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thermostats

Feb 08
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Indestructible Code Compliance Villains

By Energy Rant No Comments
In case you missed last week’s post, you’ll need to go back and review the setup for this week’s demonstration of code challenges and mistakes. To summarize, I have an installed ENERGY STAR-qualifying 95% AFUE (efficient) boiler with a brazed plate heat exchanger, hot water reset control, and a variable firing rate that ranges from 20% to 100%. That firing range is even better than code requirements. The system is a duded-out energy code breaker in theory. Let’s look at what went wrong in order. I have a Nest cam in the backyard and a Nest thermostat for the boiler.…
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Nov 05
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Goals – Think Big or Step Aside

By Energy Rant One Comment
Featured Micro-Rant: Anyone who thinks or says, “We’re all efficient. The candy is gone. The cow is dry. The turkey is cooked. The apple tree died. It’s time to quit.” IS WRONG. (yes, that was me yelling) I believe, as demonstrated last week, that the greater savings and more cost-effective savings are waiting to be harvested through engagement and dispersion of timely, relevant information to energy users. Let us continue from last week with discussions of how to arm building operators to slay their own drift of energy hogs. Information, inspiration, a little direction, and a destination are very powerful…
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Oct 22
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Behavior by a Left Brain Efficiency Freak

By Energy Rant One Comment
E2e, and I have no idea what that stands for, is a joint initiative of University of California-Berkeley, The University of Chicago, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their charter is to assess and quantify the energy efficiency gap between estimated, or ex-ante savings, and observed or measured savings; kind of like the Energy Rant attempts to provide. In Kool-Aid and Happy Face Rugs, I first referenced one of their reports in which they critiqued WAP – the federal government’s weatherization assistance program. That paper indicated WAPs produce only 40% of claimed energy savings. The methodology caught a lot of flak…
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Jun 23
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Cooling System Temperature Control- No Savings

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 5 Comments
Let’s skip the energy supply side this week and talk about thermostats used for cooling. Let’s broaden the discussion to include both programmable thermostats and “smart” or “learning” thermostats. The Nest falls into the latter group. Speaking for the Nest, which I have controlling my heating and cooling, it will learn user patterns by when, and to what level, the user changes temperature setpoints. It also secretly learns the users’ occupancy patterns by keeping an infrared eye on them. For instance, if the thermostat is in a heavy traffic area, it will learn to expect a lot of traffic, and…
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We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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