Home heating automation

WildCardDoW

Hi all,

Looking at the Tado system (or any really). Going to be installing a combi boiler in an outside building with the intention for it to have a wireless receiver there for two wireless thermostats in the house and have Motorised zone valves co located to the receiver and boiler with a wiring centre for everything.

Any ideas?

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117843350#Comment_117843350

The zone valves would not necessarily need to be in the outside building, a single pumped hot flow from the boiler can enter the house and then be split and controlled by two zone valves.

The stats, wired or wireless, will operate the zone valves in an S plan wiring scheme, and relays in the valves will combine to send a single switched live signal to the boiler to fire for either or both zones.

Tado receiver only supports one wireless thermostat per installation, the second would need to be wired. Most other smart stats are wireless by default, with their receivers located next their respective zone valve. Hive, Netatmo, Drayton wiser are good value choices.

WildCardDoW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117887486#Comment_117887486

thanks deezell. I think the pipe runs were already done and as the pipes are in a calpex twin pipe insulated sleeve it would be pricey and time consuming to revert now!

Still I can run wires for the zone valves to inside the house so I could have still done similar.

What I could have done is wire one tado thermostat to the "downstairs" zone valve and wire a wireless receiver to the other "upstairs" zone valve.

My main concern was really the wired option limiting my choices on stat placement - in this, case downstairs.

As far as I know the stat / receiver needs wiring to the valve(s) and valve(s) need the wires to run out to the boiler and that's really where my limitation kicked in. I didn't want to open up walls for wire runs.

So this would have meant that one stat is placed at an extreme end of an extension which would likely have slightly different temperatures to the main rooms people will be in. This room is also co located to the kitchen which I wouldn't say is ideal although is probably far enough away.

Either way I like the idea of moving the stat around to get the best location and not being tied to one specific area.

I think tado would allow this by me buying a third stat (wireless) purely to read the temperature for the downstairs zone.

However at this stage it was getting pricey (3 stats, one wired, one wireless, one wireless with receiver) and the Amazon sale had ended before I worked all this out anyway!

I ended up going with Hive, it doesn't have the TRV add ons for fine tuning if I wanted to down the line but I can use two wireless receivers. Main reason was I got a good deal by buying "second" hand units which were unused (I verified the hub was unused!).

A quick look at tados suggestion section of their site shows my use case isn't unique but also it isn't up voted high enough for them to allow two wireless receivers on one account.

I did see that other people had success using two accounts with two receivers so the limitation is purely software based by tado.

brio09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117887867#Comment_117887867

you could also add tado smart TRVs to your existing setup at a later date though - if hive doesn't have that solution, you still have the choice to get that benefit later, right?

i am moving from EPH Ember to Tado and I am half way there. i requested plumber to replace all valves with TRVs, then I replaced them with tado smart TRVs. i installed tado internet bridge and wireless thermostat. but I haven't yet installed their programmer (the thing that connects to the boiler).

it still seems beneficial to me right now.

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117916833#Comment_117916833

Am I right in thinking that you can control the tvrs with the thermostat without needing the boiler to be linked in?

brio09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117917588#Comment_117917588

yes, you could control the TRVs to e.g. shut off when you are "away" or based on specific times for specific rooms. so even if your boiler is set to on, it is not likely to consume a lot of energy since there is less heat being given away from the radiators.

my plumber also said the same; i may not be explaining this properly though

deezell

You are correct. Tado Smart trvs without a boiler connection are a programmable version of manual trvs, they can regulate a particular room's temperature while the boiler is on, but can't initiate a call to the boiler unless paired to a wired stat or the receiver of a wireless stat, acting as their relay.

ablelocks

having delayed since last Feb, I'm going to take advantage of the current amazon offers on Tado.

i have 3 zone heating system + hot water.

Zone 1 - living area

Zone 2 - downstairs bedrooms

Zone 3 - upstairs

Zone 4 - hot water

would i be better off to do 3 x wired thermostats first and add radiator thermostats at a later stage?

deezell

Probably, three rad zones might be all you need. 3 wired will drop straight in place of existing stats, turn your old controller CH zones to always on, retain existing control of HW timing. It's diy-able.

If you want Tado HW control, you'll need the ext kit, which also offers wireless connection of one Tado stat. A bit more wiring involved with this in terms of removing your old controller and sending live to the two wired stats, but it's easy enough.

jkp

Looking for a recommendation for a replacement for a Flash Immermat timer switch?

Looking for something that would be a relatively straight swap with the immermat, wired for 2 live(permanent/switched) and 2 neutral and fit the existing single gang box.

I use HomeAssistant for everything so HA compatibility would be a must and local control rather than a cloud or subscription service.

