3 zone heating with actuators

desoc32

Hi. I'm having a little technical meltdown trying to think of the best way of wiring up the following.
3 Zones - Upstairs Downstairs and Hot Water
2 pumps - Upstairs and Downstairs
8 Actuators - 4 up and 4 down
2 wall stats - 1 up and 1 down

I have to rewire all this as last electrician made a bit of a mess of it and since then the owner has been going at it too.

Each actuator was meant to have it's own stat for underfloor zone but this was never done.

My problem is can this be wired so that when you fire up for example zone 1 upstairs will it fire up the rest of the zones too as when liven the boiler the other zones may liven too in reverse of the first zone? There are no motorised valves installed which would of made me confident of no backfeed.

This is the way i was thinking

Spur-timeclock-stat-actuators(join 4 together for zone)-pump+boiler?

Would getting the plumber to install a couple of motorised valves help or will i need to install contactors relays etc?

I'm not overly familiar with underfloor heating.

Thanks :-)

kramer1

Do you have any sort of a wiring centre for th ufh
?

meercat

have these actuators got auxiliary contacts on them
if so control them as you have said
use the auxiliary contacts to control the boiler and pumps

another possible way is to control 2 relays/contactors from the clock and stat
then use these to connect your actuators/boiler/pump

M cebee

meercat wrote: »

have these actuators got auxiliary contacts on them
if so control them as you have said
use the auxiliary contacts to control the boiler and pumps

another possible way is to control 2 relays/contactors from the clock and stat
then use these to connect your actuators/boiler/pump

the actuators themselves don't have auxiliary contacts, but they're all wired into a unit with 1 auxiliary ime

meercat

M cebee wrote: »

the actuators themselves don't have auxiliary contacts, but they're all wired into a unit with 1 auxiliary ime

i have used these units also but i would imagine that if separate thermostats were not wired,then no controller is fitted either

2 contactors may be the way to go then

meercat

http://www.floorheating-direct.co.uk/products/1-1-water+based+heating+products/8-1-thermostats+and+controllers/p-60-floor+heating-direct+standard+master+controller

one of these will do too but you will need to fit stats

desoc32

Thanks for all the replies.

The actuators are just switched live and neutral from what i can see. There is no wiring hub or relay type box present. I think you guys are right and that maybe 2 normally open single pole contacts would work on each of the 2 underfloor heating zones and that might be the easiest way of isolating each zone from firing up the other. For the moment i will try this method and if that does not work (i'm confident it will) then maybe break the bad news that a lot more work is involved.
Everyday is a school day!
Thanks again and i'll report back tomorrow.

Bruthal

Yea it can definitely be done using relays/contactors to keep different zones etc isolated from each other.

M cebee

you'll need 2-pole relays at manifolds for zone pump and boiler(+main pump if there's one) if you're doing it with relays
-it's nearly the basic 3-channel setup but you need an extra pole for local pumps
-don't forget your isolation at each point

desoc32

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. The 2 contactors did the job and now i have either one, two ar all three zones working correctly. To be honest when i think about it now it all makes sense and i should of figured it out quicker

Bruthal

desoc32 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. The 2 contactors did the job and now i have either one, two ar all three zones working correctly.

Yea its simple enough if you have the basics of relays and contactors.

To be honest when i think about it now it all makes sense and i should of figured it out quicker

You seemed to have the options well considered in your first post anyway which was only last night.

meercat

Bruthal wrote: »

Yea its simple enough if you have the basics of relays and contactors.



You seemed to have the options well considered in your first post anyway which was only last night.

Bruthal?????
wheres that from

Bruthal

meercat wrote: »

Bruthal?????
wheres that from

Its me, useless with a h:)

meercat

Bruthal wrote: »

Its me, useless with a h:)

cheers
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