Heating zones and radiator control

towbar

Trying to come up with effective radiator control system for new build and most advice seems to be around zoning but I am considering using remote control TRV's to control each radiator individually. That would allow me to have a single zone for all radiators but use thermostats to turn on and off any number of radiators.

With zones you might have a bedroom zone and a living zone, but lets say the sitting room is on the living zone, I only need heat in there in the late evening but that means I have to manually remember to turn it on and off as living zone may be on all day. With individual radiator control I could have a timed thermostat in the sitting room.


Am I missing something? - cant seem to find any recommendations for using individual radiator control.

patrido

i think individual radiator control is seen as a novelty at the moment, but with the growing popularity of underfloor heating (which does individual room control pretty much as standard), i can see it becoming quite common in the years ahead. i'm certainly hoping to do something like this in my new build.

one option is to use a manifold similar to an underfloor heating manifold. each room/zone is plumbed back to the manifold. an actuator on each manifold port calls for heat as directed by the thermostat in each room.

obviously you'll need good controls, and lots of pipe. heatmiser do some good controls - there's the PRT-N, which is a networked programmable thermostat. the advantage of the networking is that while each room can have seperate control of time, temp and setback, you can also control them centrally using the heatmiser MC. You can override the stats, copy the settings from one to another, and you can connect them all back to a telephone module. not cheap, but the ultimate in control. it's possible a company like systemlink.ie or nu-heat.co.uk might design something this though you might have to spec and design this yourself, or with the help of a savvy plumber.

another option is smartkontrols by smarthomecontrols.co.uk. their system is plumbed as normal, i.e. one radiator loop, but instead of a TRV there is a smartmodule, which is basically a clever remote programmable TRV. also, they don't use thermostats - they have timble sensors to measure the temperature. it looks very very neat and very clever, but it sounds like it's mad expensive.

what have you seen in the line of remote control trvs?

davelerave

the basic system as you mentioned is a few zones controlled by motorized valves and thermostats or trvs and a 3 channel digital timer or similar.or you can go with seperate loops back to a manifold or the system patrido described which is probably better for rads i guess and uses wired rad valves(a lot less work to wire each valve seperate rather than plumb each rad back on a seperate loop)after that all you need is your control panel ,outdoor sensors occupancy sensors and rf transmitter for remote control etc.the skys the limit when it comes to controls these days

towbar

Thanks for feedback

Myson have a 24v trv
http://www.myson.ie/pages/trv3.html

I like the idea of using a temperature sensor which as a programmer could make for an interesting embedded project but I suspect that as a first pass a reasonably priced thermostat could be used. Has anybody done this?

I needed to make sure there wasnt some plumbing reason that would mean the idea was flawed. I wouldnt like to run the pipes to each radiator back to a manifold would seem to be inefficent - easier to run a wire to each radiator...

BTW built a home brew mobile phone based telephone module that controls the heating - not too difficult - would need some work for multizoning can supply detail if interested.

patrido

towbar wrote:

BTW built a home brew mobile phone based telephone module that controls the heating - not too difficult - would need some work for multizoning can supply detail if interested.

please do

towbar

Its a little circuit board that connects to the headset of a mobile, listens for the dtmf tones from a remote telephone and fires off a relay.

There are loads of circuits on the net for dtmf detection, dtmf are the tones that the phone uses when dialing.

I have a dedicated mobile setup at the house left connected to the charger. I ring that phone from any mobile or landline phone and dial in the code.

*1# to turn on heating
#1# to turn off

*1*060# to turn it on for 60 minutes.

*2# for lights... etc


The board I have also has 2 more relays for controlling lights. In my case I have the codes prestored in my own mobile so with voice activation I can simply bark at my phone to turn on the heat or the lights.

Its pretty neat, had thought about commercialising it but didnt get my act together yet and it works out costly when you add in the mobile, a nice box, manual, packaging etc . I have a few of the boards here which could supply with components for €50 or fully assembled board for €70 if you want to experiment all you'd need is an old mobile with headset and a 12v power supply. I use a nokia2650 with a ready to go card.