TED and Brultech: Is whole house monitoring useful?

I'm about to start building a new home and I've seen posts here about TED and BrulTech energy monitors. I'm just wondering if whole house monitoring is actually useful versus device level monitoring. For instance, if I were to go with Z-Wave (which I am) I noticed that MiCasaVerde has fairly detailed device level energy monitoring.

So for you guys that have used energy monitoring, is whole house energy monitoring useful compared to room/device level monitoring?

Whole house is much better than nothing and is easier to implement. I switched from TED (whole house) to Brultech ECM-1240 (circuit level) and find it much more interesting. Once you know what your heavy hitters (HVAC, water heater, pool pump, range, dryer, kitchen appliances, hair dryers) are, you kind of want to "tune them out" so you can focus on what the rest of the house is doing and you can find the little power suckers that add up over time. Of course, once you have everything analyzed, then most people find this monitoring much less useful. Geeks always find monitoring interesting

Now, is it "justified" (i.e. pays for itself)? I don't know. It will certainly take a while (or something major like replacing the HVAC) to find enough cost savings to definitively say the hardware has paid for itself via energy savings. A simpler monitoring system is easier to recoup the costs on (since it is less investment). I am also a believer that automated switches rarely save power for me since nobody in our house had a habit of leaving too many lights on for no reason, therefore they are mostly for comfort and convenience, rather than cost savings. YMMV if folks in your house leave every light on.

you also get the benefit of knowing if you left the oven, etc on. when we arm our alarm to go out, our system checks the oven & kitchen circuits and alerts us before we leave if the power consumption shows something's on.

damage said:

you also get the benefit of knowing if you left the oven, etc on. when we arm our alarm to go out, our system checks the oven & kitchen circuits and alerts us before we leave if the power consumption shows something's on.

Click to expand...

OK, so just when I was starting to think that energy monitoring was primarily a fun/geek feature (which I'm all for), your use case actually sounds practical. In other words, that might score some WAF points.

damage said:

you also get the benefit of knowing if you left the oven, etc on. when we arm our alarm to go out, our system checks the oven & kitchen circuits and alerts us before we leave if the power consumption shows something's on.

Click to expand...

That is a good idea, I will implement that (someday). It isn't as simple as it sounds, even assuming you have circuit level monitoring, since many heating type appliances switch on & off. Therefore the heating element could be off at the instant you arm, but the device itself is still on, so you need to check for usage over the past 3-5 minutes?

More advanced (i.e. circuit level) monitoring is also more helpful if your power company uses any sort of time-of-day billing.

I have heard of people that shut things off if their cumulative power usage is too high, but I never understood how that was really implemented? Do they really mean I can only have lights on for X hours per day?

I hope to justify my monitoring by showing (after the fact) that adding insulation, adding radiant barrier and/or replacing the HVAC saved money on the HVAC portion of the bill. Depending upon how your house is wired, it may or may not be easy to monitor your collective lighting loads and see if using lots of CFLs or LED lights makes a big impact on your bill.

WayneW said:

damage said:

you also get the benefit of knowing if you left the oven, etc on. when we arm our alarm to go out, our system checks the oven & kitchen circuits and alerts us before we leave if the power consumption shows something's on.

Click to expand...

That is a good idea, I will implement that (someday). It isn't as simple as it sounds, even assuming you have circuit level monitoring, since many heating type appliances switch on & off. Therefore the heating element could be off at the instant you arm, but the device itself is still on, so you need to check for usage over the past 3-5 minutes?

Click to expand...

good point. our oven is convection & the fan runs even when the heating element is off so any consumption beyond the 5W the clocks use flags the oven. maybe i'll try out an adjustable current switch on the toaster oven or upgrade to a convection one to get a more accurate read on that

damage said:

WayneW said:

damage said:

you also get the benefit of knowing if you left the oven, etc on. when we arm our alarm to go out, our system checks the oven & kitchen circuits and alerts us before we leave if the power consumption shows something's on.

Click to expand...

That is a good idea, I will implement that (someday). It isn't as simple as it sounds, even assuming you have circuit level monitoring, since many heating type appliances switch on & off. Therefore the heating element could be off at the instant you arm, but the device itself is still on, so you need to check for usage over the past 3-5 minutes?

Click to expand...

good point. our oven is convection & the fan runs even when the heating element is off so any consumption beyond the 5W the clocks use flags the oven. maybe i'll try out an adjustable current switch on the toaster oven or upgrade to a convection one to get a more accurate read on that

Click to expand...

With an automation program (I use HomeSeer) it is easy to create a 'virtual' device that is ON if the oven has been drawing power at any time during the last nn minutes.

As for cost savings, most 'experts' estimate that by just being aware of what uses power, and the cost of that use, they save an average of 15% just by changing habits. I know I am much more aware to turn off those ceiling recessed spots when I leave the kitchen since I installed the Brultech ECM-1240.

