We caught up with Testo’s Jim Burke at the CGNA Vendor showcase. Jim showed us some of the cool new instruments and meters that Testo brought to the HVAC market place. In this short video you can see

the awesome new color display Testo added to the Testo 330-1 Combustion Analyzer. The Testo 330-1 is dollar for dollar one of the best combustion analyzers on the market, and with the new color display it just got even better.
Testo continues to expand their pocket line of meters. In addition to pocket line meters that include temperature, humidity, and air flow, Testo added a light meter in the pocket line series. This is a must for checking foot candles and lighting retrofits.
Jim also updates us on the Testo Thermal imagner. Testo took their time developing the thermal camera. They studied the cameras that Flir, the world leader in infrared cameras, developed for varying types of applications. Testo then took the features that were the most important to the HVAC industry and improved them while deleating features an HVAC technician would never use. The result is an affordable thermal imager geared for the HVAC industry.
If you are in Georgia or Florida, one of the control pros at Stromquist & Company can help with your Testo Instruments and HVAC control needs. If you are not in Georgia or Florida, one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America has you covered.

Up close and personal, check out the Honeywell Analytics team and their really cool gas monitoring systems

Among other things,see their Honeywell E3Pointin both stand alone and networked versions, and see how the E3Point does self checking. Also, see how to use dual sensor inputs. Honeywell Analytics has introduced their XCD sense point transmitter for the monitoring of flammable toxic and oxygen gas hazards in potentially explosive atmospheres.

If you are in Georgia or Florida contact the team at Stromquist & Company with all your controls and Honeywell Analytic needs. If you are not in Georgia or Florida, no problem,one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America can help with any Honeywell Analytic product needs.

Monitoring toxic gases in commercial buildings is important not only for safety reasons but also as a way

to save energy and help a building become more green. Honeywell Analytics has a great gas monitoring system with the Honeywell E3Point gas monitor. The Honeywell E3Point is available in both stand alone and networked models. It can easily interface with an existing building automation system. It is both BACnet and Lonworks compatible.

The E3Point gas monitor provides a low cost solution for monitoring CO,H2S,NO2,O2,H2,C3H3,CH4 in virtually any room.

To find out more about gas monitoring systems including the Honeywell E3Point contact your friends at Stromquist & Company. If you are not in Georgia or Florida one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America can assist you with the Honeywell E3Point gas monitoring system.

Functional Devices has developed a plug and play Evaporator Fan Controller the Functional Devices EFC 4045T for walk-in coolers and freezers that can significantly reduce energy costs –  with a potential 2-year payback! They are great for convenience stores, restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels, etc – anywhere that has walk-in refrigerators and/or freezers. Check out this video to see the EFC 4045T

The fans in the evaporator boxes run at normal speed at all times, even if the thermostat is not calling for a cooling cycle.  To save money, the controller monitors the temperature on both the intake and the exhaust of the evaporator fan unit.  When the temperature of the exhaust is equal to the intake temp, the controller will reduce the speed of the fans to save energy and reduce costs.  When the compressor turns back on the meet the thermostat requirements, the controllers will return the fans to normal speed.  Think of it as a mini VFD!

These Evaporator Fan Controllers have been installed and tested in several locations and have already proven their worth.  One convenience store installed two devices two years ago for testing and is saving an average of $200/month on his electric bill since installing them!  Now that’s great payback.  If you have walk-in coolers or freezers or have customers who do, you need to check out this new gem from Functional Devices.
For more information on the Functional Devices EFC 4045T controller you can contact Stromquist & Company if you are in Georgia or Florida or one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America.

When it comes to industrial transmitters Honeywell Industrial has always been a leader in providing innovative flow and control solutions.

