BURNSVILLE, Minn. — Castel De Flots Bleus in Cap Pele, New Brunswick, Canada, is a residential housing facility for senior citizens. With 60 approved dwelling units, it is among the largest special care homes of its kind in the country. The size of the facility — in combination with the local climate — translated to high monthly heating costs in the winter months. This year, the facility transitioned to a REHAU smart control solution featuring DataNab universal monitoring and control devices to reduce energy usage and costs. The complete solution also eliminated approximately $20,000 in thermostats through the use of wall-plate temperature sensors.

Ron Antinori, owner and president of Climate Automation Systems, worked closely with REHAU to develop the efficient control solution for Castel De Flots Bleus. Climate Automation Systems private labels its branded “env” intelligent climate control solution for REHAU and other companies. DataNab I/O devices sit at the core of these solutions, providing inputs to read various types of sensors such as temperature sensors, and providing outputs to control heat pumps, boilers, and other building systems.

The Castel Des Flots Bleus solution features multiple DataNab Ai8_R13, Ai32, and AiO8 devices to support building systems across 110 zones, including four heat pumps, three air handlers, several cooling fan coils, two large buffer tanks, and dozens of circulator pumps. The DataNab devices are wired within Kele enclosures for maximum protection, with established setpoints to ensure efficient, building-wide energy usage and control.

“Our challenge is to simply have these building and HVAC systems make decisions based on temperatures and equipment status, and then send commands through the DataNab devices to make everything operate efficiently,” said Antinori. “We couldn’t achieve what the customer requested without the DataNab solution.”

Antinori added that the DataNab devices provide benefits to contractors as well as end users when it comes to price and ease of use.

“The DataNab devices are extremely cost-efficient at half to one-third the price of competing devices — without losing features,” said Antinori. “It gives us the opportunity to combine our software with their hardware and deliver a total solution for the contractor that is nicely priced. DataNab devices also offer features that confirm secure wiring and connections, saving contractors hours of headaches during commissioning.”

Antinori also recently shipped an “env” solution featuring 15 DataNab I/O devices to a large residential home in the Washington, D.C., area to manage and control HVAC systems and monitor energy usage across three mechanical rooms. He noted that the new DataNab Ui28_PC2 device stands apart from competitive devices as it offers two pulse counters in addition to 28 universal inputs. This will allow his residential customers to measure kilowatt hours, gallons per minutes, flow rates, Btu, and other measurements tied to utility meters. “That’s a rarity in this price range,” he concluded.

For more information about Climate Automation Systems, visit www.climateautomationsystems.com. For more information about DataNab, visit www.datanab.com.

Publication date: 8/6/2012