Smart Oil Tank Gauge

[zendriver]

Anybody use one? How well does it work?

As much as I like my old Galongauge, it seem to be getting dirty/sticky inside and too many rivets to drill out to get inside it and try to clean.

Amazon.com

FWIW tank is in basement

 

[fitter30]

Amazon.com

 

[zendriver]

Thanks. I decided against getting one anyway, just ordered an old-school float gauge.

The technology looked pretty cool, but dicking around with replacing specialty batteries, just a turn off.

 

[Yankeefarmer]

Too bad you decided against it. I installed that gauge about 4 years ago, after our oil supplier let us run out of oil, and we had no hot water. The gauge is remarkable; very sensitive, reports tank level hourly, and their server maintains the data for a full year. You can set it to alert you at half a tank, 1/3 tank, 1/4 tank, etc. It also alerts us when it detects a tank fill. And the “specialty” batteries are no big deal. They last a full year, the software alerts when they die (because the gauge hasn’t reported in x hours) and the batteries are readily available from Amazon.

 

[American Locomotive]

I just think it's really unnecessary, anyways. Not everything has to be connected, and it's really trivial to take a peak at your tank gauge every two-three weeks.

 

[Yankeefarmer]

Of course it’s unnecessary. But I relocated our tank to a distant area of our basement where I no longer pass by it while doing other things, and actually spend very little time down there since I built my new workshop.

What I appreciate most about the gauge, I think, is the ability to download as a .csv file all my hourly readings for any time period I specify. As a bit of a techno geek, it was fun to write a routine to summarize usage and compare daily usage to NWS heating degree day data. The opportunity to explore that was worth the cost of the gauge to me for its entertainment value.