard, above loft insulation):

    http://www.earth.org.uk/img/iButton/20111009-mission1/20111025-1.png

    The relatively wide daily temperature swings outside the insulated area are evident in line 4 (purple) and the underfloor line 1 (red) seems to be more stable now that we blocked some bad air infiltration.

    Rgds

    Damon
      20111025-1.png
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 25th 2011
     
    Did you improve the underfloor on the 18th or the 22nd?
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 25th 2011
     
    Late afternoon/evening 21st in fact.

    Rgds

    Damon
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 25th 2011
     
    Seems to have worked a treat.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeOct 25th 2011
     
    Will need more data: should have 3 weeks' space left on this first run I think! May be enough to catch the rads being used...

    Rgds

    Damon
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 25th 2011
     
    Gets addictive, I thought of swallowing one to see what is happening.
    Here is my roof data chart, not looked too close at it, but still showing no condensation risk. Still no heating on either 8C Outside and 18C inside, window open a bit (22:15 25/10/2011)
      Loft RH and Temp.jpg
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeOct 30th 2011 edited
     
    Just had a little play with the data and it is still not showing a condensation risk. I have also looked at the ambient weather data, where there has been a condensation risk (where the blue and red lines overlap), though this is a small risk and has so far been when the temperature has been rising (early mornings and early afternoons, the misty times down here).
    What is clear though is that, and this may sound obvious, that internal RH is lower than external RH across the temperature range. This reduces the condensation risk even further.
    Two charts, first is internal, second is external.
      Loft and Roof 30-10-2011.jpg
      Ambient Temperature and Humidity 30-10-2011.jpg
    • CommentAuthorborpin
    • CommentTimeNov 4th 2011
     
    Hi SteamyTea, was fascinated by the iButton so did some research. Excellent stuff and I will definitely get some when I need them. In the meantime, how do you read them / wire them up? I have come across http://www.embeddeddatasystems.com/OW-SERVER--1-Wire-to-Ethernet-Server_p_152.html and a search for OW-SERVER on google brings up some surprising results!

    HTH
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeNov 4th 2011
     
    ST lent me a USB dongle that plugs into my Windows (7) laptop and has two receptacles to push iButtons into.

    Rgds

    Damon
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeNov 4th 2011 edited
     
    They do a single one to that is a bit cheaper.
    Make sure you get the 'theromcron' and 'hygrocron' ones and not the cheaper ones that need to be wired intoa PC permanently.
    The software is a free download and pretty easy to set up.

    Damon
    You had any time to see if you can get all the bits working on Linux yet?
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2011 edited
     
    Nope, not yet. Currently up to my eyes in work. Keep prodding me though: it had slipped my mind by I have now made myself a note in ALL CAPS (swoon)! Still, at least I'm collecting interesting data even if I have to use 3 different machines and operating systems to get it for now... %-P

    Rgds

    Damon
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2011
     
    I shall, don't want you using 3 different OS's, one is enough of what ever flavour, just trying to save myself buy a copy of 7 really.
    • CommentAuthorborpin
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2011
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeaDamon
    You had any time to see if you can get all the bits working on Linux yet?


    OWFS?
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2011
     
    OWFS might do it but it would have to work with my ARMv5tel Ubuntu 9.04 system without me cross-compiling, and pref work with the USB reader dongle that ST lent me!

    Anyhow, thanks for the lead, that's interesting.

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthorborpin
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2011
     
    No Bother. A search on "OW-SERVER" threw this up when I was looking for these TCP/IP 1-wire hubs.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2011
     
    I considered getting an iButton router, but as the thermocrons already have the datalogger built in and they are not much more than the standard temp sensors it hardly seemed worth it, plus you need a PC on to log the data, and as I have found out this accounts for about a third of my energy use (hence wanting to run my other meters on the Linux).
    Shal try and pop up in the loft tomorrow and see that has happened over the last week.
    Shall also try and get a few more scattered around the house for the coming winter, it must be getting close to turning the heating on time (see that other thread about that). This is the first full winter since I increased the loft insulation, so desperate to see what has been going on.

    There is a bit about using iButton with Linux here:
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=220436

    The supplier of them kindly gave me a disk of software when I went to visit them (they were very helpful) but not got around to having a good look at what is on there yet.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeNov 7th 2011 edited
     
    I had a panic that I didn't know the depth of my lost insulation (240mm--300mm ish), so took the opportunity to take readings from the loft iButtons and better insulate my loft hatch with some EPS packing material and an offcut of my aerogel plasterboard!

    Updated chart attached...

    Rgds

    Damon
      20111107-1.png

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