Coal Usage Per HDD Per 1000 Square Ft

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 3:22 pm

blrman07 wrote: I was wondering why you guys were going to all this trouble with all these calculations.
At this point I think some of them are doing it just to get you cranked up. :P I have not kept many records this season, just that the house has been warm and I'm down about 3 tons of coal since labor day.

Bill, do you have the EFM in your basement? Is it keeping the basement warm? I ask because most people that put a coal boiler in end up heating a larger area to a higher temperature than they did before. If you want to double check the 520 install and settings, I suggest you go back to your EFM thread and tell us the settings you are using. Pictures would be helpful also. Post by billmcb - Restoring EFM 520


 
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Post by nortcan » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 3:26 pm

windyhill4.2 wrote:Nortcan, what temp do you keep your house at ? That is amazing ,less than 18#/day . OR is this some kind of a metric trick ? :shock: :)
:lol: we don't have trick here in Québec :lol:
Average 72* F inside. To put a full load so 12 Lbs, for a 12 Hrs period, the out. temp should be around -4* F.
Easy to calculate the loads with the maple pail.
If you have some good beers, just come up and load the Sunny for a few weeks, then you will see by yourself ... :)

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Post by Lightning » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 3:30 pm

Nortcan's house is built like a thermos and his antique stoves are really good at what they do.. 8-)

 
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Post by nortcan » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 3:37 pm

Lightning wrote:Nortcan's house is built like a thermos and his antique stoves are really good at what they do.. 8-)
:D , if you keep on making such good jokes, you could be admit in Québec/Canada as citizen :lol:
What surprised me about the antique Sunny is that it can heat the complete house alone.
. The Golden Bride still sleeping now. I just made some ecologs fires in it before lighting the Sunnyside.

 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 3:48 pm

billmcb wrote:Reading what you guys are using I think I must not have something adjusted right I fired up my rebuilt EFM 520 Dec 6th and by tomorrow will have gone through at least 2600 lbs coal heating 1800 sq ft log home, which did cost me 4000.00 in propane last year, but with as warm as it was I thought it was a bit much, wasn't it? is there anyone in north central pa who could help me make sure I've got this set up right I just outside of Millerton Pa.
891 HDDs for 2600 pounds in 1800 sq ft

Good case in point here.. I'm looking at 1.6 pounds per HDD per 1000 sq ft.
That is substantially higher than the general consensus, if I did that right.
Please check my work..

You should include the stove room since it's getting heated too by radiant heat from the appliance.

 
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 4:47 pm

nortcan,my wife & I have seen the pics of your wife sitting so close to the stove & have wondered how she can sit so close if you are heating the whole house with that 1 stove. Our Crane 404 is not capable of keeping our 1400 sq ft warm enough by itself even when the stove is too hot to sit close much less prop feet on it as your wife does with your stove.Our stove can't handle the whole job at 10* much less at -4*. We have a 1972 trailer with 2x3 walls & additions with 2x4 walls & a non-insulated concrete slab 12x22 to compare to your Super insulated house. We have averaged 34#/day with just this stove + whatever the 520 boiler contributes to our house heat. I was not doubting your figures ,just wanted to make sure we were all using the same measurement :)

 
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Post by dlj » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 7:59 pm

lsayre wrote: Heating Degree Days, base 65. Take the mean temperature for the day [(high + low)/2 = mean] and subtract it from 65, and that is the days HDD's.
Just a note: the above is a rough approximation that works if there were limited temperature fluctuations and roughly similar time frames at both the high and low temperature range during the 24 hour period. This, however, is usually not the case, especially in winter months up north as the relative hours of night vs day vary greatly.

The more typical temperature fluctuations and/or greater time periods at either end of the high/low number can introduce fairly large discrepancies. While certainly more data intensive, it's more accurate to take a larger number of readings during the 24 hour day to make the calculation.

