ML-11-011 -- TRCA-BILD Archetype Sustainable House—Overview of Monitoring System and Preliminary Results for Mechanical Systems PDF

A comprehensive monitoring system has been developed and implemented in the Archetype Sustainable House (ASH) built at the Kortright Centre for Conservation of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. Over 300 sensors of various types covering sufficient energy monitoring details have been installed and calibrated in the twin houses. Data of interest, such as air temperature, relative humidity, and flow rate; water temperature and flow rate; natural gas consumption; solar radiation; soil temperature and moisture; and power consumption of individual component, are being collected for energy analysis. An expandable distributed data acquisition (DAQ) system has been adopted for monitoring and control purposes. The LabVIEW platform is used to carry out data processing and post-analysis. Equations to evaluate mechanical systems performance were developed and implemented in the monitoring software. All data are recorded in the Structured Query Language (SQL) database. Preliminary results of the performance of several equipment are reported, and some practical problems associated with the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system configurations are documented.