Greetings from Ireland

[Gerard]

I saw this forum in GroupDIY, where I sometimes appear in the Microphones topic.

I am gradually adding monitoring to my home and office utilities. So far, I have

• Submetering of the 6 principal electricity consumers
• Water temperature at 5 levels in the hot water tanks
• Monitoring the intruder alarms
• Monitoring the CCTV cameras
• Monitoring the fermenters in the brew house - so far, temperature, SG, sensor tilt and three other parameters related to the sensors

To go:

• Full energy monitoring on the central heating and water heating systems
• Water flow metering to the hot water tanks and maybe check metering at the main incomer
• Oil tank level (on the phone, so far; not yet in Home Assistant)
• Oil flow
• Boiler status
• Boiler and water heating control through Home Assistant

Can anyone suggest cheap flow sensors for kerosene that can measure 0-10 l/day (0-2.5 gal/day) and 0-10 l/hr (0-2.5 gal/hr)? One for a vaporizing burner on a stove, the other for a central heating boiler.

 

[Alan]

Welcome Gerard, and hello to Ireland. That is a seriously well-instrumented setup already. For the kerosene flow sensors, are you looking for inline mechanical pulse output, or something non-invasive like clamp-on plus calculation?

 

[PazOrtega]

uhhh that's extremely specific. i got no experience but curious and will follow this idea.

 

[ChristopherBelmont]

Not an expert on kerosene sensors, but one idea is estimating flow indirectly. Like tracking burner on time and using nozzle spec or pump rate as a baseline, then sanity checking with tank level trends. Might be less hassle than trying random cheap sensors that gum up.

 

[TitoRussell]

that setup sounds seriously cool. I’m a newbie but reading your list makes me want to step up my own monitoring this year.