Another thing that helps me reduce cost: I have a Vista sidebar gadget that shows me when certain lights are on, and I can just click and off it goes. I cannot tell you how many times a day I turn off the laundry room lights from my desktop.

tenholde

tenholde said:

damage said:

WayneW said:

damage said:

you also get the benefit of knowing if you left the oven, etc on. when we arm our alarm to go out, our system checks the oven & kitchen circuits and alerts us before we leave if the power consumption shows something's on.

Click to expand...

That is a good idea, I will implement that (someday). It isn't as simple as it sounds, even assuming you have circuit level monitoring, since many heating type appliances switch on & off. Therefore the heating element could be off at the instant you arm, but the device itself is still on, so you need to check for usage over the past 3-5 minutes?

Click to expand...

good point. our oven is convection & the fan runs even when the heating element is off so any consumption beyond the 5W the clocks use flags the oven. maybe i'll try out an adjustable current switch on the toaster oven or upgrade to a convection one to get a more accurate read on that

Click to expand...

With an automation program (I use HomeSeer) it is easy to create a 'virtual' device that is ON if the oven has been drawing power at any time during the last nn minutes.

Click to expand...

i do that already to monitor when the washer is done, but i would prefer something more precise for the toaster oven.

I had an unexpected but very welcomed benefit. Within a few hours of installing a TED 1000, I figured out that my water well pump was cycling every twenty minutes or so, even if there was no usage. It showed up on the TED history screen as a repeatable increase in power usage for about one minute every twenty minutes. Turned out that the check valve had a slow leak which allowed water to drain back into the well which reduced pressure in the tank causing the pump to start again.

I too am switching to the ECM-1240. In fact, I just finished putting the first batch of CT's in the load center. Now if I could just reach Brultech to order two expansion packages.

Ira

Once I got my Brultech, I figured out that I had a malfunctioning freezer that was staying on 24 hours a day. I also found a ton of stuff that either didn't need to be on, or used way more power than I thought it did. I've had mine for less than a year, and it's paid for itself already.

OK, you guys are starting to get me to think this might be worth including in my new house...

So how does the new Brultech connect? Is there is decent (laymans) description of how it works? Their web site is.....well, lacking.

Basically there are two popular methods for power monitoring:
1) Monitor your existing power meter somehow... count the revs of the spinning disk, count the LED blinks, OCR the digital display, etc
2) Clamp a CT (current transformer) around your existing power wires inside the breaker panel. This could just be the two main feed wires (whole house, TED or Brultech ECM-1220) or the two main feed wires plus a number of selected circuit wires (Brultech ECM-1240)

Both TED and Brultech use method #2, but then their method of measuring the CTs and communicating that info differ.

Most of us are in retrofit situations, so we use a split-CT (opens kinda like a clothes pin) to clip around existing wires without disturbing them. Since you are doing new construction, you could save a little money and get solid CTs and have your electrician install them. I have no idea what the electrical inspector will think, but all these devices are supposed to be UL approved.

The TED website has/had some pretty good installation instructions.

DotNetDog said:

OK, you guys are starting to get me to think this might be worth including in my new house...

So how does the new Brultech connect? Is there is decent (laymans) description of how it works? Their web site is.....well, lacking.

Click to expand...

If you're doing a completely new house you have some rare opportunities. My house is also new and i had some of the benefits, but afterwords realized some things I would do different. There are plenty of threads of pre-wiring so i wont go into that except to say DO NOT forget a couple of nice big conduits from basement to attic for anything future you WILL forget during your current thought processes.

I noticed that the blower motor for the HVAC and the blower motor for the Hot Water Heater (both are propane, but still have blowers/exhaust fans, etc) are on the same circuit. This means I cannot monitor them individually unless i make really long extensions on the CT's (sensors) or try and do it with software since each machines load is known. If I had known i would have had them put both on separate circuit so i can monitor them individually.

I would suggest you review the circuits for your house carefully keeping monitoring capabilities in mind.

I have found the monitoring of power to be interesting but doubt it will save any money for me. Since I have my heating on a schedule, have CFL's where possible and use the all-off light control there isn't much left to cut back on other than little stuff...certainly no 15%.

I do like to have it as an academic exercise and will agree with others that it will help with troubleshooting when things like refrigerators start acting funny. Short cycling is very easy to see on the power monitor. This type of thing could save more than the time and effort to install.

For me the most interesting thing I've learned from logging data in the house has come from tracking temperatures of the rooms, attic, crawl and outdoors. Interesting trends can be seen and some counter intuitive...like when you turn the heat on the 'house' gets cold first then warm??? Obvious once you think about it but I didn't see it.

I also found that the heating ducts that go through the crawl cause a 1F increase in temp down there...need more insulation. Stuff like that.

The original reason I bought mine was because I have two heating systems in the house, hydronic in-floor with an electric boiler, and gas forced air. The plan was to monitor gas and electric (since the brultech can monitor my gas meter also) and correlate that to different thermostat settings and outdoor temps to determine what the cheapest combination of the two systems is.

I haven't done it yet though because not all of my hydronic zones are hooked up. I should probably get on that.