Is there a way to monitor how many times your heat pump kicked on during a day/week/month etc?

Question

I am looking to see if there is a way to generate data to see how many times my Heat Pump/A/C is turning on the A/C, something that could tell you how many times it turn on, hours of use for that day, etc.

I have my thermostat go to 80 degrees when we leave for work and drop back to 77 for when we get home. But I would just like to see how many times it is running. You could even plug in the days tempature reading from outdoors to see if how many times it ran.

Any ideas? My thermostat is programable

Answer 1

There are counters out there that sense a change in voltage, like when your unit turns on, and it can add one each time it turns on. More useful might be how long the pump is on, and you can have a timer-counter that keeps track of hours on. Not very sophisticated. A computer hooked up to a thermostat output might be more useful.  

Answer 2

you could intercepr in series the 24volt AC signal that the thermostat sends to AC unit.  Go to omega instruments, they will have a ac voltage recorder.

Answer 3

You could make note of times you hear it turn on and the temps for the day, if you happen to be home.

I know it's time to change my filter because I can't hear my tv. The more it turns on, my filter needs changing. My last filter was amazing.

Some Dirt Demon thing. My intake is clean and the filter is nasty.

I set my ac for 85 during the day and back it down, after the sun sets.