I've seen these boiler reset controls to sense outdoor temperature to compensate for the water temperature flowing through hydronic radiators. Just curious do they make anything for a 1 zone steam boiler?

This is for a 6 family apt building in NYC. I'm wondering if they make an outdoor temperature sensor that can prevent the boiler from coming on if it's warm enough outside. Current rules in NYC a

From 6AM-10PM, indoor temp must be 68deg if outside temp is below 55.
From 10PM-6AM indoor temp must be 55deg if outside temp is below 40.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/ten...ot-water.shtml

So I would need something similar to a programmable T-Stat for the different times and temperatures. I'm wondering if its possible to wire 2 T-stats in series?

Or will this cause more problems? Ideally, I'd like to have a Wi-Fi indoor T-stat , but there is no Wi-Fi in the bldg ( not even with tenants), and the wiring from indoor T-stat on 2nd floor hallway to boiler is insufficient ( only 2 wires).

On Sunday, September 28, 2014 9:12:16 AM UTC-4, Mikepier wrote:
I've seen these boiler reset controls to sense outdoor temperature to compensate for the water temperature flowing through hydronic radiators. Just curious do they make anything for a 1 zone steam boiler?



Apparently they do, like this:


http://tekmarcontrols.com/products/h...stems/279.html



This is for a 6 family apt building in NYC. I'm wondering if they make an outdoor temperature sensor that can prevent the boiler from coming on if it's warm enough outside. Current rules in NYC a



From 6AM-10PM, indoor temp must be 68deg if outside temp is below 55.

From 10PM-6AM indoor temp must be 55deg if outside temp is below 40.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/ten...ot-water.shtml



So I would need something similar to a programmable T-Stat for the different times and temperatures. I'm wondering if its possible to wire 2 T-stats in series?



I think it's more complicated than just two thermostats in series.



Or will this cause more problems? Ideally, I'd like to have a Wi-Fi indoor T-stat , but there is no Wi-Fi in the bldg ( not even with tenants), and the wiring from indoor T-stat on 2nd floor hallway to boiler is insufficient ( only 2 wires).

It's not clear if you're living there, this is for you? For one apartment?
A common area?

But for the 2 wire to 2+N problem, Google is your friend:

http://www.fast-stat.net/

Mike:

Indoor/Outdoor reset controls are available for both hydronic and steam heating boilers.

But I think you're missing one important point. Apartment blocks are built different than houses. Houses have lumber exterior and interior walls that have very little thermal mass, so the furnace or boiler can raise and lower the temperature of the house relatively quickly. Typically, apartment blocks will have to abide by a different construction code and will have concrete block exterior walls with a brick veneer to make them look attractive as well as concrete block walls around each apartment to act as a fire barrier to prevent fire from spreading laterally.

It's the thermal inertia of your concrete block walls that would prevent any boiler or boiler control from being able to follow those 24 hour temperature guidelines you quoted. You can put in an indoor/outdoor reset control, but it certainly wouldn't be able to modulate the temperature in your building on a 24 hour basis like that. So, in that regard, you'd probably be best off to install an indoor/outdoor reset control, set it to provide a comfortable temperature inside your building and leave it at that. Trying to change the termpature of all that concrete every 12 hours or so is simply not going to happen. Your boiler control may be set to do that, but the thermal inertia of your concrete block and brick walls is going to be a monkey wrench in the machinery of it all, and will prevent your plan from actually working as hoped.

Tekmar is a well respected name in hydronic (and I suspect steam) heating boiler controls. They are owned by the Watts company which I believe is headquartered in the USA.

On 9/28/2014 10:28 AM, nestork wrote:
Mike:

Indoor/Outdoor reset controls are available for both hydronic and steam
heating boilers.

But I think you're missing one important point. Apartment blocks are
built different than houses. Houses have lumber exterior and interior
walls that have very little thermal mass,

Really??? How about the hundreds of thousands of homes built from other
materials? Stone, block, ICFs SIPS. brick. adobe, concrete, etc.



It's the thermal inertia of your concrete block walls that would prevent
any boiler or boiler control from being able to follow those 24 hour
temperature guidelines you quoted.

Why? It only matters getting the temperature up at the required time,
lag to the lower is not a problem, not does it have to go that low. You
will have to anticipate the time for increase and the boiler will have
to come on before the required time to reach the daily minimum for
daytime.




You can put in an indoor/outdoor
reset control, but it certainly wouldn't be able to modulate the
temperature in your building on a 24 hour basis like that. So, in that
regard, you'd probably be best off to install an indoor/outdoor reset
control, set it to provide a comfortable temperature inside your
building and leave it at that. Trying to change the termpature of all
that concrete every 12 hours or so is simply not going to happen.

