Unintended cold start test for Accentra..

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CtPaul

CtPaul

Burning Hunk
Sep 16, 2011
140
CT
I ran a blower door test on my house today while everyone went shopping. My neighbor runs the energy audit division of he company. So that means I get the blower door rig for the weekend :). When you run the test you should shut down all combustion appliances and fans. Combine that negative pressure house in 19F weather and you end up with a 50 deg house :). Now you know why I waited for the females to leave!

So when it was all over I gave the stove a quick cleaning and fired her up. I'm doing a little experiment to see how long it takes to get the downstairs up to temp. Hopefully soon, the Mrs was ok with my little test in the beginning but she is ready to crank up the furnace! :)!
 
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I fired it up about 6pm. First floor temp was about 55F. By 6:30 it was 58F. At 7:30 it was 64F. At 8:30 it was 68F.
It did bring the room temp up pretty good. Especially since I know how "leaky" my house is. Now the heat needs to "sink in" to the house then it will feel toasty!p
 
CtPaul said:
I fired it up about 6pm. First floor temp was about 55F. By 6:30 it was 58F. At 7:30 it was 64F. At 8:30 it was 68F.
It did bring the room temp up pretty good. Especially since I know how "leaky" my house is. Now the heat needs to "sink in" to the house then it will feel toasty!p
Click to expand...

Not that, how leaky did your place turn out to be?

It is not that we aren't interested in how fast your stove managed to recover, it is that the blower door test can be quite enlightening.
 
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I didn't realize that we had building science nerds on the board. ;)
I have a 100 year old 2.5 story lake house that is balloon framed. So automatically I'm fighting stack effect.

The house is about 2300 sqft so the volume is approx 17,340 cuft. My initial blower door reading was 3655 @CFM50. I have a long list of "repairs" to seal up. A couple of areas I thought had some leaks turned out to cold air superhighways! And vise versa. I sealed up a couple of things yesterday and got a reading of 3300@CFM50.
So right now my ACH50 is 11.4 which is 0.79 natural. That is in the standard new house category. I'm hoping if I take care of my new hit list I can get closer to energy efficient home range :). Either when I first did a blower door test I got a reading of 4700@CFM50. So things are definitely headed in the right direction!
 
To h e double on the building science nerds we's heat loving old farts and don't want to do double the cost heating (besides lugging all those 40 pound bags around is hard on our 'rthis and 'tis .addled bodies). Even OMV provides us with proper educational matter so we can make our own "recipes" for symptom relief.
 
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oldmountvernon said:
You mean i had 1 useful post? I want payment then :p
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Play that video of the corn moving system you posted yesterday all the way to end, when the panel comes up on the screen you'll find part 1 of a several part series on corn "squeezing" just keep on playing them ;) .
 
OMV you can feel for air movement with the back of your hand(2nd most sensitive part of your body) , smoke stick or even infrared camera. By running the test at 50 Pa it simulates a 15-20mph wind blowing on all sides of your house. So the leaks are usually pretty easy to feel. Then the key is to move thru the house systematically.
Btw ACH stands for air changes per hour , for the non nerds :). So that is how many times an hour the entire volume of your house exchanges ( static to fresh)
 
What does it cost to do a test like that? I have seen them done on This Old House.
 
oldmountvernon said:
Smokey must be mashin by now
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Not likely, you folks just don't understand if I do something the least bit bad there would be a revenuer with a shotgun full of Bear shot shells. Just my kind of luck.

And to keep with the topic that means your infiltration cost you, 15731 BTUs/hr at 0::Foutside and whatever the balance point was for the heat loss calculator I ran your figures through.
 
Yeah that is unexecptable :) especially because that heat loss only accounts for air infiltration. If I couple that with my insulation challenges its not good :(! Like my neighbor said to me time to start crawling around and get to work sealing it up
 
Omv CT has a energy efficiency program. So they subsidize the Home Energy Audit. So it only cost $75 to have it done. Then if they cite potential improvements, you have a certain amount of time to act on them and receive a rebate. That depends on how much $$ is in the fund also.
It looks like MA has a similar program http://www.masssave.com/residential/home-energy-assessments
 
CtPaul said:
Yeah that is unexecptable :) especially because that heat loss only accounts for air infiltration. If I couple that with my insulation challenges its not good :(! Like my neighbor said to me time to start crawling around and get to work sealing it up
Click to expand...

The thing about all of this is that air infiltration is likely the single biggest heat loss component in your house followed by windows and that air suckers that vent outside do not help matters at all.

Some of us continually try to make that point but it is like cleaning stoves, I guess ;) .
 
Yes Smokey, air infiltration affects comfort the most. Heat loss, drafts (feels colder than temp) and lower humidity ( dry skin, nasal passages and air"feels" colder)
 
oldmountvernon said:
So i got things in motion today Submitted the paper work. Called one of the contractors and asked him to come here and fill me in on what his plans are. Will come tomorrow nice service
Click to expand...

Hey folks when OMV finally gets his place buttoned up somewhat right he'll have way too much fuel ..................... bear making a hasty exit .............. into his bunker ......... and closing the blast doors ........ slam!
 
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