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DIY HVAC
An anonymous reader writes "I found this very interesting project called DIY Zoning. It allows one to add air flow balancing, temperature control, zoning, home automation, and more to an existing or new HVAC system. After getting a $200 electric bill, this sounds like a good solution for those who are getting screwed with outrageously high electric bills due to their HVAC unit especially since organizations like TVA have raised the electric rates."
DIY Zoning is just one in a family of projects.
Don't forget about Haywire, Jukebox, and ServoMaster, all of which are hosted at SourceForge and directly tie-in to the temperature zoning system featured in this Slashdot posting.
[Oh, and FWIW, Professor Tkachenko's son is a cutie (an old college friend of mine knew him)!]
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
for non-eXtreme geeks like myself, HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning.
Put the real thermostat somewhere hidden and place a dummy one in the hall for the wife and kids.
Putting a circuit in to turn off the AC when someone opens a window helps too.
Beep beep.
Would there be anything wrong with using your shower water as toilet water? I honestly can't see anything wrong with that and it'd certainly cut down on somebody's water bill from month to month.
This is why I only use solar energy!
Ack, gotta go, a cloud's coming!
Complaining about TVA rates? Haha... You are getting some of the cheapest, subsidized electricity in the country.
Read this:
http://www.nemw.org/tvareport.htm
As an ex plumber-pipefitter, zoning is a must for any eficient system.
,it is looks like a full blown commercial install, When I was out of town once the boiler went out (flooded expansion tank) so my wife called the company I worked for, my friend glen cam out and said , "uhhh youre gonna have to call in a commercial outfit were all residential and Ive never seen a system like this before Chris (me usually handles all our commercial stuff"
Take this house for example, 2000 sq ft 2 story farmhouse, 1950's anderson windows, still nice but not real tight, no in wall insulation, attic is aesbestos (but now sealed)
The house is set up into 3 zones, on an old , circa 1950 American Standard electro-mechanical zone system, it is hot water heat, about half baseboard, the other half cast radiators, the heat throught the hose is awesome, never too cold anywhere. Now, the fun part, we dont have gas, and electric was way too ineffecient to heat this house soooo, my grandfather a pipefitter as well installed the system back in the 50's
The wind up of all this , my heating bill for the entire year ? Under $600 Thats 350 gallons of oil, I only took 310 or so after 13 months last time I topped off. And I live near Cleveland Ohio (Akron), not exactly warm winters here ya know
The project was born out of a total and absolute frustration which in turn was a result of a fruitless search of information about existing temperature zoning solutions. The only information available on the zoning system manufacturer web sites was usually "call us for an estimate". The estimates were usually being performed by salespeople. Technical people were difficult to get. Read the complete story for details.
The author obviously didn't look in the right places. Here are a few links to get started:
SmartHome
HomeTech Solutions
Bass Burglar Alarms
I've done business with all three, and have retrofitted my home with a two-zone system powered by an RCS zone controller and electronic dampers. All three have been extremely helpful in providing technical advice.
One thing to remember: The HVAC business (as well as the burglar alarm business) are very protective of their turf. You stand little chance of finding an HVAC contractor willing to work with you on designing a custom HVAC system.
Or rain water. You could save rain water for several purposes, like toilet water and watering your lawn.
It's even mandatory these days to install a rain water reservoir for new houses (here at least).
Insulate your house. Insulate your attic, insulate the walls, insulate the pipes and add secondary glazing. It's the cheapest and most effective thing you can do.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
- Install stormwater tanks. Hook them up to your roof's stormwater system, with the excess (that the tanks can't store) going into the stormwater drains, as the whole lot used to do. Use this water to flush toilets, water gardens, and possibly wash clothes and shower in (depending on the quality of the rainwater you get).
- Redirect water from your shower to gardens, toilets, etc. You may need to treat it to get rid of soap, shampoo, etc. residues.
- Fix those leaking taps.
- Take shorter showers.
- Install a water-saving shower head.
- Stop hosing down the damn concrete driveway. Use a broom, or a blower if you're that damn lazy.
Here in Australia, stormwater tanks used to be illegal! That's changed, though, as the Powers That Be came to the realisation that our water resources are limited, they won't be expanding, and yet they have to support a growing population. The scary thing is, since my father installed stormwater tanks for our showers, toilets, and laundry, our water bills dropped by a third (or more).As an aside, there's one place in Melbourne (Aus) that has no water bill. None. Zero. Zip. They were actually investigated pretty thoroughly when this happened, because authorities assumed they were stealing water from their neighbours. Not so, though; they were just very efficient with their water use and recycling, and were able to fill their needs from stormwater.
Do you really need both of those monitors?
My monitors *are* my zoned heating system. A small quartz heater take up what else the distributed computing doesn't make. I can keep my living area around 80 degrees (I like it hot) with a total monthly utility bill less than $100.
The hotter months, I move my hobbies down to the basement in the furnished bomb shelter. Underground, its much cooler. My LCD displays with the backlight on soft only consumes a few watts, so they are good. Summer utility bills are less than $60 and I get to leave florescent lights on.
> for non-eXtreme geeks like myself, HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning.
