Honeywell Evohome Zoning System Query

Tomc77

Just bought a house with no zoning so need to heat the full house to heat hot water cylinder! Wooden floors downstairs so would be tricky to retrofit piped zoning which is why I'm looking at the evohome system.

It looks great yet there is very little info on it and any plumbers I've asked don't know it. I'm going to throw out a few questions and hope someone's familiar with it.

Honeywell's website says I'll need
EvoHome Base Pack x1 £179 stg (plumbarena.co.uk)
EvoHome Mobile Access Kit x1 £50
EvoHome Hot Water Kit x1 £83
EvoHome Radiator Zone Kit per pk of 4: £210- need 8= £420

Total £732= €980

The base pack has the controller and a wireless BDR91 boiler relay box. Am I correct to assume this is wired where the current boiler control timer is? (it's a basis on/off/timer diall type). Is this very easy to do?

I will put a proper Radiator control in most rooms. (I will put dumber programmable TRV e.g. Pegler Terrier in bathrooms, utility etc. These won't be able to call on the boiler but it will stop them all heating when heat is needed in one room or hot water is needed). Does this sound ok?

The house has an old thermostat? What is this connected back to usually. Is it the timer or boiler?

I'll also need the water kit for my hot water. Is a special type of motorised valve needed or can the kit be wired up to any type? Do you need the motorised valve. Could I just use the kit to call on the boiler to heat the water? (I know this will mean the water is heated anytime the boiler is on- is this bad?).

Thanks in advance.
PS If anyone knows an evohome installer in Dublin area please PM me

Tomc77

Ok it's a year later and I have my evohome system installed about 6 months. A few people PM'd me over the past year so I thought I write a detailed post of my experience to date.

My situation:
My boiler is in an outhouse with one set of pipes coming in to all rads and hot water. The pipes came in under a glued wooden floor going to downstairs rads and then to upstairs rads and hot water. I was going to be replumbing all of the upstairs rads and getting a new boiler anyway but I wasn't going to be able to have any upstairs radiators or hot water heating without heating downstairs rads first.

As I was repiping upstairs anyway I set up all the upstairs rads as one zone contolled by motorised valve, the hot water as a second zone and the downstairs rads will have evohome electronic trvs and can be separately controlled.

What I needed: (excuse my explanations, I'm neither a plumber or an electrician)
The Honeywell evohome Wi-Fi Connected Value Pack A: £699 incl VAT. This contains...

ATF800 Table Top Stand & Power Supply - This is the main controller which is just plugged in (it can be removed from the stand). The controller communicates with all the controllers and also wirelessly with the relay box which calls on/off the boiler.
BDR91 Wireless Relay Box- This is the switch that turns on/off the boiler. It goes where the old thermostat is and you can use existing wires to link back to boiler).
ATF500DHW Hot Water Kit- (This is the box that's in the hot press. It is wired to the mains. It connects wirelessly to the turn on off the boiler via the BDR91 above. It's also connected to a themostat block touching the boiler. It also connects to a motorised zone valve)
8x HR92 Radiator Controllers (all downstairs- these
ATC928G3000 evohome Wi-Fi Connected Controller (this connects the system to the internet so you can control it from your phone. I would definitely recommend this not only so you can operate the heating from away. The app is very good so you'll end up controlling from your phone when sittingoncouch)
Honeywell DT92E1000 Wireless Digital Room Thermostat (DT92E) (Reference: DT92E1000) Bought separately-£71.52 (incl VAT)- This comes in two parts. There is a wireless thermostat placed in a bedroom (on a shelf) wirelessly connected to a box in the hot press. The box in the hot press is wired to mains and controls the motorised valve (wired) and calls on/off boiler wirelessly via main controller.

Automatic Bypass Valves- this is a valve that must be plumbed into any zoned system for safety reasons.

All radiators were fitted with plain TRV's by the plumber.

I purchased all Evohome items from https://theevohomeshop.co.uk/ . (I would really recommend them. As well as being cheapest a guy called Richard Burrows responded to all of my queries via email with very detailed answers.)
They also recommended: If your heating engineer has not installed evohome before we do advise they undertake the online training - http://www.honeywelluk.com/professional-zone/training-online/ via the Honeywell website, and as long as they read the instructions thoroughly they shouldn’t go far wrong.

