Green Building Forum - iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:07:09 +0100

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:56:34 +0100

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:18:08 +0100

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:28:09 +0100

Data is where the truth lies

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:53:51 +0100

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:37:40 +0100

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:43:31 +0100

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!

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:54:28 +0100

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

JSHarris — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:57:29 +0100

Posted By: SteamyTeaStill 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.

Out digging a trench across Loe Bar, then?

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:00:36 +0100

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

JSHarris — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:08:31 +0100

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:00:40 +0100

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:55:22 +0100

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:26:40 +0100

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:31:04 +0100

Did you improve the underfloor on the 18th or the 22nd?

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:37:14 +0100

Late afternoon/evening 21st in fact.

Rgds

Damon

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:42:35 +0100

Seems to have worked a treat.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:57:54 +0100

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:15:44 +0100

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)

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:34:24 +0000

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

borpin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:26:37 +0000

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:41:37 +0000

ST lent me a USB dongle that plugs into my Windows (7) laptop and has two receptacles to push iButtons into.

Rgds

Damon

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:19:48 +0000

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?

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:26:44 +0000

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:52:36 +0000

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

borpin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:30:14 +0000

Posted By: SteamyTeaDamon
You had any time to see if you can get all the bits working on Linux yet?

OWFS?

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:51:02 +0000

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

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

borpin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:18:38 +0000

No Bother. A search on "OW-SERVER" threw this up when I was looking for these TCP/IP 1-wire hubs.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

SteamyTea — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:35:30 +0000

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.

iButton-based temperature monitoring after IWI

DamonHD — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:27:42 +0000

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