fwiw,

dj


 
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Post by nortcan » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 8:49 pm

windyhill4.2 wrote:nortcan,my wife & I have seen the pics of your wife sitting so close to the stove & have wondered how she can sit so close if you are heating the whole house with that 1 stove. Our Crane 404 is not capable of keeping our 1400 sq ft warm enough by itself even when the stove is too hot to sit close much less prop feet on it as your wife does with your stove.Our stove can't handle the whole job at 10* much less at -4*. We have a 1972 trailer with 2x3 walls & additions with 2x4 walls & a non-insulated concrete slab 12x22 to compare to your Super insulated house. We have averaged 34#/day with just this stove + whatever the 520 boiler contributes to our house heat. I was not doubting your figures ,just wanted to make sure we were all using the same measurement :)
At the back of the stove, inside of the faux-foyer, there is a register about 6Ft from the floor and a ductwork going down to the basement connected to an air handler pulls the warm air from around the stove and send it in the basement. Then the central air handler send that warm air in each room. Before having that air circulation, it was impossible to sit in front of the stove as seen on the photo and it was even inconfortable in the entire living room.. I made that system when heating with wood stoves. It was hard to find the best arrangement (I used a lot of scent sticks to SEE the air path ) but now the house beeing warm everywhere makes it easier to stay confortable 24/24. The Sunnyside is an insert and send most of the heat at the back so it's the best stove for that set-up.

 
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Post by Lightning » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 8:52 pm

Yes.. I agree.. but to do a side by side comparison of mean high low and an average over the 24 points in the day I believe would be extremely close over the course of a length of time. Probably within a few percent or less. It's not that often we see a dramatic temp change. It usually (lol) follows a parabola pretty close.. :)

Edit - otherwise Larry wouldn't be able to anticipate his usage two weeks out with an accuracy of a few ounces... :lol:

 
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Post by dlj » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 9:47 pm

Lightning wrote:Yes.. I agree.. but to do a side by side comparison of mean high low and an average over the 24 points in the day I believe would be extremely close over the course of a length of time. Probably within a few percent or less. It's not that often we see a dramatic temp change. It usually (lol) follows a parabola pretty close.. :)

Edit - otherwise Larry wouldn't be able to anticipate his usage two weeks out with an accuracy of a few ounces... :lol:
Are you guys calculating your own degree days or pulling it off one of the weather web sites? If you're pulling off a web site, then a lot more data is behind the number...

I'd also guess that Larry's predictive abilities are more related to the steady state nature of coal heat rather than the precision of calculating HDD's...

dj

 
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Fri. Jan. 02, 2015 10:12 pm

Nortcan, Thanks much for that info,clears up a lot of questions we had about you . :) That is a very impressive set-up with very impressive results. :clap:

 
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Post by lsayre » Sat. Jan. 03, 2015 3:53 am

dlj wrote:
Lightning wrote:Are you guys calculating your own degree days or pulling it off one of the weather web sites? If you're pulling off a web site, then a lot more data is behind the number...

I'd also guess that Larry's predictive abilities are more related to the steady state nature of coal heat rather than the precision of calculating HDD's...

dj
When I compare my simple 65 - (high + low)/2 = HDD's to the weather service sources that provide them online I find that they are doing the same thing.

My predictive abilities come straight from HDD's. It's not perfect on a day by day basis, but it trends more toward perfection (never reaching it) over a span of several days. And over a full month it can get surprisingly close.

Hindsight is more 20/20 over time, as the weather services can finally tell you the real temperature highs and lows (and thereby the HDD's) for a given day only after the fact. Often I see them adjusting their past historical recorded highs and lows for a given day up to a few days later.

 
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Post by dlj » Sat. Jan. 03, 2015 9:34 am

lsayre wrote: When I compare my simple 65 - (high + low)/2 = HDD's to the weather service sources that provide them online I find that they are doing the same thing.

My predictive abilities come straight from HDD's. It's not perfect on a day by day basis, but it trends more toward perfection (never reaching it) over a span of several days. And over a full month it can get surprisingly close.

Hindsight is more 20/20 over time, as the weather services can finally tell you the real temperature highs and lows (and thereby the HDD's) for a given day only after the fact. Often I see them adjusting their past historical recorded highs and lows for a given day up to a few days later.
That's quite interesting. So the weather service is using a very simple algorithm at first and then adjusting later you think, is that what you are saying?

It would make a lot of sense to me that over time your ability to predict based on HDD measurements - in retrospect - could become quite accurate over multiple day calculations. You are running a fairly constant inside temperature I believe. Have you tried moving that temperature up or down and see how it impacts your coal consumption? You are using the 65 baseline for the HDD calculation, but how are you using your internal house temperature set-point in your consumption calculations? At this point are you simply trying to keep that a constant and ignoring it?

