HVAC Performance Tracking Using Adjusted Indoor Air Temperature Rate
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Solution Overview
Problem
HVAC systems often experience performance degradation that goes unnoticed until they fail to heat or cool adequately at the start of a season, leading to increased service calls and costs, with existing monitoring solutions being costly and inaccurate due to variability in indoor air temperature rate (IATR) changes under different environmental conditions.
Innovation Solution
A method using a Wi-Fi enabled thermostat to monitor and adjust IATR values by accounting for various environmental factors like indoor and outdoor temperatures, humidity, and airflow, generating an adjusted IATR (IATRadj) to predict potential failures and trigger alerts before significant degradation occurs, without requiring additional costly instrumentation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional monitoring systems with built-in sensors are used to detect loss of performance, then system reliability improves, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a Wi-Fi enabled thermostat that copies or replicates the functionality of expensive built-in sensors by calculating IATR from existing temperature data. Instead of requiring additional physical sensors, the system uses the thermostat's existing temperature measurements combined with environmental data to derive performance metrics, achieving similar monitoring capabilities at lower cost and complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces physical sensing hardware with a computational approach. Rather than using additional sensors to directly measure performance parameters, the system substitutes mechanical/sensor-based detection with algorithmic calculation of IATR from environmental data, eliminating the need for costly instrumentation packages
2Ease of operation
If IATR monitoring is implemented without environmental corrections, then measurement simplicity improves, but measurement precision deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the raw IATR parameter into an adjusted version (IATRadj) by incorporating environmental correction factors. The system takes the basic indoor air temperature rate and modifies it based on outdoor temperature, humidity, and other environmental parameters to compensate for their influence, thereby improving measurement precision while maintaining the simplicity of using existing thermostat data
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses environmental feedback to continuously adjust the IATR calculation. By incorporating real-time environmental data (outdoor temperature, humidity, etc.) into the IATR calculation, the system creates a feedback loop that compensates for environmental variations and improves the accuracy of performance degradation detection
3Measurement precision
If environmental variables are accounted for in IATR adjustment, then measurement precision improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the Wi-Fi enabled thermostat multi-functional by having it perform both its traditional temperature control function and HVAC performance monitoring function. The thermostat uses its existing sensors and environmental data capabilities to calculate and adjust IATR, eliminating the need for separate monitoring hardware and reducing overall system complexity while improving measurement precision
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method of monitoring the performance of an HVAC system including a controller in communication with an HVAC unit where the method includes monitoring environmental conditions using a controller. A target rate of change in indoor air temperature (IATR) can be established, and one or more adjusted environmental values can be adjusted to account for the adjusted IATR measurement. An adjusted IATR value can be established using one or more equations adjusting for a target sensible capacity value of one or more environmental factors in comparison to the measured sensible capacity of the one or more environmental factors to determine the adjusted IATR. The environmental factors can include but are not limited to the indoor air temperature, indoor humidity, outdoor air temperature, and any other measured parameter that could affect system capacity. The system can generate an alert when the adjusted IATR value reaches a pre-determined threshold.