Honeywell Industrial Controls is the pioneer of wireless technology and wireless transmitters for the industrial marketplace. The Honeywell XYR 6000 series of wireless transmitters allows industrial customers the opportunity to monitor points that in the past were not were not financially feasible to monitor because of the cost of running wires to remote locations.
Thanks to our friends at Lesman for showing us many great ways to take advantage of the great new technology that the Honeywell XYR 6000 series of wireless transmitters provides.
If you are in Georgia or Florida please contact Stromquist & Company for your Honeywell Industrial Control needs including the Honeywell XYR 6000 wireless transmitter if you are in The Chicago area the team aT Lesman can help you, all others please contact your local Honeywell Industrial Controls distributor.

Wireless technology has advanced so much in the last few years and the acceptance and value of these controls is gaining immeasurably. All phases of the market have now been touched by wireless thermostats, controllers, and sensors including industrial, commercial and domestic applications.

For the domestic market Honeywell offers several programmable and non-programmable wireless thermostats (REDLINK) like the Prestige and the FocusPro that will allow the use of outdoor air sensors and return air sensors to control conventional and heat pump systems with up to 3 stages of heat and 2 stages of cooling. The thermostats are available with standard or high definition color touch screens.

On the commercial level AIC’s wireless transceivers allow for wireless data communications through BACnet, Modbus, LonWorks, and several other protocols. Applications include, remote lighting controls, building communication, HVAC controls, remote chiller plant operations, flow meter monitoring, KW metering, and gas metering. Check out this interview with ACI’s Bryan Pike for a more in-depthlook at all the great things that can be done with ACI wireless.

Honeywell Vulcain’s E3 point wireless control system monitors hazardous gas emissions in boiler rooms, chiller plants, and parking garages.

 On the Industrial level Honeywell has a variety of wireless gauges, transmitters, and receivers to make remote control of systems a breeze.

If you are trying to control something and the high costs of hard wiring is cost prohibitive, or the location is too remote look to Stromquist and Company to help you in your wireless needs. Call us at 1-800-241-9471 in Atlanta or 1-800-638-7828 in Orlando.

In an earlier post I talked about energy dashboards and how critical they are to understanding energy usage. As a teacher of mine once said “nothing is obvious to the uninformed” and this takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to understanding energy data. Getting the right visual representation of huge amounts of data is the key to making sense of these numbers. Although we offer several energy dashboard solutions ProphetSuite is by far the most flexible and elegant. In part one of a two part tutorial see just how easy it is to set up a ProphetSuite energy dashboard.

When it comes to Thermal Imaging Cameras for the commercial buildings market there are several things to take into consideration.  First , how and where will your thermal imaging camera be used? There are all kinds of thermal imaging cameras with different prices, quality levels and things that they can do. For commercial buildings we like the Testo Thermal Imagining Cameras.

Testo offers a range of thermal imaging cameras specifically for commercial building applications. When buying a camera for building applications you should expect to spend between three to seven thousand dollars depending on which options you  need with your camera. Options include things like what kind and how many lenses  you need, camera options, software, and carrying cases. No way around it these thermal imaging cameras are expensive. So it is important to have a plan as to how you are going to use your camera to justify its purchase. The good news is that with all the things a thermal imaging camera can do, payback on them is almost immediate. If you are an HVAC contractor, a camera like the Testo 875 will allow you to do energy  surveys on buildings and show your customers how  their buildings are losing energy. With the Testo software it is very easy to generate reports to present to your customers. A thermal imaging camera like the Testo will also allow you to easily check for things like  mold, and hot spots in motors and  electrical panels. Once you invest in one and start using it you will wonder how you ever survived without a thermal camera.

To learn more about these amazing devices contact your sales professional at Stromquist & Company. If you are in Atlanta and want to participate in a Testo lunch and learn (Tuesday November 16 at Stromquist Company 11:30-1:30 ), in which the Testo Thermal Imaging Cameras and the Testo Combustion Analyzers will be covered, contact Edna at 404.794.3440 to reserve your spot. If you can’t come to Stromquist we will be broadcasting the Testo presentation live, for log on information email eric@stromquist.com

