Measuring Furnace Run Time

[Matthew58]

Many years ago I recall a commercial for a furnace oil consumption meter "as seen on TV".

I think it just had a magnet to stick on the furnace and clocked run time. You merely set the nozzle size and it would calculate run time x gph.

Does anyone remember or know of such a thing?

Ideally I'd like a real time clock in it. Then I can know that on January 14 it ran for 11 hours and 22 minutes. This'll allow me to get a great heat load calculation.

 

[ForceFed70]

I think one of those "kill a watt" meters would do it for you. It should pick up the run time on the fan which would fairly closely match the burn time of the furnace.

 

[couch67]

I'm pretty sure that most connected t-stats will track furnace run-time in their daily report usage. I have an Ecobee 3 lite but have not reviewed the online reports in much detail yet. Looking briefly online, Nest has this feature and tracks it as 'Daily Energy History'.

Not the cheapest solution but you may also benefit from other features.

couch

 

[jayoldschool]

My Sensi has started emailing me monthly reports about my boiler's run time, so the data is definitely in there somewhere.

 

[lilredex]

You could add an hour meter to the burner circuit, but you'd have to look at it every 24HRS or whatever time period you are measuring.

 

[99LeCouch]

Ecobee 3 or 4 has that feature. It even can export that data into a spreadsheet. It also correlates run time to outside temperature automatically.

I have an ecobee 3, and go over that data online.

 

[TractorJeff]

I have a 20yr programmable T-Stat that tracks furnace run time, then shows when the filter needs changing.