Is the building comfortable when users are in?#
It’s very common for HeatHack groups to find that the times their spaces are comfortable don’t match when people are in.
Here are some of the other reasons the heating timings might be wrong:
The clock might be incorrect. If the controls don’t connect to the internet to find out what time it is, the clock will “drift” over time, especially in cold spaces, but the person who sets the heating might not notice. Some older controls don’t handle the seasonal clock changes automatically.
It might be too hard for staff and volunteers to access the controls to change the timings, especially if it can only be done on site, so the schedule might not match the current building use. Internet controls might help with this.
Sometimes the buttons and writing on the controls are so small people struggle to use them. Moving to ones with a better design might help.
Sometimes staff and volunteers don’t understand the controls. If one person understands and is willing to write step-by-step instructions with pictures, that will help.
Users might be changing the schedule. If that is the case, you definitely want to improve communication with them so they will contact you with problems rather than take matters into their own hands. You might also want controls that either have two units, one for the user’s changes and another for setting the heating that they can’t access, or that have a “lock” for accessing the advanced features. The lock might be an unusual set of buttons to press, a cover that slides over the advanced buttons, a lockable perspex box with a hole that will only let them reach the user buttons, or a PIN code.
There might be a “holiday” mode that keeps the heating minimal or an “override” button that turns the heating on permanently until someone turns it off again. Often overrides can be triggered by pushing a button twice or holding it down a bit longer, and it’s not always obvious when they’re in force. Permanent overrides are very costly in most buildings. If you don’t have a good way of noticing them quickly, this is a good reason to change controls for a model where overrides last for a set amount of time or until the next instruction in the heating schedule. If the override is until the next instruction and there are enough program slots, you can always program an additional “off” time after everyone should have left the building to be sure that the heating never stays on all night.
Whoever sets the heating might be having to guess how long it takes the building to warm up and cool down. This is because on older heating timeswitches, you tell them when the system should come on, not when people will be in. It’s very hard to guess right because it depends on the weather and how much the building has been used recently. In this case, optimised start control will both save energy and make your users more comfortable.
You might be leaving the heating on too long. Even leaky rooms stay warm for a while. Insulated rooms, ones with lots of people in them, and ones with column radiators stay warm for a long time. In theatres, it’s common practice to stop the heating as soon as the doors close at the start of the performance, and this works in some community buildings, too. You definitely don’t want to run the heating in a space right at a door that’s open to the outside while large groups are leaving the building, so you should at least try to program the heating to go off before that happens. You can use the thermal monitor to make a judgment about how early you can turn the heating off.