In this paper we present the analysis of the gas usage for different types of buildings. First, we introduce the classical theory of building heating. This allows the establishment of theoretical relations between gas consumption time series and the outside air temperature for different types of buildings, residential and industrial. These relations imply dierent auto-correlations of gas usage time series as well as different cross-correlations between gas consumption and temperature time series for different types of buildings. Therefore, the autocorrelation and the cross-correlation were used to classify the buildings into three classes: housing, housing with high thermal capacity, and industry. The Hurst exponent was calculated using the global DFA to investigate auto-correlation, while the Kendall's τ rank coeficient was calculated to investigate cross-correlation.
Hydrogen (H2) and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) sensing properties of SnO2 thin films obtained by direct oxidation of chemically deposited SnS films has been studied. The SnS film was prepared by a chemical technique called SILAR (Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction). The sensor element comprises of a layer of chemically deposited SnO2 film with an overlayer of palladium (Pd) sensitiser. The Pd sensitiser layer was also formed following a chemical technique. The double layer element so formed shows significantly high sensitivity to H2 and LPG. The temperature variation of sensitivity was studied and the maximum sensitivity of 99.7% was observed at around 200°C for 1 vol% H2 in air. The response time to target gas was about 10 seconds and the sensor element was found to recover to its original resistance reasonably fast. The maximum sensitivity of 98% for 1.6 vol% LPG was observed at around 325°C. The sensor response and recovery was reasonably fast (less than one minute) at this temperature.