And for the rest of us, it stands for High Voltage AC. Though that's usually fairly darwinistic as a DIY-project.
I have a fairly paltry income, I was willing to do anything to cut back on expenses to make my daily life a little easier to live.
Started with the electric bill, did the obvious things, knocked the thermostat in a direction that'd keep the costs down. Replaced all the bulbs in the house with florecents. Switched to more energy effecient devices and appliances. It helped, but didn't make a real dent. My problem was heating and cooling. I live in a location with all the seasons. Very hot, very cold.
Then a co-worker inspired an idea. He faught in Viet Nam, told me bout how the guys rotated back to the world and stopped in Hawaii for refueling. All the guys in combat were so used to the hot humid jungle that the 88F weather of Hawaii was just too cold for them, they all had on leather jackets trying to beat the chill.
It was then I realized, that to a degree, my battles with TVA were more easily won by conditioning. All these years I had been spoiled by AC and electric heat. So I did a little experiment this Winter.
I vowed never to turn on the heat unless there was a chance that the pipes might freeze. Went and bought a coleman sleeping bag and a bunkbed at a thriftstore, kept myself closer to the cieling and snuggly in my sleeping bag. Kept very warm at night, during the day I'd burn a few candles just to take the chill out of the room, wore long sleaves.
My electric bill went from 270$ a month to around 30$.
Success through suffering. But the experiment worked, now I can run around in shorts when it's 38F out and it's not big deal to me.
How will I fair during the Summer tho? Many people die in the South from heat stroke, so I'm a little concerned about that. I really don't wanna die or get sick to save a dollar. So I think I'm going to do some zone cooling, reasonable AC set on 80 and lots of fans.
The methods illustrated in the story would have been tempting, but I'm a renter. Not a whole like I can apply to the living structure without violating my lease and being homeless where it's gonna be really cold out.
Actually, the single most worthy project would be simply buying a new refrigerator. They are the #1 electricity consumers in almost every household, because they run 24x7x365, and are never thrown out until they completely fail(after years of working below the already mediocre factory performance). Newer refrigerators are MUCH more efficient than those made 5, 10 years ago. There are even models that are so efficient, they can be run entirely off solar power.
Wanna reduce your electric bill, but can't replace your fridge? Leave enough space behind it for airflow, and vacuum/dust the coils, especially those under the unit. Oh, and properly set the controls; buy a thermometer and adjust until both compartments are cold -enough-. The freezer control, by the way, doesn't control the freezer compartment temperature- it controls the RATIO of cooling between refrigerator and freezer compartments.
All in all, even if you buy a new fridge, it could end up paying for itself in a year or two in saved electric costs. Oh, and slowly switch your lights over to fluorescent bulbs, wrap hot water pipes in foam insulation, put sealing inserts behind outlet plates+switchplates, etc. In the winter, cover windows in rooms you don't use with the window insulation you can buy at the hardware store. Find out the R-rating on the insulation in your walls, attic, etc; old insulation can be horrible compared to the latest new stuff(which can often be "blown" into place, install is a cinch). Got an old furnace? Get a new one; they're also a thousand times better these days. My folk's new gas furnace is so efficient, its exhaust is a 2" PVC pipe that is barely warm to the touch when it's going full blast...
Last but not least, turn off the damn computer when you're not using it, get an ISP account with webspace instead of running your own webserver, etc. I worked it out once...100-200W over 24x7x365 equals a LOT of money per year!
Please help metamoderate.
When I bult my house I used Wirsbo(tm) tubing under the hardwood flooring upstairs, and in the concrete slab downstairs. It is set up with zones, digital, 7 day thermostats, etc. The floors are always warm, any backup heat is from a pellet stove. All DIY. It is very comfortable.
The heat for the infloor system is from standard water heaters. Since the water heaters are downstairs, I don't need to turn on the thermostats for pump control - simple thermosiphon will cause the hot water to flow thru the system in the upper two stories.
The system is simple and convenient. If power goes out I still have heat from thermosiphoning.
It is possible top retrofit homes with this system, either with baseboard radiators or running the tubing between the joists (plus some drilling to get to each joist bay) as long as the crawl space is available.
There are other companies besides Wirsbo that produce this type of heating system/product.
When you are ready to build/buy your own house I recommend comparing HVAC and infloor heating. Look at "Fine Homebuilding" magazine for ads and articles, they are at the obvious web site.
To make my heating system more viable I used foam insulation for R-50 in the walls and R-60 in the roof. Double paned windows and a 5 foot overhang to reduce summer heat gain (my outside walls are 11 feet high). If the are more than 8 people in the house at a time I need to turn all the heating off, as the heat thrown off by the bodies raises the inside temp.
All in all a rather pleasant solution to the heating/cooling system.
Since I live on the northern California coast I don't need cooling. Average year round temp is 55 degrees F.
If you need cooling the system could be adapted for that. To cool the house you only need to cool the circulating water, a heat pump would the best solution.
According to my schedule the episode of This Old House on PBS this week will show how in Bermuda it is standard practice to collect rainwater for all a house's water needs - in fact if a family uses too much water, they're forced to buy water from the government. Show info here shows up to last week's episode: This Old House