GG Labs Session Brief - 9/30/2011

[Laurie Catey]

Just a quick update on our last Labs Session on Friday:

• Our new intern, Mike Paciero, joined the group for the first time. Welcome, Mike! We are glad you are here!
• Detailed building systems commissioning checkouts and testing are expected to continue this coming week. Major happenings on Friday were as follows:
• Valve that controls temperature of water out to the radiant floors appears to have been fixed, and we now have hot water available to heat the building, just in time!
• Found that our mass thermal storage tank temperature sensor is not fully seating in its thermal well, so we need to have that adjusted to read correctly. The good news is that our tanks are actually ranging from 100F - 107F, rather than 95F that the sensor was showing, so we have more heat than we thought. Yay!!
• Joe and Jeff from Expert got the Altherma working by segregating it from the open system connected to our tanks, and they are zeroing in on what it will take to get that part integrated into our system reliably.
• We added a prominent link to our Web-based temperature controls system on the Green Garage Wiki Main Page so people can easily take a peek at how our systems are operating in real time (plus a slight delay for transmission).
• Discussed our plans for the Trash Tracker (weighing non-recyclable trash that leaves the building) to begin when the building opens October 10th and scheduled the first official Trash Audit. Time to arrange for the Event Planner!
• Finalized our plans for the blower door test next week Thursday, 10/6/11, with set-up starting around 11:30 am, and official testing from 12 pm to 2 pm. Building is closed during testing hours. Blower Door Test Workbook is ready for test day.
• Came up with our three potential experiments to be offered up for voting in the Fall 2011 People's Choice Lab Experiment. Don't forget to cast your vote on FaceBook, Twitter, or right here in Google Groups. The official announcement and request for votes will go out later next week. The three candidates are as follows:
• Option 1, Refrigerator Continuous Improvement Test - Test theories on why condensate is sometimes forming at the bottom of our converted refrigerator.
• Option 2, Refrigerator Truth Window Pick - Study actual energy usage/cost for our converted refrigerator and compare to our projected numbers.
• Option 3, Solar Thermal System Optimization 101 - Determine the optimum core temperature for starting up the solar thermal panel collection system.
• Started designing our Solar Thermal Panel Performance experiment.
• Next week, 10/7/11 at 1:30 pm, we will debrief on the blower door test experiment results and continue working on the solar panel performance experiment design.

See you in the Labs!

[greengara...@gmail.com]

Laurie --

Great update. Very exciting progress.

Some things to measure:

1) I'm wondering the effectiveness/efficiency of circulating the hot water in our radiant loops.
- temp of the water being circulated vs. the floor temp...in the floor areas (wood), the bathrooms (tile)...and lobbies (brick pavers/concrete).
- temp rise per hour in the areas being heated.
- heat exchanger efficiency
- compare planned vs. actual

2) I'm wondering what the ERV efficiency is...
- how much of the temp is being transferred?
- how much of the humidity is being transferred?
- how much energy does it use to do this?
- What is the net-energy gain?

3) Compare our heat loss over a weekend vs. what Energy Plus(?) our models said we would lose (assuming it's cooler outside than inside.) In other words, how accurate were our computer simulation models? If there is a difference, do we know why? What would we do differently?

I'll keep on wondering!

Bring on the blowers!

Tom







I'll keep them coming as we







On , Laurie Catey <llc...@aol.com> wrote:
> Just a quick update on our last Labs Session on Friday:Our new intern, Mike Paciero, joined the group for the first time. Welcome, Mike! We are glad you are here!Detailed building systems commissioning checkouts and testing are expected to continue this coming week. Major happenings on Friday were as follows:Valve that controls temperature of water out to the radiant floors appears to have been fixed, and we now have hot water available to heat the building, just in time!Found that our mass thermal storage tank temperature sensor is not fully seating in its thermal well, so we need to have that adjusted to read correctly. The good news is that our tanks are actually ranging from 100F - 107F, rather than 95F that the sensor was showing, so we have more heat than we thought. Yay!!Joe and Jeff from Expert got the Altherma working by segregating it from the open system connected to our tanks, and they are zeroing in on what it will take to get that part integrated into our system reliably.We added a prominent link to our Web-based temperature controls system on the Green Garage Wiki Main Page so people can easily take a peek at how our systems are operating in real time (plus a slight delay for transmission).Discussed our plans for the Trash Tracker (weighing non-recyclable trash that leaves the building) to begin when the building opens October 10th and scheduled the first official Trash Audit. Time to arrange for the Event Planner!Finalized our plans for the blower door test next week Thursday, 10/6/11, with set-up starting around 11:30 am, and official testing from 12 pm to 2 pm. Building is closed during testing hours. Blower Door Test Workbook is ready for test day.Came up with our three potential experiments to be offered up for voting in the Fall 2011 People's Choice Lab Experiment. Don't forget to cast your vote on FaceBook, Twitter, or right here in Google Groups. The official announcement and request for votes will go out later next week. The three candidates are as follows:Option 1, Refrigerator Continuous Improvement Test - Test theories on why condensate is sometimes forming at the bottom of our converted refrigerator.Option 2, Refrigerator Truth Window Pick - Study actual energy usage/cost for our converted refrigerator and compare to our projected numbers.Option 3, Solar Thermal System Optimization 101 - Determine the optimum core temperature for starting up the solar thermal panel collection system.Started designing our Solar Thermal Panel Performance experiment.Next week, 10/7/11 at 1:30 pm, we will debrief on the blower door test experiment results and continue working on the solar panel performance experiment design.See you in the Labs!
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[Laurie Catey]

Thanks, Tom! I love your "wonderings" and went ahead and added them to our Labs Idea Bin on the Wiki.

Parts of item 1 and all of item 2 will be included in the technical commissioning process, so I'm thinking that we will use our overlap between the Labs and Commissioning to make those items like Hybrid Experiments. My first thought is that we will use protocol and documentation through the established commissioning process first, then pull a more Labs-friendly report from the data and information obtained, and follow through with the Labs if there is any additional questions, study, or optimization that we want to pursue further.

In fact, I'm trying to orient the commissioning so that whenever possible, we can do the performance testing part in conjunction with the Labs and get a jump on learning our systems and looking for opportunities to do continuous commissioning and optimization of systems. We're getting to the "good stuff" now! :-)

Thanks!

Laurie

Laurie L. Catey, P.E.

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