

EcoVent: Make every room in your home the right temperature [video] - ph0rque
http://get.ecoventsystems.com/

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tsumnia
I'd love to see more information on the product. Like my profile says, I
worked at an HVAC optimization company a few years back. We played with the
idea of adding wireless vents to control flow, but parkrrr mentioned we were
concerned about pressure, along with not getting permission from our clients
to swap there vents. Most of our clients had anywhere from 2 HVAC units
controlling the building (most fast food chains), up to 40 (for a massive
office we installed in). Depending on the building size and the number of
individual 'zones' a given HVAC unit has to hit, it was almost impossible. We
ran into issues where no matter what our system did, it would just not cool
the kitchen below 95°F. Granted, the owners of these chains were incredibly
frugal, often buying the cheapest option no matter what (plus we'd sold many
of the systems on false promises before our original CEO left the company).

What is ecoVent using to manage communication? Long-range bluetooth, WiFi,
Zigbee or Z-Wave? What kind of communication do you have going on in general?
If you're looking into any 'performance' monitoring, but leaving the company I
was in charge of developing an "early alert" system that would alert you to
when the unit had degraded to the point of repair (before breaking). Since the
old company's been defunct for years now, I don't see any conflict sharing the
IP.

~~~
dip
hey man, please reach out to me dp[at]ecoventsystems [dot]com. Would love to
chat with you.

Thanks!

~~~
dfc
Is there any chance you can address parker's, tsumnia's or joezydeco's
concerns publicly? I redid some of my ducts and the contractor and I spent a
fair amount of time making sure everything was balanced. Without this
experience the importance of balancing the pressure never would have occurred
to me.

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dfc
After reading the LBNL study mentioned in ecovent's whitepaper I do not know
what is going on here. The LBNL study concludes:

    
    
      The closing  of registers led to  an increase in energy  use for the
      typical California  house and  duct system  used in  this study. The
      reduction in building load due  to not conditioning the entire house
      was more than  offset by increased duct system losses  mostly due to
      increased duct leakage.
    
      The  register closing  technique has  less impact  on energy  use if
      registers furthest  from the  air handler  are closed  first because
      this tends  to only  affect the  pressures and  air leakage  for the
      closed off branch. Closing registers nearer the air handler tends to
      increase the pressures and air leakage for the whole system.
    
      Closing  too  many registers  (more  than  60%) is  not  recommended
      because the  added flow resistance  severely restricts the  air flow
      though the  system to the  point where  furnaces may operate  on the
      high-limit switch and cooling systems may suffer from frozen coils.
    
    

Register Closing Effects on Forced Air Heating System Performance:
[http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vw4v8wz](http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vw4v8wz)

~~~
tech_nickl
Hi, I'm one of the co-founders of ecovent. The LBNL study did not address
systems that can monitor their impact on an HVAC system. Some homes have leaky
ducts and some have very tight ducts. The only way to tell is to measure them.
Our system does measure it's impact, and maximizes the comfort and savings
available for a given system. We can also provide suggestions for improving
your home, such as rooms that need insulation or ducts that are very leaky.
The same principle applies to reducing the airflow too much with respect to
high limit switches and coil freezing. We monitor and adapt to the situation.
Please let us know if you have more questions.

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EEGuy
There was a different approach to this called the "MyTemp system" [1] by a
company called "Home Comfort Zones".

Home Comfort Zones has been acquired by a company called "Emme E2MS LLC" [2].

The MyTemp system used pneumatically inflated, vacuum pump deflated "pneumatic
damper" devices (balloons, if you will) in the distribution lines. It included
plenum sensors for temp and pressure, pumps and hardwired per-room
thermostats.

It looked good to me but a system for my home would have cost about $12,000 if
I recall correctly (just for the controls added onto an /existing/ system).

With that amount of money, I might have instead have a mini-split variable-
rate air conditioning system installed and achieved better savings long term.
But both are out of my price range for a retrofit; the target market was very
high end.

\-----

[1] [PDF] www.mytemperature.com/pdf/MyTemp_for_Existing_Homes.pdf

[2]
[http://www.getemme.com/homecomfortzones.php](http://www.getemme.com/homecomfortzones.php)

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parkrrr
It's my understanding that if you have a forced-air system, closing vents is
detrimental due to the pressures involved. Closing the vents adds strain to
your blower and redirects the, now higher pressure, air to other parts of the
house.

I'm no HVAC guru, this is simply what I've been told. Can someone enlighten
me, or how does this technology approach this situation?

