Heat meters

Heat meter (heat/cold meter) – a measuring instrument designed to measure energy consumption in heating or cooling installations used in residential, office or industrial facilities. A commonly used unit of energy in billing is the gigajoule [GJ].

The heat/cool meter as a complex measurement system consists of the following modules:

• flow transducer – mechanical (wing, screw, volumetric – volume) or ultrasonic meter for measuring the volume of the flowing heating medium,
• are sensors for measuring the temperature of the supply and return of the heating medium,
• converter – a digital system that converts the measured values into the amount of flowing heat/cold.

The heat meter measures the amount of energy that hot water gives off when it cools down when heating, e.g. rooms. The volume of water that flowed giving off heat and two water temperatures are measured: before cooling and after cooling. This energy is proportional to the volume of water and the temperature difference between supply and return.

The heat meter should be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. The place of installation of the heat meter should be easily accessible for assembly, disassembly and operation, convenient for reading, separated from utility and utility rooms. The heat meter must be placed in such a way that it is protected from impacts, vibrations and electromagnetic fields, as this may interfere with the operation of the device. It is good to install shut-off fittings before and after the heat meter. The accuracy of the heat meter indications may be affected by flow disturbances occurring upstream or downstream of the transmitter, caused in particular by the presence of fittings disturbing the flow, e.g. elbows, valves or pumps, - the installation should be equipped with straight sections of the pipeline before or after the transmitter, with lengths resulting from the transmitter and the manufacturer's recommendations, so that the errors of the heat meter indications are within the limits of permissible errors.

Reading can be made by visual-manual reading of indications from the heat meter display, or by means of remote reading modules.

Energy units to be selected by the customer – GJ, kWh or Gcal.

According to the temperatures given in the technical data in the data sheet.
A distinction is made between the ambient temperature in which the heat meter operates and it is 5-55°C and the heating water temperature, which is different for different flow transducers used in heat meters. For example, for the Elf 2 compact heat meter, it should be within the range of 0.1 - 90°C, and for ultrasonic transducers for remote heat meters with a Faun calculator, it should be within the range of 5-130°C (for DN15-DN20) or 5-150°C (for DN25-DN100).

Compact heat meters are compact devices that include: a flow meter, a conversion system and a pair of temperature sensors, one of which is built into the transmitter body, and the other sensor is mounted on the appropriate return/supply pipe in a tee. They have one measurement approval for the entire device.

Hybrid heat meters differ from compact ones in that the conversion system can be removed from the flow converter and mounted, e.g. on the wall, but it is still connected to the converter with an inseparable cable.

Separable heat meters consist of 3 independent devices: calculator, flow transducer and temperature sensors connected to the calculator by wires which can be disconnected. A characteristic feature of separate heat meters is the possibility of using components from different manufacturers, taking into account full compatibility.
Each of the component devices has its own approval.

The validity of the conformity assessment procedure (initial verification) is counted from December 1st of the year in which the marking was applied to the instrument during the conformity assessment.
The validity of the initial verification after conformity assessment is 5 years (in accordance with the Regulation of the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology of March 22, 2019 and pursuant to Article 9 points 1-5 of the Act of May 11, 2001 - Law on Measurements (Journal Of Laws of 2019, items 541 and 675). If the verification assessment expires, the heat meter cannot be the basis for settlements.

After secondary verification, the heat meter has a verification feature consisting of two seals. One of the seals shows the year and the other the month, the date set in this way determines the final five-year date of validity of the secondary verification that is assigned to a given measuring device. If the verification assessment expires, the heat meter cannot be the basis for settlements.

Yes. Wireless and wired remote reading is not harmful to health. This is confirmed by declarations of conformity issued for radio communication modules, issued by the Manufacturer, based on specific European Directives and harmonized standards.

Yes.  The basic legal act regulating the issue of settling the costs of purchasing heat for a building in which residential and commercial premises are located is the Energy Law Act (Journal of Laws of April 19, 2021, item 716 (consolidated text of the Act). Precisely, Article 45a(8) states that these costs may be settled using methods using heat meter indications (...). In the next part (section 9) the aforementioned Act says that the owner or manager of a multi-unit building chooses the method of settling the total costs of heat purchase, so that "(...) stimulates energy-saving behaviour and ensures that the fees referred to in sec. 4, in a manner corresponding to the heat consumption for heating (...)".