The heating is single zone, oil fired boiler. For the moment I just want on/off control via Home Assistant while retaining a physical on/off switch at the wall, not looking at TRVs or independent room control yet.

There was a recommendation a few pages back for a Freeleben water heater switch that I thought would be the job, but the reviews show photos of a lot of burnt out switches, so I'd rather spend a bit more and not die in a fire! I've also seen recommended a HBN timer switch but it's not currently available on amazon.

Anyone know of anything that might be along those lines or any advice on this setup?

TIA

edit: for connectivity I have Conbee II for zigbee, Broadlink RM pro for rf 433mhz, and wifi. If the switch had state reporting in HA that'd be a massive bonus.

olestoepoke

Hi guys, not sure this is the correct thread. We are getting a boiler stove installed using the Heat Hero system. Part of this system ( Pump and thermostat) requires a Relay from the living room to the motorised valves in the hot press. The plumber said the relay is to tell the gas boiler that the stove is taking over at a certain temperature. What exactly is a relay? is it just a 5 core wire from the new pump etc to the EPH wiring centre and in turn the motorised valves in the hot press or is a relay something else? We have a qualified sparks coming to the house, wouldn't dream of touching it myself, but I'm curious and just trying to educate myself on the whole system. Thanks very much for any advice offered.

deezell

When the stove hot flow pipe reaches a specified temperature, a thermostat switch, usually mounted on the flow pipe, (but could be an insert stat if the stove has a suitable probe insert), will trigger and usually operate a pump to send flow to the rads. It may also have to open a CH zone valve if these are used to zone heating. It should be always connected to the HW cylinder by gravity, to provide some heat sinking in the event of a power outage. While the stat is closed it can also operate a relay which will remove the switched live to the gas boiler so that it doesn't fire while the stove is providing sufficient hot flow. This relay is normally part of an active powered wiring centre, such as the System lex. https://www.systemlink.ie/systemlex.html

The EPH wiring centre is just a plastic box with a few rows of connector straps, 12 or 16 connectors, it contains no relays.

When wiring a dual system with stove and boiler, I would recommend a powered wiring centre. It provides all the terminals required for zone valves, HW zone valve from the gas boiler, ch pump, stove pump, wired zone stats, and relays to mute the gas boiler when the stove stat closes, and a second relay to activate at least one CH zone valve/ CH circulation pump also. This is needed as the EPH controller may not have timing active or a wall stat closed for CH when the stove stat opens. If you light the stove and the room stat is already satisfied, just turning on the stove pump will not sink the heat the CH radiators unless a CH zone valve is activated and the CH pump is running.

The Heat hero is a peculiar system for blending two heat sources, so it can be a bit of a challenge for a tradesman to figure which pumps and valves are activated for a particular set of inputs. It is possible to use the stove pipe stat as a simple relay to deactivate the gas boiler, simply by using the unused normally closed terminal on this stat as the source of live mains to the boiler switched live, via any zone valve relays. When the stat opens to power the stove pump, the live will be disconnected from the zone valve relays that normally power the boiler. You would still need to open one CH zone valve when stove stat triggers as you can't depend on the EPH being on for CH at that moment, hence the need for a second relay to open at least one CH zone valve.

You're probably sorry you asked.

ablelocks

does anyone know if the tado bridge can be plugged into an access point in a google wifi mesh rather than into the primary unit?

deezell

Tado bridge is a wired ethernet device. It must be plugged into a router, extender or any AP device that has a wired ethernet socket. I see images of the base of these Google devices with 2 ethernet sockets, I'd assume they can be configured as a wired port for device connection, PC, Smart TV etc. Other tado users have used WiFi and powerline ethernet extenders to optimally site the Tado bridge if they were experiencing drop-off from smart TRVs

ablelocks

installed the wired thermo starter kit last Friday - essentially plug and play, and it works perfectly with a google mesh access point.

should have installed these ages ago, set temp to 18 degrees, heating hasn't been on since, although this evening may change that....

10-10-20

I have all my rads controlled with z-wave Eurotronic Plus TRV's which I'm controlling with Home Assistant (HA).

It's a great setup when they work well, and I use the scenes to disable all of the rads, expcept my home-office, etc. But Z-wave itself and these TRV's are now driving me crazy with network issues, TRV problems and other nonsense.

