Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

mjp24coho

Not sure if this question should be here or in the Energy Use & Conservation forum, but I wanted to see if anyone has had experience with Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces. I'm trying to find out their watt consumption in normal operating conditions (not the non high-efficiency model, which doesn't need AC to operate since it doesn't have a fan). Their tech support will only give me the rated watts (600W), which is clearly not their actual draw. I want to install this propane heater for my existing offgrid cabin, as it is the only option that can work off a separate 24V thermostat (Rinnai won't). This will allow me to get use a wi-fi enabled thermostat to control the heater, so I can turn the heater on remotely before I arrive at the cabin. The equivalent Rinnai only pulls about 50W, which is what I'm hoping for. But unfortunately I can't control the Rinnai remotely, so I'm looking at the Empire. Does anyone have one of these Empire High-Efficient Direct Vent furnaces, which you can throw a KW-meter on and tell me the actual watt consumption? I can't make it work if it is as high as 600W - way too much consumption - but don't want to find out what it is after I bought and installed it. Thanks.

westbranch

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

I found a part number for the fan it is Blower Kit DRB-1 and came up with this link for the fan unit,
http://www.gasheaterstore.com/DRB-1-Automatic-Blower-for-Empire-RH-2535-and-DV-2535-Heaters--Place-item-in-cart-for-your-final-discounted-price_p_324.html

icarus

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

I'm a huge fan of Rinnais, having installed dozens of them over the years. What exactly are you looking to control remotely? Is there a possible work around? By contrast, I have installed a number if Empires over the years (though never the hi EF models) and rally don't like them.

As far a remote control, I know that many of the Rinnais have 7 day programable t stats. Could you, for example emote control an inverter to fire up, and then a timer on the Rinnai, or some such idea?

Tony

PS. Reading your OP w bit more throughly I see what you are trying to achieve. It sounds like you hve wi-fi available all the time at your cabin correct? So, with the wifi t-stat (milivolt or 24 vdc?) can you have it simply trigger a relay that turns the Rinnai power on? A wifi t stat doesn't care what it is driving as long as it can handle the current draw. In fact, all you really need is a wifi switch which must be out there. (thinking out loud here) Not knowing which model Rinnai, and what it does to reset itself after a no power situation you would have to make sure that when it powered up it defaulted to a "good temp"

A link to a wifi switch.


http://www.dlinkworks.com/DSP-W215.asp?gclid=CjwKEAiA_s2lBRCe1YPXxtSe-DcSJACCIh3LDRVRuYgs8yP8J3x5SUlJidXrt4CHVrAJFbT40n5NwRoC21bw_wcB

Gotta run now, but I will look into my Rinnai spec books and see if I can figure out how they default, or failing the stand by current draw is. You might be able to keep it live on the the inverter for fewer WH than the wifi and switch draw?

icarus

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

PPS. I actually have an older Rinnai in my shop with the digital programable. I will try to look at it tomorrow and see what it does after being plugged in. (it has been unplugged for months) if it defaults to the programming then you would Be golden IMHO.

Tony

mjp24coho

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

Tony-
I appreciate the reply. You understand exactly what I'm trying to do. My inverter is on 24-7 when I'm not there, to run my satellite internet, surveillance equipment, and monitoring system. I could use a remote switch (Belkin sells a Wemo switch that I use for my refrigerator and like). I really like the Rinnai for lots of reasons, just not sure if I can activate it remotely. As I understand them, if power is lost while it's running, when power is restored it automatically reverts to its state where it currently was. However, I don't know if that works if it's off for a month at a time. Anything you could do to check on that would be great. Thanks!

icarus

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

So, just to be clear...if you set the Tsat on the Rinnai at say 70f, and you shut it off when you leave, (unpower it) and you remotely repower it, you are fine if it comes back on t the same 70f?

Alternatively, if the standby current draw is small, can you just live with the 7 day programming? I assume you must not be there at the same time and day all the time?

Like I said, I will try to dig mine out in the next day or two and plug it in and see whqt it does. The only caveat there is it is not connected to a gas line so it may not like that. I would assume, (knowing how smart Rinnai is, the programming should not care how long it is without power, some sort of flash memory? Since it doesn't have a battery that I know of.

