Where to put the monitor#
If you move a thermal monitor or other measuring device around your building, it’s easy to lose track of which readings are for which location. You can use this template to help you remember.
Ideally, you will get one or two weeks of data when it is relatively cold out in each of your big spaces, representative smaller spaces, and anywhere else that you think might be different or have a problem. The more varied your user groups, the longer you need. Even better is a week or two in each season since that helps identify problems with solar gain or poor heating control, but that’s only possible for groups with heating controls that record this information.
When you decide where to put the thermal monitor or data logger, it should be:
somewhere representative of what people will feel
not in a corner or anywhere else with poor airflow
not in direct sun or influenced by a heating source like a radiator
not very close to a very cold wall (for instance, external stone walls)
not close enough to an actual person to be influenced by their body heat
not where it will be hit by footballs, thrown around by children, and so on.
These are the same rules as for thermostats, and sometimes next to the thermostat is a good choice, although some of them can be very badly sited!
Blutak can mark many surfaces and tape can leave permanent marks on stonework. In some spaces you may need to be inventive - tying string around the sensor as if you were wrapping a gift and then using another piece of string to hang it from a pillar, for instance. If you do hang it somewhere, be careful that it cannot injure anyone if it falls.
Tip
It can be hard to remember where you put the sensor unit - one easy way is to take a picture on your phone that shows the surrounding context. Then if you forget, you’ll know exactly where to look.