Smart Heating Device – worth spending money on/recommendations??

Matt406 · 29-06-2017 09:03PM #1

Hi Folks,

I’d appreciate some advise on this if possible.

I’m look at some smart heating devices – nest, climote – trying to decide if it’s worth investing in one and if they will work with my current setup -

· Oil fired central heating- rads in all rooms

· Solid fuel stove with back boiler

· 3 zones – upstairs, downstairs, water (water always “on”)

· 1 room thermostat upstairs and another downstairs (each wired back to valve for that zone i.e. they can control opening and closing of the valve)

· Timer switch for each of the upstairs and downstairs zones (zone on/off)

· Digital programmable timer switch to control boiler (on/off)

· Currently use approx. 800-1000 litres of heating oil a year.

I’m struggling somewhat to understand how these smart heating devices with work with my setup – specifically does the stove and back boiler add complications? Can these devices control the zones while the stove is running without firing the oil heating?

Are they lightly to save me anything on heating oil costs?

Also are they any other alternatives that I should be considering?

Thanks for looking and for any advise.

Matt406 · 03-07-2017 08:54AM

Anyone with experience of the Nest or Climote?
Anything good/bad/indifferent to say about them??
Thanks.

Robbie.G · 04-07-2017 07:26AM

Matt406 wrote: »

Anyone with experience of the Nest or Climote?
Anything good/bad/indifferent to say about them??
Thanks.

With your current setup smart controls are not really suitable
The stove is the problem
The oil side can be wired to work with smart controls but not the stove
Generally when you switch on a zone it will fire the boiler when that zone reaches temperature it down shuts down the boiler
In your case that can work due to the stove

tipperary · 04-07-2017 09:03PM

Hi,
My setup is somewhat similar to yours - three zones (u/s, d/s and hw), together with a back boiler on the stove. My stove is plumbed directly to all three zones, and does not have any zone control.
I installed the owl intuition system, and it works well. I can separately tell each zone what temp I want it at for various times of the day, and it will turn on/off the boiler and open zones accordingly. I can also boost through internet or a phone app. If the stove is lighting and the rooms are up to temp, then the thermostat doesn't call for the heating to turn on.
It works well for our needs, house is at the temp we want at the times we want, without the heating being on unnecessarily. Would have recommended a year or so ago, only issue is it does not talk to other systems. I was tempted to get an amazon echo and it would be cool to tell that to turn up the heating, but unfortunately it is not compatible and doesn't seem that it will be. I think the hive systems are though and something like that would be a better buy
hope that helps

Calahonda52 · 04-07-2017 10:16PM

As Robbie G says, no can do really as the stove has to be able to dump the heat.
There are many sorts of climax control or smart kits around so you need to be clear on what you mean by smart and what you want.
Some of them learn from your heating patterns and then basically take over the controls.

The others, like i have in my elec car, knows I need the car warm at 06:30 so it, based on outside temperature, decides when it needs to come on to have the job done.
Some of the smart systems require an outside weather stat to do this properly, and I doubt if your boiler is tooled up to handle that data.

This also needs a good degree of air tightness
Then of course there is the lower tech option of having a sim card which you can text to turn it on.

Just on your setup, I have a similar setup with the clocks but all mine call the boiler independently, I don't see the merit in your set up, other than the boiler clock controls the water, which is always on which is unnecessary, however that may be a fn of the stove setup, with no zone valves on the HW circuit

Matt406 · 06-07-2017 09:35PM

Thanks for the feedback folks.

Smart Heating Device – worth spending money on/recommendations??

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