HVAC Sizing with Beestat

Sizing Replacement HVAC Equipment Using Runtime Data

I’d like to offer a couple of methods for those who are interested in sizing a replacement furnace / heat pump using beestat / ecobee data. See the GBA article by Dana Dorsett “Replacing a Furnace or Boiler” for the technical background on these methods. I’ve used some example data from my ecobee for the illustrations.

Ecobee runtime data is equivalent to the fuel usage used in the article, assuming you know the Btu/hr rating of your equipment. Beestat already tracks the necessary HDD / CDD data. If you’re already using the NEEP Cold Climate Air Source Heat Pump List to select equipment, the 99% design temperature can be found through the “Advanced Search - Sizing for Heating and Cooling” tool.

Key Parameters

  1. Furnace Input Rating [75,000 Btu/hr] + AFUE [80% Efficiency]
    OR Furnace Output Rating [60,000 Btu/hr]
  2. Furnace Runtime [179h in Nov.] + Heating Degree Days [992.1 in Nov.]
    OR Runtime Per Degree Day Metric [11m]
  3. Design Temperature dT [68°F Indoor - 5°F 99% Temp = 63°F dT]

The Quick Method

The Runtime Per Degree Day metric on the beestat Compare tab and the design temperature give us an estimate of how often the equipment needs to run on the coldest days of the year.

First convert the runtime in minutes to a runtime in % per degree temperature difference:

11m/°F-day * 1d/24h * 1h/60m = 11m/1440m-°F = 0.7639% / °F

Multiplying by the design temperature dT gives us a % runtime at 5°F outside, 68°F inside:

0.7639% / °F * 63°F dT = 48.125%

The current equipment needs to run 50% of the time on the coldest days of the year, suggesting it may be twice as big as needed.

Using the Btu/hr input of the current equipment gives us an approximate heat load:

48.125% * 60,000 Btu/hr = 28,875 Btu/hr

The Custom Period Method

Selecting a bin from the Thermostat Summary table can provide the above runtime and degree day parameters, and you can find your runtime per degree day metric manually. You can use the Custom time period to select a specific date range if desired.

For November on my thermostat:

179h/992.1°F-day * 60m/h = 10.8m/°F-day

Using the math from the quick method section:

10.8m/°F-day = 47.362% = 28,417 Btu/hr

Sizing the Replacement

ASHRAE recommends a 1.4x sizing factor:

28,417 Btu/hr * 1.4 = 39,783 Btu/hr

The heat load above is the heat output needed from the furnace to keep the home warm. To find the input needed, we need to account for the efficiency of the furnace. Divide the heat load by the efficiency to get a Btu/hr rating you can shop with:

39,783 Btu/hr / 80% = 49,730 Btu/hr at 80% AFUE
39,783 Btu/hr / 95% = 41,878 Btu/hr at 95% AFUE

The Sniff Test

On a really cold day, listen for when your furnace cycles on and off. How long does it run? 50% of the time? 75% of the time? Equipment is usually most efficient and most comfortable when the runtime can be maximized, and short cycles are indicative of oversizing. When sizing for a modulating heat pump, it may be best to target 100% runtime at the 99% design temperature and rely on backup heat to cover the remaining 1% of the year to minimize low-load cycling at warmer temperatures.

Notes on Accuracy

Using the fuel-bill method in the GBA article, I get a heat load of 29,406 Btu/hr, within 5% of the ecobee data. The Manual J from a computer model was 47,100 Btu/hr, about 66% higher than the direct measurements. Variables like duct loss, home air leakage, and internal loads are directly accounted for in the runtime measurements.

Two stage equipment can still be processed using the above equations. I multiply the Stage 2 runtime by the turn-down ratio and add it to the Stage 1 runtime.

13.95h Stage 2 * (100kBtu/hr / 75kBtu/hr) = 18.6h Stage 1 Equivalent

Summary Equation

Btu/hr Input of Replacement = 1.4 * Runtime per Degree Day/1440 * (68°F - Design Temp) * Current Furnace Btu/hr Output / AFUE of Replacement

2 Likes

This is awesome! Thank you. :+1:

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This is very nicely written up. I’m actually doing some exploration into this type of analysis right now. I’m eager to sit down and try this with my own system to see what type of results I get. If everything checks out or if there’s a lot of positive feedback in this thread I’ll look at getting this information pinned somewhere.

Edit: Question for you…what type of additional data would you be looking for inside beestat to make this easier?

Good stuff!
I did the runtime method and Dana’s fuel method and they were within ~1000 BTU/h of each other. In my case I was sizing a heat pump so I selected a heat pump that matched my design heating load, but sized the backup heat at 140%.

I wonder if a % runtime line could be added to the temperature profiles graph (units min/hr or % of hr runtime). The equation could be added to the More Info box, and the heat load calculated from there. Or, visually, you could find the design temperature on the graph and get your runtime from there.

With easy access to runtime % vs. outdoor temp, you could calculate heat loads at different temperatures. I could see this information especially relevant for upgrades to heat pumps.

Nice! That makes sense to me. I’m glad you got good agreement, too.

If I’m understanding you right, you can kind of get this information from the Thermostat Summary chart. Make sure Smart Scale is on, and that will scale the chart so you can easily see what percentage of a given day/week/month your system ran.

In this example, I am grouping by day so my chart is showing everything maxed out at 24h. I can then look for days at certain temps or degree days and visually see what percentage of the day my system ran.

That’s definitely the idea - a quick visual check of how much of your furnace capacity you’re utilizing. My concern with that is the granularity of the data - averaging by day loses a lot of insights and accuracy you can get when looking at hour data.

I was thinking something like this mockup might be more intuitive. If you line up the x-axis at zero, the runtime % and the resist profile should intersect there, and you can scroll over to any temp and see the runtime % exactly. I realize this is adding a second axis, though, so maybe it isn’t so easy to implement.

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Agree with @tdykhuis that hourly data is key when trying to figure out BTU/h load. When I had my old single-stage furnace and a Nest thermostat, I double checked my heating load using the google home app’s hourly chart for the coldest days of the winter (at or below design temp), which were Feb 3 and Feb 4, 2023. I had a morning recovery from setback which spiked the runtime for a full hour in the morning, but other than that you can plainly see that my old furnace was oversized by 2x!

(Note: for multistage or variable equipment this calc would be difficult or impossible, and the fuel use or electricity use numbers would be the only method)