It does not have to reach the 55 degree at night, that is a minimum. He
can set it to whatever works and makes sense. I'd think that 62 or 64
minimum would be better in many respects. Happy tenants and easier to
maintain the swings.

On Sunday, September 28, 2014 11:59:13 AM UTC-4, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 9/28/2014 10:28 AM, nestork wrote:

Mike:



Indoor/Outdoor reset controls are available for both hydronic and steam

heating boilers.



But I think you're missing one important point. Apartment blocks are

built different than houses. Houses have lumber exterior and interior

walls that have very little thermal mass,



Really??? How about the hundreds of thousands of homes built from other

materials? Stone, block, ICFs SIPS. brick. adobe, concrete, etc.







It's the thermal inertia of your concrete block walls that would prevent

any boiler or boiler control from being able to follow those 24 hour

temperature guidelines you quoted.



Why? It only matters getting the temperature up at the required time,

lag to the lower is not a problem, not does it have to go that low. You

will have to anticipate the time for increase and the boiler will have

to come on before the required time to reach the daily minimum for

daytime.









You can put in an indoor/outdoor

reset control, but it certainly wouldn't be able to modulate the

temperature in your building on a 24 hour basis like that. So, in that

regard, you'd probably be best off to install an indoor/outdoor reset

control, set it to provide a comfortable temperature inside your

building and leave it at that. Trying to change the termpature of all

that concrete every 12 hours or so is simply not going to happen.



It does not have to reach the 55 degree at night, that is a minimum. He

can set it to whatever works and makes sense. I'd think that 62 or 64

minimum would be better in many respects. Happy tenants and easier to

maintain the swings.


I was waiting for someone to bring up the ridiculous 55 temp. That might
be acceptable on an emergency basis, for a few days. But you'd have to be
a slum lord to deliberately target 55F as an acceptable temp, just because
the govt says it's as low as you can go and still not get fined, etc.
From a practical standpoint, if you have it at 68F at 10PM, for typical
building, it's not going to get to 55F, unless it's some place exceptionally
cold or purely insulated, etc.

And I think Mike is conflating two different things. One is just setting
back the temp at night. I guess you could screw with it more, basing it
on outside temps, if you're really going to go to those guidelines. But IDK
anyone that wants to live that way and I wouldn't do it to tenants . I'd
have a min temp for day and a min setback temp at night that didn't depend on
the outside temp. So, all you need is a setback thermostat that is secure
and tenants can't screw with. How you do that, IDK. Plenty of tenants have
enough smarts to figure out how to bypass stuff.

The main purpose of the outdoor temp reset, AFAIK, is to moderate the temps
that the boiler runs at. At least that's how it works with hot water. If
it's 45F out, you don't need to run the boiler water as hot as you do if it's
10F out. That lets the boiler run a little more efficient. AFAIK, you can
still set the individual thermostats to whatever you want. Also, IDK how
this concept works with steam, because you do need to make steam, not just
heat water. But apparently the reset controls do exist for steam.

No the reset control doesn't compensate for the water temperature in the heating system; it lowers the set temperature of the heating system when it's warm outside and raises it when it's cold outside.

Also, I'm not sure there's such a thing as a indoor/outdoor reset control for STEAM heating systems because I'm not sure that steam boilers are set up to produce varying temperature steam the way hydronic boilers are set up to produce varying temperature water. Any steam boiler manufacturer could answer that. Maybe contact Weil McLain in that regard. They make hydronic boilers, but I don't know if they make steam boilers.

Ed: The heavier the construction materials used to build the home, the greater the thermal inertia. If you have concrete block walls in your house, you'll have the same situation as an apartment block where it takes a much longer time for the building to warm up or cool down because of the thermal mass of the walls. That's just a matter of physics and thermodynamics. The heavier the mass, the more heat it stores and the greater it's thermal inertia.

No. You're suggesting that he can program his timed thermostat to come one earlier and shut off earlier to account for the thermal mass of the walls. You could do that if it was just a few hours that the walls remained warm or cool, but we're talking days. How can you program a 24 hour thermostat to come on and go off several days in advance?

What I'm saying is that it makes no sense to have daily swings in temperature when the thermal mass of the walls is an important factor in the heating of the property for more than 24 hours. He'd be better off to just set the reset temperature control at a comfortable level and leave it that way 24/7 from October to March. That's the way most hot water heating systems with indoor/outdoor reset controls are operated.