~~~
dip
hey man, check out the whitepaper here:
[http://ecoventsystems.com/blog/2014/03/new-whitepaper-
when-i...](http://ecoventsystems.com/blog/2014/03/new-whitepaper-when-is-
closing-vents-a-bad-idea)

~~~
joezydeco
_" Although each of these issues poses problems for traditional HVAC system
designs, each of them can be overcome with a combination of advanced software
and hardware. [The End.]"_

Can you be more specific than that?

~~~
dip
Absolutely. Can you reach out to me at dp [at]ecoventsystems [dot]com? Thanks
man.

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savrajsingh
Same idea as [http://www.suntulit.com](http://www.suntulit.com) but they never
quite launched despite much fanfare. I think they were acquired

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th0ma5
The US doesn't like to do too much upfront HVAC costs, and for whatever reason
generally just wants something simple. I used to work for a company that
resold European systems that seemed to be about greater upfront costs in
things like room occupancy sensing, humidity control, airflow analysis of the
room, etc, which would've saved a lot of people money but they just didn't
want the upfront cost.

~~~
joezydeco
Are you referring to residential HVAC systems or commercial ones? In my
limited exposure, forced-air systems don't really exist in the majority of
European homes. They tend to be radiator-based heating loops with individual
thermostatic valves on the radiators. Air conditioning, if it's installed at
all, is limited to single-room or area units, not whole-house units.

Zone control is indeed expensive, and I'm definitely interested in Ecovent's
idea about putting flow control at the floor vents (or is it just the
registers). But unless these units are battery-driven, I see more complexity
in just getting the silly things wired up, not to mention making sure doors
are closed and pressure is regulated to keep those nasty dust lines from
appearing on the carpets under your doors.

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dangrossman
> But unless these units are battery-driven, I see more complexity in just
> getting the silly things wired up

Opening/closing the vent very occasionally shouldn't require more than some AA
batteries in each vent. Lithium batteries ($5-8 for a 4-pack) would last
months or even years. I have some powering the keypad & deadbolt on my front
door, which is both remote controllable like these vents would be, and has to
operate a motor to turn the bolt, and it's rated for 1-2 years use on a single
set of batteries.

~~~
joezydeco
Of course, but I'm also counting in the radio stage of the unit. If it's one-
way that's cool, if it's two-way then there are other concerns about power
usage.

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sunsu
I would buy one today if it were available. One thing I don't understand is
how the vents control when the AC turns on or off. If it can't do that, then I
don't see how it will work well.

Edit: It would be easy to do if you replaced the thermostat, but interfacing
with legacy ones (or running wire) would be a pain.

~~~
dip
Hey man, I'm dip, one of the co-founders of ecovent. You're absolutely right,
we need to control the thermostat to maximize the utility of the system. Our
plan is to integrate with any wifi thermostat.

If you're interested in joining our beta program, please email me at: dp [at]
ecoventsystems [dot] com.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
How do you ensure enough air flow? If I blocked off three rooms with my A/C,
it would be continually freezing up. I like the concept, but worry about
causing strain on the blower because it is trying to push too much air
through.

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lost_my_pwd
In systems that automate flow to zones using actuated vent dampers, there is
always a bypass system that allows extra air flow to cycle back to the intake.

For a system like EcoVent to work with central air, it, ideally, would
integrate with the thermostat so that it has context and control to ensure the
system does not cycle too much and that that heat exchanger doesn't freeze up.

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X-Istence
How does this handle things like static pressure? If you close too many vents
it is actually detrimental to your blower fan and cause damage!

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MertsA
EcoVent should never need to close every single vent in the house, but even if
it did, yes the static pressure in the ducts would rise but what is important
is the pressure differential around the blower. If you have a totally 100%
blocked filter this will cause the highest pressure differential around the
blower that the unit will ever see in it's lifetime and it still shouldn't be
the blower that's potentially damaged, it should be the evap coils freezing up
or liquid refrigerant making it's way back to the compressor and screwing
things up, yes there will be more load on the blower motor but I don't see
this damaging it unless it's more like a 100% restriction running at 100% duty
cycle for a very long period of time causing the motor to burn up.

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wjy
Heat. If there's no airflow around the blower (and therefore the blower motor
which is usually integrated, then the motor will run hotter. Temperature has
an inverse relationship with motor lifetime. The hotter it runs, the sooner it
will fail. Even if it never exceeds its maximum rated temperature.

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somid3
I remember you guys from the Beehive days! Congrats on your achievements so
far!