dj

 
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Post by lsayre » Sat. Jan. 03, 2015 9:59 am

dlj wrote:
That's quite interesting. So the weather service is using a very simple algorithm at first and then adjusting later you think, is that what you are saying?
No! I'm saying they use only the high and low temperature for each day to determine that days mean and that days HDD's. They will adjust the highs and lows retrospectively to reflect actual data vs. their original forecast, and that moves the retrospective HDD bar accordingly (more often than not also retrospectively improving my consumption accuracy vs. HDD's).
It would make a lot of sense to me that over time your ability to predict based on HDD measurements - in retrospect - could become quite accurate over multiple day calculations. You are running a fairly constant inside temperature I believe. Have you tried moving that temperature up or down and see how it impacts your coal consumption? You are using the 65 baseline for the HDD calculation, but how are you using your internal house temperature set-point in your consumption calculations? At this point are you simply trying to keep that a constant and ignoring it?

dj
The 65 degree HDD 'base' is the norm for a 70 degree maintained home or office building, as those who developed the HDD system (not me) determined that heating is generally only required when external temperatures fall below that temperature. As Lightning has suggested, other heat sources apparently suffice down to 65 degrees.

For every degree I go above 70 degrees I have determined that it costs me (on average) ~3% in additional fuel consumption, and for every degree below 70 I save ~3%. But since base 65 HDD's are intended for a 70 degree maintained structure, and I'm comfortable with 70 degrees, why should I deviate from it?

I do not determine my consumption in retrospect. I determine it in advance. I go out one week, and I adjust my forward consumption forecast over that week daily as Accuweather adjusts their forecast. If the weather forecasting is accurate, the HDD's based coal consumption (or electrical consumption, etc...) is highly accurate as well. I fill the boilers hopper roughly every 3-4 days. Every 2 days only when it gets really cold. So I'm projecting future usage for generally 2 to 3 hopper fillings weekly. It often surprises me how frequently my addition of coal for any individual hopper filling hits the projected figure square on the head.

I've seen corporate level statistical studies that claim HDD's are considered about 80% accurate for heating and 89% accurate for cooling. For my case I'm getting typically at least 90% accuracy for each individual hopper loading, and about 95% accuracy over one month spans. This for November through April. October and May are skewed by the fact that my boiler needs to burn unnecessary coal to maintain a fire on warmer days when there is no home heating taking place.

 
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Post by dlj » Sat. Jan. 03, 2015 2:41 pm

lsayre wrote: The 65 degree HDD 'base' is the norm for a 70 degree maintained home or office building, as those who developed the HDD system (not me) determined that heating is generally only required when external temperatures fall below that temperature. As Lightning has suggested, other heat sources apparently suffice down to 65 degrees.

For every degree I go above 70 degrees I have determined that it costs me (on average) ~3% in additional fuel consumption, and for every degree below 70 I save ~3%. But since base 65 HDD's are intended for a 70 degree maintained structure, and I'm comfortable with 70 degrees, why should I deviate from it?

I do not determine my consumption in retrospect. I determine it in advance. I go out one week, and I adjust my forward consumption forecast over that week daily as Accuweather adjusts their forecast. If the weather forecasting is accurate, the HDD's based coal consumption (or electrical consumption, etc...) is highly accurate as well. I fill the boilers hopper roughly every 3-4 days. Every 2 days only when it gets really cold. So I'm projecting future usage for generally 2 to 3 hopper fillings weekly. It often surprises me how frequently my addition of coal for any individual hopper filling hits the projected figure square on the head.

I've seen corporate level statistical studies that claim HDD's are considered about 80% accurate for heating and 89% accurate for cooling. For my case I'm getting typically at least 90% accuracy for each individual hopper loading, and about 95% accuracy over one month spans. This for November through April. October and May are skewed by the fact that my boiler needs to burn unnecessary coal to maintain a fire on warmer days when there is no home heating taking place.
My question if you had deviated from the 70 was mainly just out of curiosity. It's known that fuel consumption is not linear with temperature as you go up and down and I thought you might have done some testing to see. From what you say above, I'd guess you have done a small temperature range which would look linear as you are suggesting. I just don't know how far off linear that falls...

I think you may have misinterpreted my comment on calculating backwards rather than forwards - You can't predict any better than the data you are given - so you can't predict better than the projected HDD - but you can look backwards with actual data and do much better calculations.

Have you ever had your coal actually analyzed for BTU content? Or do you just go with a general number? Looking through data sheets on BTU content of different anthracite coals, there is quite a range. But I don't have any handle on how big a range there actually exists in common usage for coal currently commercially available. Will the coal I'm using this winter be close enough to the coal I'll be using next winter? I just have no idea...

dj


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