Central heating control: a new technique to gauge room temperature

The project criteria and common evolution in design and restructuring central heating systems are leading to the complete elimination and substitution of the old, enormous central heating boilers (only one of them was planned to heat up to 40 flats), for one-family stand-alone systems. This tendency-encouraged by the Italian law-has the favorable effect to install new, well-operating devices in the place of the old ones; at the same time it allows the user to regulate the heating according to his own requirements and finally he will pay only his own gas bill: not more, not less. This new system is designed to operate on a central heating system (no matter what size), but takes its maximum advantage when implemented in district heating: the incoming constant-flow hot water is piped in a heat exchanger. Water temperature at the flowing in and out is gauged by two sensors, in order to obtain a reliable value for the power consumption; two other sensors are employed to gauge room temperature. A local unit processes signals and data, and communicates by a serial bus (only one line serves up to 64 remote units) with a remote computer. This last one acquires in real time all temperature data, compare them with data fixed by users and calculates power consumption. Each user can at any moment choose and request one of the eight heating programs, from maximum economy to maximum comfort.