I couldn't find a plumber to fit the system so I wired up the system myself and the plumber just connected the motorised valves.

The radiator controllers are easy to fit to existing TRVs. They fit to the ones I had. (You can get adaptor's if they don't)

The tricky part is connecting all of the wireless pieces together. It's not that difficult but if you make a mistake it takes a bit of messing to get it right. (If it's not working make sure to complete wipe all connections and start again). The good news is that six months after installation there have been no issues with connections dropping.

The radiator controllers have batteries in them. I only have it six months but all units still have original batteries. ( I think I recall they last about 2 years).

Programming is very easy to do and programs can be easily copies to other days/rooms.

Thoughts Post-Installation:
I know it sounds like a great idea to be able to control all rooms separately but in practice it can be annoying if you want to turn boost the heat for an hour in a few rooms. (Even if you have an electronic valve on all radiators you can link some together to help with this). So if you have a house that can be easily zoned into three zones think seriously about whether you need to be able to control all radiators.

One thing you will want to do but can't is simply boost the hot water for an hour. (You can still control it, you just have to set an off time). - Actually when writing this I say an email from theevohomeshop telling me I can use an app called ifttt as a boost button, but I haven't tried it yet.

Hope this helps

MAJJ

Tomc77 wrote: »

). So if you have a house that can be easily zoned into three zones think seriously about whether you need to be able to control all radiators.
Hope this helps

Great helpful post, thank you. I hoping I can do the same and rather than rad valves have control over downstairs heat, upstairs heat and hot water. Have emailed theevohomeshop for prices.

I assume the system allows manual control independent of internal/external com's issues ?

Cheers,
MAJJ

Tomc77

MAJJ wrote: »

Great helpful post, thank you. I hoping I can do the same and rather than rad valves have control over downstairs heat, upstairs heat and hot water. Have emailed theevohomeshop for prices.

I assume the system allows manual control independent of internal/external com's issues ?

Cheers,
MAJJ

MAJJ,

I'm not a plumber so I'm no expert on heating systems. In my situation I had to use rad valves downstairs as the hot pipe from boiler passed through radiators on its way upstairs.

If you can isolate zones in your house I reckon there are much cheaper solutions available. The big benefit of Evohome is the wireless rad valves and it sounds like you don't need them.

In terms of control it all goes through a control panel which calls on/off the boiler according to times and temps you set. You can override the program as you like.

Just to follow up on boost function I mentioned in earlier post. There is a iPhone/android app called Do Button linked to IFTTT which works wonderfully to boost a room hot water etc

MAJJ

Tomc77 wrote: »

MAJJ,
If you can isolate zones in your house I reckon there are much cheaper solutions available. The big benefit of Evohome is the wireless rad valves and it sounds like you don't need them.

Got some prices for what I need and came to the same conclusion. Will go with a traditional 3 zone setup as that's what the plumber will stand over and in a few years may revisit this, hope it goes well for you

ctlsleh

thanks for the post, im looking for something similar. i have 3 zones off my boiler (upstairs/downstairs/hot water) and TRVs on my rads, want remote Wifi based App control and was looking at nest, but i think thats limited to one zone.

Evo seems overkill for what i need, any alternative suggestions welcome

MAJJ

ctlsleh wrote: »

thanks for the post, im looking for something similar. i have 3 zones off my boiler (upstairs/downstairs/hot water) and TRVs on my rads, want remote Wifi based App control and was looking at nest, but i think thats limited to one zone.

Evo seems overkill for what i need, any alternative suggestions welcome

I found this helpful


http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/digital-home/best-smart-thermostats-2016-3583499/

ctlsleh

Do the Honeywell/Nest/Hive offerings comply with the SEAI grant scheme?

roy rodgers

ctlsleh wrote: »

Do the Honeywell/Nest/Hive offerings comply with the SEAI grant scheme?

Yes. Providing it's plumbed right