On Wed, 7 Jan 2015 23:55:23 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...
On 1/3/2015 6:38 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
Here's some other fun stuff from China:
...

My package today:
http://www.amazon.com/CR-Magnetics-R.../dp/B006K3O1MY

I bought the amber ones, to put on heater thermostats. These two
turn
on dimly at 0.4~ 0.5A AC.

So, the LED's show when the heaters are on. Why do you want to know
that? Just curious.

Ever get that feeling? "I'm cold. Is that heater on and working?"


The behavior of the thermostats isn't obvious. The bathroom one has a
shutoff near fully CCW that makes no sound, so I can't tell if it's
off or set low, or couldn't until this morning. It appears to have an
internal anticipator which causes the room temperature to slowly
stairstep up over an hour or so; at first it shuts off at 60, but an
hour later it's still cycling and the room is at 68.
http://homerepair.about.com/od/heati...nticipator.htm
Maybe the old idea of setting the thermostat to 80F to make a cold
house warm up faster had some merit?

With the new electronic tstats, yes. Anticipation circuits work on
both the up and downstroke of temp now, too. '80s heaters had to rely
on mechanics, via the bimetal strips. Electronic tstats can watch the
temperature curve and adjust logically. I love it! EXCEPT in the
case of quick warming of a cold house after a vacation, etc.

With the new HVAC units being steeped in Green, it takes hours for my
house to come down to temp in the summer if I've left the tstat off to
enjoy some fresh air via open-door breezes. Saving energy costs time.


I'm datalogging the current to other one and room temperature, with no
other heat source. So far it looks like a single ~700W radiator can
hold the house at 50F. Outside is at 3F now and dropping. Tomorrow
morning I should know if that radiator is an adequate automatic backup
to the wood stove and how much it costs to run. Last winter the
weather warmed before I completed the datalogging setup.

Heat stratification is the bane to my existence. I hated the
fireplace in my old house and hated the wall heat in the new house, so
I installed a Carrier Infinity here, complete with my first A/C unit!

That said, what kind of airflow mechanism do you have to distribute
that room's hot air to the house? Ditto for the woodstove. I've
tried single-point heat and have always found it to suck, bigtime.
Something I've never tried is to distribute that heat to other rooms
in the house via a ductwork in the attic or crawlspace, just like the
real forced-air units I love. A couple or 3 reversible muffin fans
would do that with insulated 4" ducting for not too much cost. Suck
it directly off the ceiling in the heated room and blow it elsewhere
for a whole-house flow, just like a -real- HVAC system. As long
as there's a flow of air, I can take warmer temps in the house in the
summer.

--
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
-- Seneca