On Sunday, September 28, 2014 1:42:26 PM UTC-4, nestork wrote:


I've seen these boiler reset controls to sense outdoor temperature to

compensate for the water temperature flowing through hydronic

radiators.





No the reset control doesn't compensate for the water temperature in the

heating system; it lowers the set temperature of the heating system when

it's warm outside and raises it when it's cold outside.


I guess it depends on what he meant by compensating. An outdoor temp
reset systems does change the temp of the water flowing in the system
based on outdoor temp. I'd call that compensating.






Also, I'm not sure there's such a thing as a indoor/outdoor reset

control for STEAM heating systems because I'm not sure that steam

boilers are set up to produce varying temperature steam the way hydronic

boilers are set up to produce varying temperature water.

I wondered the same thing. I provided a link to a company that is
selling them. Exactly how they work, IDK. It apparently applies some
of the same principles to a steam system.




No. You're suggesting that he can program his timed thermostat to come

one earlier and shut off earlier to account for the thermal mass of the

walls. You could do that if it was just a few hours that the walls

remained warm or cool, but we're talking days. How can you program a 24

hour thermostat to come on and go off several days in advance?





It does not have to reach the 55 degree at night, that is a minimum. He



can set it to whatever works and makes sense. I'd think that 62 or 64

minimum would be better in many respects. Happy tenants and easier to

maintain the swings.



What I'm saying is that it makes no sense to have daily swings in

temperature when the thermal mass of the walls is an important factor in

the heating of the property for more than 24 hours. He'd be better off

to just set the reset temperature control at a comfortable level and

leave it that way 24/7 from October to March. That's the way most hot

water heating systems with indoor/outdoor reset controls are operated.


Just because there is more thermal mass doesn't mean that the same
principles don't still apply. If you setback the temp in building A
from 70F to 60F at night and it gets down to 60F at some point, before
having to rise again you save money. And if in building B you do the
same thing, but because of more thermal mass, it only gets down to 65F,
you still save money, just not as much.

On Sunday, September 28, 2014 9:50:33 AM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:
On Sunday, September 28, 2014 9:12:16 AM UTC-4, Mikepier wrote:

I've seen these boiler reset controls to sense outdoor temperature to compensate for the water temperature flowing through hydronic radiators. Just curious do they make anything for a 1 zone steam boiler?







Apparently they do, like this:





http://tekmarcontrols.com/products/h...stems/279.html







This is for a 6 family apt building in NYC. I'm wondering if they make an outdoor temperature sensor that can prevent the boiler from coming on if it's warm enough outside. Current rules in NYC a







From 6AM-10PM, indoor temp must be 68deg if outside temp is below 55.



From 10PM-6AM indoor temp must be 55deg if outside temp is below 40.



http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/ten...ot-water.shtml







So I would need something similar to a programmable T-Stat for the different times and temperatures. I'm wondering if its possible to wire 2 T-stats in series?







I think it's more complicated than just two thermostats in series.







Or will this cause more problems? Ideally, I'd like to have a Wi-Fi indoor T-stat , but there is no Wi-Fi in the bldg ( not even with tenants), and the wiring from indoor T-stat on 2nd floor hallway to boiler is insufficient ( only 2 wires).



It's not clear if you're living there, this is for you? For one apartment?

A common area?



But for the 2 wire to 2+N problem, Google is your friend:



http://www.fast-stat.net/

The T-stat is in the hallway of bldg., it controls heat for the whole bldg. I do not live there.

So this fast-stat device, looks like a multiplexer, correct?

All I'm saying is that if the OP would be largely wasting his money on a programmable indoor/outdoor reset controller if his building is concrete block construction. The heating system simply cannot change the temperature of all that concrete by 10 degrees F every 24 hours, and (provided tenants leave their windows closed) the concrete won't cool down by 10 degrees F within 24 hours. What the OP wants to do is analagous to measuring with a micrometer, marking with a piece of chaulk and cutting with an axe. If he has concrete block walls, the thermal inertia of the walls is going to obliterate any programming he does anyway.

On 9/28/2014 1:42 PM, nestork wrote:




Ed Pawlowski;3289628 Wrote:

Really??? How about the hundreds of thousands of homes built from other

materials? Stone, block, ICFs SIPS. brick. adobe, concrete, etc.

Ed: The heavier the construction materials used to build the home, the
greater the thermal inertia. If you have concrete block walls in your
house, you'll have the same situation as an apartment block where it
takes a much longer time for the building to warm up or cool down
because of the thermal mass of the walls.


