I have a 500 gallon (approx 2000 l) propane in-ground tank with a crude 0-100 gauge. We currently use propane for hot water, cooking, and some heating (when the woodstove is not running and it colder than 35F/2.5C).
I’d like to be able to measure my propane use in realtime, to include as a gas energy input to the Energy dashboard.
I’ve looked here in this forum, and performed google searches, though I’m not coming up with a residential propane flow rate meter with either Zigbee, ZWave, or wifi.
If none are to be had, one approach could be to find one with a digital readout, and consider AI on the Edge.
Yet, I’m not seeing AI-on-the-edge listed in the Integrations or in HACS, so;
would I have to abandon the HA Energy Dashboard for a custom Influx/Grafana approach
or is there some other way to input data into HA without a standard integration or a HACS?
If your propane tank has an analog dial meter fitted to it, it may be simpler to use this solution I put together to read my own, ‘dumb’ analog dial-based gas meter. It’s simple, cheap, and works really well.
Just re-read your post, and thought about it for a while…
Certainly no expert on LPG, but it sounds like your existing 0-100 gauge is more of a level-type gauge… similar to that you would see for reading a car fuel tank??
You would need to establish a usage rate per hour - the simplest method of doing this may be to buy a gas meter off eBay and fit it in line with your main feed from the tank. If this was done near to the house, then WiFi and power requirements wouldn’t be an issue. The meter will just rotate the dials according to your usage, and, additionally, you have a variety of options available for logging the gas consumption then.
I’m UK based and you can pick up Gas Meters on eBay for about £35… add about another £10 for the rest of the parts to monitor the meter…
EDIT: Just looked at the image you posted on my analog gas meter thread. I think this would be difficult to monitor, and the variations in the gauge would be quite small - hence the thought above about fitting a gas meter in-line which would log the flow and not just the level. If you did log the flow rate, you can then calculate daily, weekly, and monthly consumption, the costs of those… and even set up a notification based on the consumption rate so you know when your tank level is low and needs a refill.
@Muddy_Boots , indeed, this would be my fallback position, and unless someone has found something reasonably priced (all I could find were expensive industrial units) that I’ve missed, that will be my approach. To be reasonably accurate, I’m going to investigate the types of gas flow meters.
On the data topic, I have just discovered Templates and how they could be populated via MQTT, so will likely employ that as my data input approach.
Just looking at the link you posted, the Diaphragm Meter which is shown (and noted as a residential gas meter) is probably the most popular type… also, seems to be a worldwide method of noting gas consumption too, judging from the meters shown on this forum. I really would have expected a meter of this type to be quite inexpensive, as there must be millions of them around (hence the cost of one over here in the UK being about £35). I would just keep an eye open for this type of meter to show at the right price, and then consider installing it as close as possible to your house, or inside your house as you will need power and a WiFi signal to get any data from it into HA.
I have never used MQTT at all, so not familiar with it I do use ‘sensors’ though and these work very well to create, log and make calculations on data coming into HA, and as noted previously the data comes into HA via ESPHome… any entities & devices from the ESP32 Microcontrollers just show up in the ESPHome Integration.
I am looking for something similar.
My needs are not that detailed and only one appliance in each of 2 buildings.
My approach, is just to monitor when the gas furnace or boiler is on by way of sonoff s31 and monitoring the watts to determine when the draft inducer is on.
This way using a calculation of say 100,000 BTU furnace at burns about a gallon per hour. All we have to do is track and calculate when the meter is above X watts to know when the propane valve is open.
Now I don’t know how to do this yet, but it seems the information is there in home assistant, I just need to figure out how to display it. I would like to display it in gallons on each day and a running total to display in a “gas gauge” on the dashboard. Energy dashboard would be best, but any would be okay.
I still struggle with the way the electric meter logs with iotawatt. I would like to have the same options with that: electricity yesterday AND $ for each appliance.
It is easier to display to my wife if she see $ not kwh.
I do use ‘sensors’ though and these work very well to create, log and make calculations on data coming into HA, and as noted previously the data comes into HA via ESPHome… any entities & devices from the ESP32 Microcontrollers just show up in the ESPHome Integration.