Boilercam

[airlina]

Figured out a cheap way to monitor my Boiler and storage (60 feet from the house in dedicated boilershed) It required a wifi extender to get wifi reach the shed and a Foscam security camera from ebay ($60) . First photo shows simple camera mount on corner of boiler to catch boiler water and flue temps, Second photo shows storage tank mid position temp gauge for storage temp. I have a 5 inch face temp gauge enroute from amazon to replace the current 2 inch thermometer so I can see it more clearly. This single camera is remotely controlled from my computer (or cellphone if you prefer) and I have it set with 2 preset positions to monitor the boiler or storage. No need for lights to be on as it does fine in the dark. This setup will limit my trips to the boiler on the upcoming cold winter nights. Bruce

 

[brenndatomu]

I know of someone that did this with his wood furnace in the basement...just for peace of mind when at work, can check in on cell phone...or hey, I have to work over, and it looks like you will need to reload the wood soon hon...

 

[maple1]

I bought a webcam to do that with, but it is still in the box.

Around here. Somewhere.

 

[airlina]

Took me about 10 minutes to get it up and running a couple of days ago and I am loving it now. Loaded the boiler a couple hours ago and with a quick look on my computer I can see she' s chugging along fine , all in my skivvies (OK too much information there!) Bruce

 

[mark cline]

Bruce , nice work. Now just come up with a way to fire your boiler without going to the shed. Mark

 

[lotawood]

Is that one camera that catches two views? Does it rotate to get the boiler display and the the tank?

I'm looking for remote temperature monitoring and thought control by web was what I wanted. I have similar need for two viewing spots.

 

[airlina]

Yes one camera (Foscam R2) mounted on corner of the boiler will swing to my 2 (operator set) viewing positions. Actually thru the preset function you can set several presets and label them (Mine are called storage and boiler) then I click on which one I want to view from my pc to see if its time to load. The only change I had to make was to buy a 5 inch dial face thermometer that monitors my mid tank storage temp . The 2 inch was a bit small to see well. No lights required for the camera to view, works fine in the dark of the boiler shed. Howdy Mark, working on the robot loader next!