Correct, but you stated houses were built of wood. Some are, some are not.




It only matters getting the temperature up at the required time,
lag to the lower is not a problem, not does it have to go that low. You

will have to anticipate the time for increase and the boiler will have
to come on before the required time to reach the daily minimum for
daytime.

No. You're suggesting that he can program his timed thermostat to come
one earlier and shut off earlier to account for the thermal mass of the
walls. You could do that if it was just a few hours that the walls
remained warm or cool, but we're talking days. How can you program a 24
hour thermostat to come on and go off several days in advance?

To maintain a day/night he can easily do only that with a thermostat.
The only additional thing he needs is a thermal switch so that if the
outside temperature is above some pre-set number, the boiler does not
start. There are controls available depending on how sophisticated you
want to get.

There are Honeywell thermostats that actually learn how long it takes to
get up to temperature and adjust the start time accordingly. It does not
have to adjust for thermal mass to cool down as it does not matter how
long it takes, He even has the option of keeping 68 all the time if he
should desire.




It does not have to reach the 55 degree at night, that is a minimum. He

can set it to whatever works and makes sense. I'd think that 62 or 64
minimum would be better in many respects. Happy tenants and easier to
maintain the swings.

What I'm saying is that it makes no sense to have daily swings in
temperature when the thermal mass of the walls is an important factor in
the heating of the property for more than 24 hours. He'd be better off
to just set the reset temperature control at a comfortable level and
leave it that way 24/7 from October to March. That's the way most hot
water heating systems with indoor/outdoor reset controls are operated.

That is probably correct. With the thermal mass he is unlikely to get
down to the 55 minimum, but if it stays mid 60 he will have happier
tenants and at reasonable cost..

I don't know more about the hydrolic boiler but you can adjust temperature in steam heating boilers buy using sensor. May there are some functions in hydrolic boiler also but i don't have more information about it.
What your stock broker doesn’t want you to see

On 9/28/2014 7:16 PM, nestork wrote:

All I'm saying is that if the OP would be largely wasting his money on a
programmable indoor/outdoor reset controller if his building is concrete
block construction. The heating system simply cannot change the
temperature of all that concrete by 10 degrees F every 24 hours, and
(provided tenants leave their windows closed) the concrete won't cool
down by 10 degrees F within 24 hours.

True, but who cares. The only thing critical is maintaining 68 as a
minimum during the day and whatever it drifts down to at night as long
as it does not go below 55.

What the OP wants to do is
analagous to measuring with a micrometer, marking with a piece of chaulk
and cutting with an axe. If he has concrete block walls, the thermal
inertia of the walls is going to obliterate any programming he does
anyway.

Maybe the OP will chime in here, but I think he just wants to abide by
the law and maybe save a few bucks on fuel. I think you are overly
concerned about thermal mass that is going to work in his favor.

On Sunday, September 28, 2014 6:32:13 PM UTC-4, Mikepier wrote:
On Sunday, September 28, 2014 9:50:33 AM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:

On Sunday, September 28, 2014 9:12:16 AM UTC-4, Mikepier wrote:



I've seen these boiler reset controls to sense outdoor temperature to compensate for the water temperature flowing through hydronic radiators. Just curious do they make anything for a 1 zone steam boiler?















Apparently they do, like this:











http://tekmarcontrols.com/products/h...stems/279.html















This is for a 6 family apt building in NYC. I'm wondering if they make an outdoor temperature sensor that can prevent the boiler from coming on if it's warm enough outside. Current rules in NYC a















From 6AM-10PM, indoor temp must be 68deg if outside temp is below 55.







From 10PM-6AM indoor temp must be 55deg if outside temp is below 40.







http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/ten...ot-water.shtml















So I would need something similar to a programmable T-Stat for the different times and temperatures. I'm wondering if its possible to wire 2 T-stats in series?















I think it's more complicated than just two thermostats in series.















Or will this cause more problems? Ideally, I'd like to have a Wi-Fi indoor T-stat , but there is no Wi-Fi in the bldg ( not even with tenants), and the wiring from indoor T-stat on 2nd floor hallway to boiler is insufficient ( only 2 wires).







It's not clear if you're living there, this is for you? For one apartment?



A common area?







But for the 2 wire to 2+N problem, Google is your friend:







http://www.fast-stat.net/



The T-stat is in the hallway of bldg., it controls heat for the whole bldg. I do not live there.



So this fast-stat device, looks like a multiplexer, correct?

Yes, it uses some kind of protocol to send signals down 2 wires to
turn it into what is effectively 3 or more wires on each end.