rebelrider.mike
Member
- Joined
- May 25, 2017
- Messages
- 554
Hi folks.
I've been thinking for a long time about getting me some solar and power wall. My issue so far is that I have way too much standard home improvement stuff to do towards efficiency before I can even start with the solar battery stuff.
But all that aside, I've been watching my energy consumption for a couple years, and it's pretty apparent that I won't be able to run my furnace (even if I upgrade) off solar. In my area, the furnace runs a lot in the cold months which are also the darkest months. When it's nice and sunny, I don't need the furnace. So my thought is to keep the furnace on the grid all the time, and maybe run the rest of the house off solar and battery as a grid-tie system. Is that overly complicated, or do people actually do that?
So to my real question: I'm looking for a way to monitor the energy that my furnace uses over time. Any suggestions?
I've seen a few gadgets that might work, but I hope you all might have suggestions on what to use. The furnace has 2 2-pole breakers. One feeds the blower, and the other feeds the electric heating element. So that's 4 wires total. This is in the US by the way.
I don't have huge amounts of money to throw around, but I'd like to find something that works well. Here is an example of what I've been finding:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07FN3X...olid=2PNK8X8OP06KO&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
My PUD is excellent about providing tons of info on my overall energy usage. So I figure I'd use something like this to subtract out the furnace, and see what's left for future solar to do.
I've been thinking for a long time about getting me some solar and power wall. My issue so far is that I have way too much standard home improvement stuff to do towards efficiency before I can even start with the solar battery stuff.
But all that aside, I've been watching my energy consumption for a couple years, and it's pretty apparent that I won't be able to run my furnace (even if I upgrade) off solar. In my area, the furnace runs a lot in the cold months which are also the darkest months. When it's nice and sunny, I don't need the furnace. So my thought is to keep the furnace on the grid all the time, and maybe run the rest of the house off solar and battery as a grid-tie system. Is that overly complicated, or do people actually do that?
So to my real question: I'm looking for a way to monitor the energy that my furnace uses over time. Any suggestions?
I've seen a few gadgets that might work, but I hope you all might have suggestions on what to use. The furnace has 2 2-pole breakers. One feeds the blower, and the other feeds the electric heating element. So that's 4 wires total. This is in the US by the way.
I don't have huge amounts of money to throw around, but I'd like to find something that works well. Here is an example of what I've been finding:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07FN3X...olid=2PNK8X8OP06KO&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
My PUD is excellent about providing tons of info on my overall energy usage. So I figure I'd use something like this to subtract out the furnace, and see what's left for future solar to do.