Published 2024-06-04

The Church of Sweden Örebro Pastorate actively monitors the indoor climate in a large number of churches and office buildings. As part of this work, building technician Johan Asplund uses Celsicom loggers.

The pastorate aims to reduce heating costs by 15% – without sacrificing optimal climates for people, furnishings and equipment. This means that it should be +20 C° in offices, +18 C° in sacristy rooms and +13 C° in church rooms.

“Better control of metrics”
It is important that these temperature levels are maintained. Altar linens and vestments are sensitive to low temperatures (and high humidity, RH). The same applies to paintings, wooden sculptures and metal objects.
– With the help of the Celsicom loggers, we can have better control of different metrics,” says Johan Asplund.

Churches are temporarily heated
To keep energy costs down, some churches are not fully heated at all times. Instead, the heat is raised during church services and other ceremonies. The Celsicom logs give Asplund answers to how long before the heating needs to be turned up so that the right temperature is reached at the right time, and how the RH value in the church room is affected by time-limited heating.

Johan and his colleagues receive automatic alerts via SMS or email if limits are exceeded.

– This makes the logs particularly useful because the churches are so geographically dispersed. If I see that the temperature is about to drop a lot in a room, I can go there quickly and check if there is a problem with the power supply or if a radiator has failed.

Published 2024-06-25

Since 2016, energy engineer Billy Axelsson has been using data loggers from the Celsicom measurement system to remotely monitor various indoor climates in Kil municipality’s buildings. The loggers enable more efficient work and reduce energy consumption and the risk of costly breakdowns.

Billy Axelsson works at the property unit with responsibility for energy and ventilation. It is a small job considering that the municipality operates on about 60,000 square meters in about 50 buildings. These buildings house commercial kitchens, schools, nurseries, leisure facilities, care homes – and a range of other businesses.

An important part of the real estate unit’s work consists of remote monitoring of various climate parameters in different environments, in order to analyze important measurements on a daily basis and schedule measures or, if necessary, respond immediately. Measured variables such as temperature and humidity are monitored with data loggers from the first generation of the Celsicom measurement system (the loggers are connected to base stations) and data loggers from the second generation of the same system (these loggers have their own connection via the Narrow Band Internet of Things on their own frequency in the mobile phone network). In total, there are 107 measurement sites in 27 buildings.

Celsicom – an important backup
The fact that Celsicom was chosen eight years ago was mostly a coincidence.

– We have some comprehensive systems for monitoring and controlling heating and ventilation in our buildings. But I felt the need to have some kind of backup to be able to have continuous control and get alerts. “At one point I bought a thermal imaging camera from Nordtec and was a bit curious about what other fun things you had,” says Billy.

That’s when he discovered and chose to test Celsicom. Since day one, the remote monitoring system has greatly facilitated the work of the real estate unit. Above all, the ease of getting started and using the Celsicom logs is appreciated. The automatic limit alerts via SMS or email are also praised. And the fact that the purchase of each logger – including the subscription cost for storage and analysis in the Celsiview cloud service – is a modest investment.

Automatically alerts in good time
The real estate unit has found a variety of applications for the Celsicom loggers. Here are some examples of what they are used for.

– If a chiller breaks down or starts leaking refrigerant, the chiller can continue to run while the temperature starts to rise. This can quickly be seen from diagrams in Celsiview.

– Another great advantage is the possibility of receiving an alarm if, for example, a large meat fridge breaks down. Then you have to act quickly to avoid having to throw away goods worth SEK 100,000 the next day.

Celsicom loggers are also used in schools to ensure a good indoor climate in classrooms, to monitor temperature and humidity in music rooms and to prevent damage to stringed instruments. The remote monitoring also covers four pellet plants. There, Celsicom loggers simply alert you if pellet levels are approaching a critical level and it’s time to refill.

Preventing an expensive mishap
– I have also made a little invention of my own with one of the latest Celsicom loggers that has moisture ratio sensors (Celsicom MM611B). I’ve connected it to a screw in a wooden plank lying on the floor of a basement where we have very little supervision. And last winter there was a water leak from the heating system! I was alerted within an hour that the moisture content was too high in the wooden plank and was able to go there to quickly fix the flood and leak. It could have been really expensive if I hadn’t had that monitoring,” says Billy.

Celsicom also eliminates time spent traveling around checking conditions in different properties.

– Instead, I always have updated readings via the Celsiview cloud service on the home page of my computer. I can quickly see if something seems strange and can easily see how things are developing, and then decide whether I or someone else needs to go to the scene.