What's the general consensus around the best IOT based TRV's? I'd prefer to control the TRV's directly through HA rather than through a gateway such as with Tado. Any recommendations?

deezell

Z-wave is a lo power mesh wireless medium, similar to Zigbee and 6LoWpan. To connect to the Internet they require a hub or gateway device, so I'm assuming you have a Z wave gateway. In that respect it's no different than Tado, which also uses a gateway (bridge) to allow connection back to the Internet. Tado uses a proprietary protocol known as 6LoWpan. This is a mesh capable protocol, but afaik Tado only use a simpler star connection, with all devices connecting to the Bridge, but not interconnected and no data traffic via each other. This reduces complexity and power consumption in the system, but limits range. Z-Wave uses the lower 868Mhz band for connection, as does Tado. Zigbee use 2.4 Ghz, so there should be less risk of interference on Z-wave or Tado from WiFi on 2.4 bands and Bluetooth on 2.45Ghz. The problem with Zwave imo would be the integrity of all the different sources of the components making up your system. Hub from one manufacturer, TRVs from another, controlling software from somewhere else, all trying to work without error, dropout etc. Add to that the complexity and power consumption of maintaining mesh connectivity rather than a simple star topology, and you just have more opportunity for glitches bugs and errors.

Tado on the other hand is manufacturer designed end to end, from the App through the WiFi to Lan to bridge to TRV or wall stat. Further layers like Home Assistant, Alexa, Homekit and IFTTT came later, and were well proven when implemented. I would expect Tado to work, and continue to do so. I would expect the same system connected using non specific hubs, apps, and self developed or 3rd party software, to always have a tendency towards bugginess.

You can use HA to control Tado TRVs in exactly the same way you would control generic Zwave TRVs, the path is the same, but its a question of how well the path is designed and implemented that would be the difference in reliability and consistency of the user experience.

(Fwiw, I notice the Eurotronic TRVs retailing for £59, same price as Tado, so I don't see much incentive to use them).

10-10-20

Great assessment deezell.

The mesh in z-wave is good technology - I have a number of AC mains repeaters which support z-wave+ and these help keep the battery devices free of some of the beaming/forwarding requirements. Overall, I'm happy with the power consumption of the Eurotronic Spirit TRV's - except a couple which appear to have mechanical or firmware issues and keep eating batteries and/or dropping off. You're right about the standards issues in z-wave - it's an "open-closed" standard and individual vendor interpretation of the standard differs based on the reading of the standard at the time.

If I went for Tado, I don't think that simple star would not likely work in my house due to the design/layout and that was a significant draw for z-wave.

The other big draw for me on the Eurotronic Spirit devices is the price: you can get them from Amazon for 33 to 38 EUR, while Tado are between 62 and 70 EUR.

Maybe that in itself answers my question - I'll have to accept a poorer service-level for a lower product price.

deezell

I can see the attraction of the Spirit TRV from a home automation point of view. On this site https://community.smartthings.com/t/eurotronics-spirit-trv/116694 you can hear the posters drooling over the potential fun. I'd be in that camp myself, but I'd have to put a rad in the doghouse to experiment with, because that's where I'd end up if the CH started to behave unreliability. I've seen a few posts here and elsewhere over the years regarding TRV's dropping off. Moving the wired bridge to a more central location with the help of network powerline extender is a very good solution for many cases, but there are limits (about 10M range I believe), and many of the problems are in vast Southfork bungalows, or houses with detached office/dens down the garden. There is a heated discussion here about the provision of either Mesh or Range extenders for Tado, and some promises from the developers. https://community.tado.com/en-gb/discussion/4783/launch-a-range-extender-or-upgrade-to-mesh-network/p3

The Drayton Wiser brand of smart TRVs is a well proven product, it also has a range extender in it's arsenal, and TRV's appear heavily discounted from time to time. It works for everyone in the house also, not just the resident nerd.

Eire Go Brach

So I just moved into a new house. it’s about 40 years old. Coming from electric storage heating.

Heating in the house is gas boiler with no thermostat, immersion is just on off switch no timer. Can I just swap out the present timer EPH T17 with a Tado starter kit?

Muahahaha

Have a spare smart plug and want to find a way of using an electric blanket with it. But my current blanket has a control unit half way along the wire with on/off button on it as well as three temperature settings. Wondering if I chop the control unit off the wire and then re-do the wire would the blanket then still work?