There is and old adage “If you can’t measure it you can’t control it.” This has become particularly true when it comes to taking energy management to the next level in commercial buildings. Although energy saving controls and solutions have been around since the 70′s, Government mandates such as EPACT 2005 and EISA 2007 are  requiring a whole new level of measurement and verification, which requires sub-metering. If you are sub-metering then you are going to need a way to process and understand all this additional information, which is why you need to consider an Energy Dashboard like the one Stromquist & Company provides from ProphetSuite

As you can see ProphetSuite is way cool!! If you have a building automation system, you are already able to gather a lot of this information, so why would you invest in another software package?The short answer is although your building automation  software and graphics package might be great for building control,the energy game has changed, and if you are going to play you need the right software tools, which is where an Energy Dashboard and companies like ProphetSuite make sense. With more focus on LEEDS, Sustainability, Green Environments, and Property Health more people in an organization are getting involved with looking at buildings. Look how many companies in the last two years have created positions like “sustainability officer” in their organizations. The information building engineers need to look at and how they need to look at it are completely different than what a CEO or a Sustainability officer needs to see and comprehend. So one of the big advantages of Energy Dashboard software like ProphetSuite is it allows the same information to be shared and formatted in different ways allowing each person in an organization to customize information intake and how they want to see it. For example we worked with a university and the university president’s priority was the Energy Star rating. Using an Energy Dashboard allowed an Energy Star widget to be created on the president’s computer that only showed what the University’s Energy Star rating was at that moment. The President was able to monitor the data point that was most relevant; at the same time the utility manager was able to customize his dashboard with many more data points that were needed for his analysis, and the building engineer only looked at the data he needed.

Another key element that an Energy Dashboard like ProphetSuite provides is the ability to normalize data. If you have multiple buildings and you are looking at the KWH used by each building, and building one is showing 1000KWH while building 2 is showing 500KWH, which building is operating more efficiently? The answer is we don’t know. What if building one is twice the size or has 40% more electrical load on the building. A good Energy Dashboard like ProphetSuite will normalize your energy data in such a way that you get a true picture of what is happening in your buildings.

When you invest in an Energy Dashboard it is important not to be “penny wise and pound foolish.” You are investing in a management tool, and your Energy Dashboard should be scalable, customizable, and easy to set up and use. Creating an Energy Dashboard is not “rocket science” but creating one that is effective and easy to use is an art. Although we have many different options to offer our customers when it comes to Energy Dashboards we encourage them to look at ProphetSuite, what we think is best of breed.

AIC Wireless has developed wireless products for HVAC building automation control and monitoring applications. I sat down and talked with Bryan Pike, one of the owners of AIC Wireless, about the company and the reliable products they produce. AIC wireless products are a low cost alternative to long runs of wire or Lon cable to control points in unreachable locations.  Not sure if wireless is right for your application? Just click on the play button and find out.

Click to play

What makes AIC products special is that they are very easy to set up; they truly are “plug and play.”AIC wireless is a proven product with successful installations that range from wireless communications from several feet to up to six miles. One of AIC’s higher profile projects was connecting data points at Fort Benning Georgia. Among other things, the AIC wireless control system used their bidirectional transceivers to receive and transmit data over a very hilly Fort Benning terrain. The AIC transceivers used the LonWorks protocol to communicate between a local LonWorks controller and an EMCS control room server. For more information about all the control points that the base monitors and controls check out the case studyby LonMark International.

AIC Wireless can expand any new or existing network.  The AIC Wireless transceivers operate on a point-to-multipoint architecture, which means that one server transceiver can communicate with multiple client devices. The AIC wireless transceivers work well in near and non-line-of-sight applications, and ranges can go up to forty miles. In addition to the transceivers, you need to make sure you select the proper antenna for longer distances.

Let’s take  a look at a couple of the products:

WLT 900

WLD Series

If you are a Stromquist & Company customer or are located in Georgia or Florida please contact us at www.stromquist.com for more information on AIC Wireless Products others can contact one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America.If you are a Stromquist & Company customer or are located in Georgia or Florida please contact us at www.stromquist.com for more information on AIC Wireless Products others can contact one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America.