Good information and data
Celsiview is also a good tool for sharing information and providing input for various improvements. For example, staff in commercial kitchens can log in and have a ‘watch’ function to check temperatures in cold rooms and freezers in real time for their own control.

One of the property unit’s major challenges in the future is to make operations more efficient by, for example, reducing electricity and district heating. It’s about reducing energy use as much as possible without sacrificing a comfortable indoor climate. In this respect too, deployed Celsicom loggers are valuable tools.

– It is very easy to quickly see on your mobile phone, tablet or computer where the temperature is a bit too high and can be turned down to reduce heating costs. “In an electrically heated school that is in storage, I have Celsicom connected to the heating system to be able to keep the temperature as low as possible without it freezing in the winter,” says Billy Axelsson and notes:

– We save a lot of money by having sensors monitoring the radiator groups.

Published 2023-03-20

There is growing interest in logging the climate in different environments. This is according to Axel Arleij, moisture expert at Raksystems (formerly Dry-IT), which helps construction and real estate companies to monitor the building climate and investigate the indoor climate. A large number of Celsicom boxes are used to measure temperature and humidity.

The mobile-connected and cloud-based measurement boxes have been valuable working tools for Raksystems for many years. Celsicom boxes help prevent unnecessary and costly delays on many large construction sites.

– They make it easy to monitor the dehydration climate in building environments,” says Axel Arleij and continues:

– What many of our customers appreciate about the system is the ability to view real-time measurement values on a mobile screen, for example, at any time.

Raksystems Dry-IT has been logging temperature and humidity in different indoor environments for ten years. Previously, Axel and his colleagues used measuring equipment on construction sites that they had to go to in order to transfer measurements to a computer.

Info for immediate action
– We did not have access to real-time measurement data. At best, new data was downloaded once a week. This made it impossible to work proactively and ensure an optimal building climate. With Celsicom it is a different story. We can see immediately if we need to take action, for example to deal with a major cold snap,” says Axel.

As construction schedules become tighter and tighter, the importance of ensuring optimal dehydration climates increases, in order to meet deadlines and, for example, to lay floors on the intended dates.

– With Celsicom loggers, you can easily check that the heat is reaching all corners of the building to maintain the required level for concrete to dry out in time. This avoids delays due to low temperatures, insufficient heat dissipation, or temporary doors that may have been left open and released heat… it’s easy to become complacent during construction.

Easily see the status of dehydration
Before building a house, Axel Arleij often helps builders to define the requirements for the checks and measurements to be carried out during construction. Once the building is constructed, Axel arranges for the installation of Celsicom loggers to verify the correct temperature and humidity in all spaces.

– Everything is followed up at regular intervals during site visits, when we review average values together with the customer to see how we are doing with dehydration and what we need to focus on.

– We always end projects by producing summaries and graphs of the construction climate. This is something that contractors can use in discussions with suppliers if, for example, there are problems with certain moisture-related movements in materials. It is simply a quality assurance certificate that you have stayed within the right range of what different materials can do.

Climate logging on 100s of buildings
Axel and his colleagues are also often tasked with logging the climate in operating buildings. This may be in connection with the discovery of mold growth on, for example, raw board in cold attics. They are also hired for major refurbishment projects of listed projects such as churches.

– If you’re going to do some energy-saving measures and you don’t know what the impact will be, we usually do a climate measurement to see what the current situation is before any changes are made to the structure. Subsequent measurements then indicate whether everything is working as intended or whether a harmful amount of moisture has been added.

Raksystems is now up to a hundred office, school, residential and hospital buildings in the Stockholm area alone where Celsicom loggers have been used for climate monitoring. The Proteinet housing block in Hagastaden and the Ersta New Hospital in Södermalm are two current projects where a large number of loggers monitor temperatures and humidity on floors and in stairwells.

Good coverage in all situations
In addition to the ability to see current measurement data in real time, Axel appreciates the ease of use and reliability.
– The Celsicom loggers are able to transmit for a very long time. And where even mobile coverage is poor, Celsicom usually has good coverage. We are very happy with this and it is also something that customers appreciate.

Axel Arleij also notes that many construction projects are good at finding other synergies with the Celsicom system. By keeping a close eye on temperature and humidity, they have been able to bring forward plastering and painting, installation of kitchen cabinets – and a number of other steps.

– There are simply many advantages to the Celsicom system.