You might also give Rinnai tech support a call. They have been helpful in the past to me, but you have to pose a contractor or they try to tell you that you should call w local contractor.

Good luck, keep in touch,

T

westbranch

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

Now understanding all that you want to do and I have a question: Do you need a 4000W inverter running 24/7?
Wouldn't a smaller dedicated inverter of 400-600-1000W do? Not sure of all the loads but out Internet modem and wifi runs about 25W if left on...

icarus

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

You could runt the whole thing with a Suresine 300, possibly including the Rinnai. You could certainly run the security, sat modem and a relay to trigger a bigger inverter.

Tony

PS I wish that Morningstar would make either a 24 vdc version, and or a 600 watt version.

t

mjp24coho

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

I clearly don't need the full output of the 4000W inverter when I'm not there - it would theoretically be better to run those loads off a smaller 300W inverter (would be more than enough). I have an old Morningstar 300W inverter, but as mentioned, it is only 12V. I sized and built my system for when I am there. To keep the cost down and make it as simple as possible, I decided to continue using the Magnum 4000W inverter to power 24-7 loads when I'm not there as well. Not the most efficient, but the most practical at this point.

icarus

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

So I pulled the Rinnai out of the shop and plugged it in. It defaults to "L" which is the low tsat position which is less than 60f. Iirc you can adjust the "L" to suit, but I may be wrong on that. Somewhere I have the documentation but god knows where. I am on the search for my Kill-a-watt to see wht it draws, but once again no promises.

Tony

westbranch

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

What about a 12v battery powered by your main bank and a PWM CC like a Sunsaver or such like...

mjp24coho

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

That could work. Which would be more efficient - that or a 24V-12V converter (which I have)?

mjp24coho

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

icarus wrote: »

So I pulled the Rinnai out of the shop and plugged it in. It defaults to "L" which is the low tsat position which is less than 60f. Iirc you can adjust the "L" to suit, but I may be wrong on that. Somewhere I have the documentation but god knows where. I am on the search for my Kill-a-watt to see wht it draws, but once again no promises.

Tony

Thanks, Tony - you've been awesome! This is exactly the type of feedback I was hoping to get from those that have experience with the Rinnai or Empire.

westbranch

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

mjp24coho wrote: »

That could work. Which would be more efficient - that or a 24V-12V converter (which I have)?

I would expect that a small inverter 24V DC to 110V AC is the simplest after looking over the list of equipment you are using, distance from battery bank to usage point comes into play and whether the power supplies to all those bits and goodies you run produce 12V...??? the thermostat should be able to use native 24V, as long s the CC doesn't go into EQ automatically.

What converter do you have?
with a PWM CC you should lose , estimating, 1/2 of the output from V drop in the down conversion. You can contact Morning star..

icarus

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

So I pulled it out, connected it to a portable tank and fired it up. 4 watts stand by, ~15 for the induction blower and ignitor, and 40 watts running full bore if that helps. It does fire on "L" but I don't know what the that temp set is. Perhaps Rinnai can help.

Tony

mjp24coho

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

Great - thanks, Tony. I'll talk to Rinnai to see if they can help with more details. Even Low would be better than the current state - When I went to my cabin a few weeks ago, it was 29 degrees inside, and took 24 hours to get it heated up to 70 with the wood stove. I just need something that I can activate a few hours before I arrive to get the heat up to around 60 degrees by the time I arrive, so that when I get there I can fire up the wood stove to heat it while there.

icarus

Re: Empire High Efficient Direct Vent Furnaces - Watt Consumption

I don't know how cold "cold" is to you,but in my neighborhood, -30-40 is not uncommon. When I come home after being away for a number of weeks, it takes forever to warm up the house completly simply because all the thermal mass is at ambient, say -20 even though the air inside is now 70f. It takes a long time to drive the cold out of everything. I find frosted cans in the cupboards for days.

The worst is the mattress! The first night home used to be brutal, even with putting heated flax bags into the bed". Not so bad now with the heated mattress pad. (yet one more example of how loads grow with with time...and I'm glad they did!)

Tony