Or does anyone know of an electric blanket that only has a plug that you switch on/off at the socket on the wall? I know there are Alexa enabled electric blankets for sale but the Silentnight one is 120 euro when regular ones are 20-30 euro

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118070724#Comment_118070724

If the Eph is in a location suitable for a general setting for temperature, (Hall, Kitchen or Living room), then the Tado wired stats can be wired in its place, or else right beside it, with the EPH set to always on, or just disconnected. If the Eph location is not ideal for a thermostat reading of general household temperature, then you'll need the wireless starte kit, with the Tado extension kit receiver replacing the EPH, and the Tado wall stat positioned where you most likely want the closest control of temperature, usually the living room. Also check out the Drayton wiser Kit1, single wireless stat and receiver, good value, which should actually clip straight on to the wired base plate of the EPH, so no wiring necessary. ( Just checked this out, backplates are not compatible, so would need to need swapped )

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118071111#Comment_118071111

Don't chop! There may be a thermostat wire fed back into that switch, or else a number of separate blanket circuits, say two element loops, which would give you three heat settings (1 is a low power circuit, 2 is a highr power circuit, 3 is both on together).if the blanket control is a passive unit, just leave the blanket on your preferred setting, switch on, then use your smart plug as the on off master switch. Seriously, don't cut anything past the plug. I've seen a burnt out bedroom from an electric blanket fire due to damaged cables. Elderly Father in Law was in the bed at the time, but woke up and escaped! Bedclothes went up in an instant, melting curtain poles with the heat before he managed to wake brother in law who put it out. Long time ago now.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118071463#Comment_118071463

Thanks deezell I wont chop it, I hadnt thought the wiring is more complex becasue of the different heat settings. Glad I asked now.

The problem is though the control unit has an on/off button that has to be pressed to turn it on, it is not a switch that can just be left in the on position. Thats why a smart plug socket alone wont do the trick. I suppose I'll just wait for smart versions to come down in price from the current 120 quid. I dont think Ive ever seen an electric blanket that doesnt have a control unit along the wire, they all seem to have them so they can probably only be remotely controlled by getting a smart version.

deezell

That's what I thought, there's an active element in the controller that requires power, so that an overheat sensor can switch it off automatically most likely. Sone electric blankets back in the 80s were lethal, standards were lower, then with grey imports you wouldn't know where it came from.

comete

I’ve been trying to decipher if the comments above are the same as what I have, and if the same advice applies, but hoping you guys can save me the embarrassment and help me out.

I have oil central heating with a boiler controlled by the on/off/timer located in my kitchen (pic below), and an immersion heater for the water, controlled by the sink/bath-on/off switch located beside the hot water cylinder in my hot press (pic also below).

I would initially like to simply be able to switch the central heating on/off or set it on a timer remotely (and check if it was left on accidentally after we leave the house), with the eventual plan to add a trv to each radiator when funds allow. I would also like to be able to do the same with the immersion, either through the same system or not, I’m not fussy.

I’ve looked at the tado system and it appears to do everything I am asking for, with the expandable trv option, however I have a couple of questions:

1. Does this directly replace the existing timer/switch?
2. Will it mean running a wire from it to my hot press to control the water heater, or is there an additional unit that replaces the switch there and communicates wirelessly?

596DCB3D-BE3B-4844-A8D3-37A8233D9AE7.jpeg

AA39B9A5-9A97-46DB-A86F-F7CF45FE3597.jpeg

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118085482#Comment_118085482

1. A tado wired thermostat will sit nicely on the location of your current timer. It will switch your boiler on and off, and its a thermostat, so if the kitchen is representative of general house temperature, you can set a time and temperature schedule, and operate it remotely.

2. Your immersion requires a much higher current than a CH controller can deliver, as they are designed to operate boilers and/or motorised valves, not water heating elements. The Tado extension kit supplies a second relay to enable hot water control from a boiler. To use this to swith an immersion element would require an additional heavy current relay switch operated by the ext. kit. The extension kit could be wired beside the existing immersion switch, and the additional relay also, so no need to run wires

maxamillius

Friend had new zone valves installed in his house… when he bit boost on the programmer the heating came on and was supposed to go off an hour later. He said he came home a couple of hours later and it was still on even though the programmer boost lights had switched off again.

when he turned the room stat down it seemed to switch off,

anyone any ideas?

deezell

Sounds like the stat is wired in parallel with the timed live for that zone, so either will trigger the zone valve and hence the boiler. It could also be miswiring of the zone valve relays. Sparks required with a clear knowledge of S-plan wiring, but in a sentence, its;

Live in to Timer to Zone output to Stat to Zone Valve, where a permanent Live is switched by the internal Zone valve relay, and only these zone lives are conjoined and sent to fire the boiler. No Live from a stat or timer should go to the boiler switched live in.

CantGetNoSleep

I've had a Tado with TRV's in each room for the last two years or so - it is great. I'm moving house so wondering if there is anything better out these days (for a combi boiler so just one zone)?

Also I see there is a wireless Tado now available - how easy is this to self-install (with the TRVs too)? My existing setup was installed by a plumber, but he will only install equipment he supplies which rules out Black Friday deals etc