Temperature monitoring and analysis of recorded data provides information used to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep fuel bills to a minimum.

Tinytag temperature data loggers have been used in Post Graduate Research at the University College London Energy Institute to help evaluate the performance of domestic gas boilers. As part of the research, thirty Transit 2 data loggers were located in two show homes, developed by UCL industry partner Crest Nicholson, to measure room air temperatures, outdoor air temperatures, and radiator surface temperatures.

The main objective of the monitoring campaign was to determine how best to commission a domestic gas boiler to allow the system to run in condensing mode for as long a period of time as possible. It was important to discover which settings worked best on average, in order to ensure that both greenhouse gas emissions and fuel bills were kept as low as possible, whilst still maintaining a comfortable house temperature.

The recorded data was used to determine how quickly a room reached its set-point temperature, and to gain an understanding of how the distribution system affected the overall performance of the boiler. This was a pilot study to develop a baseline against which the effects of more advanced heating controls can be compared.

The research was led by Jacob Davies, as part of a Master of Research (MRes) in Energy Demand, as part of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Energy Demand programme. As the research took place in show homes it was important to be as discreet as possible with any monitoring equipment. Using Tinytags allowed reliable data to be gathered without making it obvious that the home was being monitored. It also helped avoid running large lengths of cable.

Jacob comments, "The Tinytags are incredibly easy to use, and the inductive pad makes downloading the data very quick. Combined with a large range of sampling rates and a long battery life, they are proving to be very useful monitoring instruments."

(The ACS-3030 inductive pad is compatible with the Tinytag Transit 2 logger, and is the offload connection for Splash 2 and Aquatic 2 data loggers. It plugs into the PC via USB cable facilitating the offloading of multiple loggers without the need to directly connect a cable to the logger.)