Home heating automation

arrianalexander wrote: »

N 2 wires
L 2 wires
1- 0 wires
2 - 0 wires
3 - 1 wire
4 - 1 wire

We don't use it to heat water only for heating , the water does heat up a little if we have heating on , we don't heat water on its own, if we do want a lot of hot water we would use immersion.

And this is what is at the back of my cupboard

arrianalexander wrote: »

And this is what is at the back of my cupboard

And this upstairs

arrianalexander wrote: »

And this upstairs

Are all the valve wires connected to that open junction box, or just the two that operate the valve motor (usually brown and blue). These valves do have a boiler call relay, possibly unused. It may not be feasible to run SL from the valves to the boiler, instead of directly from the single timer feed you currently have. As timing would be shifted to the new stats replacing the old, (whether wired or wireless), when a stat calls for heat it not only has to open a valve, but call the boiler also. I think your current stats only open the valves, the old timer fires the boiler, and will continue to fire if the stats are turned down. HW would be heating all this time, especially if the valves were closed.
Would it be difficult to run a wire from each valve back to the boiler? This would enable each valve to independently call the boiler. You can't just join the smart stat outputs, as then both valves would open for either stat going live. Have a good look into that junction box above the valve, take a pic if you can.

Hi there,

I got the Drayton Wiser on Amazon (still waiting for them to ship). However in my ignorance I believed I had a combination boiler but looking further I believe now I have a gravity fed system. It says on the blurb that its not suitable for gravity fed systems. I have a single zone EPH timer which when I saw the hub for the Drayton meant a relatively easy switchover. Is it possible that this will still work or have I just wasted money? This is the kit I got.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B075GRPZQ1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

deezell wrote: »

Are all the valve wires connected to that open junction box, or just the two that operate the valve motor (usually brown and blue). These valves do have a boiler call relay, possibly unused. It may not be feasible to run SL from the valves to the boiler, instead of directly from the single timer feed you currently have. As timing would be shifted to the new stats replacing the old, (whether wired or wireless), when a stat calls for heat it not only has to open a valve, but call the boiler also. I think your current stats only open the valves, the old timer fires the boiler, and will continue to fire if the stats are turned down. HW would be heating all this time, especially if the valves were closed.
Would it be difficult to run a wire from each valve back to the boiler? This would enable each valve to independently call the boiler. You can't just join the smart stat outputs, as then both valves would open for either stat going live. Have a good look into that junction box above the valve, take a pic if you can.

The timer switch fires the boiler and continues to fire even if stats are turned down

I'm about to throw in towel as , was looking for a simple solution so we could turn on heating when we were out etc
Attached is wiring from box upstairs

Decided I'm definitely selling the Defro slack burner and returning to oil alone.

Just need to figure out what the Defro is worth!

arrianalexander wrote: »

The timer switch fires the boiler and continues to fire even if stats are turned down

I'm about to throw in towel as , was looking for a simple solution so we could turn on heating when we were out etc
Attached is wiring from box upstairs

Grey and Orange valve microswitch wires are connected through to somthing, so it's possible the relays are wired to fire the boiler, but the single timer is the only live source connected to the zone stat relays and directly to the boiler. This would explain why the bouker continues to burn as long as the timer is active. Just replacing the old stats with smart ones will not immediately solve this problem. The wiring needs to be configured to a proper S plan in order for the stats to cut the boiler when they are off. Not a huge job for a sparks, you could simply replace the two wall stats with wired Tado, or locate wireless Hive receivers next to tye valves, disconnect the bouler firing from the old timer and have it supplied by the two valve relays. HW would heat during CH calls, but not when both CH are off. It's just a case of tracing the wiring, but I'm seeing the valve relays wired in that box.

Might be answering my own question here but on further investigation I might be OK.

As I only require the unit for heating and as I have a pump pushing hot water from my boiler through my rads this should work. Using the thermostat and TRV's to activate the hub to activate the boiler when heat is required or not. Unless I'm missing something....

Apologies for my basic terminology...

steve584 wrote: »

Might be answering my own question here but on further investigation I might be OK.

As I only require the unit for heating and as I have a pump pushing hot water from my boiler through my rads this should work. Using the thermostat and TRV's to activate the hub to activate the boiler when heat is required or not. Unless I'm missing something....

Apologies for my basic terminology...

It will work fine. You're not trying to control gravity HW, as you only have a single zone. Connect in the HubR in place of the single zone EPH. It will fire up CH in exactly the same way, but with the addition of stat and TRV control and calling. Your HW will heat the same while CH is active, if you were ok with that before, then nothing will have changed. I assume you just had EPH timer firing, no mechanical wall stat?

deezell wrote: »

It will work fine. You're not trying to control gravity HW, as you only have a single zone. Connect in the HubR in place of the single zone EPH. It will fire up CH in exactly the same way, but with the addition of stat and TRV control and calling. Your HW will heat the same while CH is active, if you were ok with that before, then nothing will have changed. I assume you just had EPH timer firing, no mechanical wall stat?

Hi Deezell, thanks for your reply,

We have a basic wall stat in our hall which we have probably set too high but as we were only really using the EPH to time the heat to come on in the morning to heat the house before anybody got up, or used its boost function to heat the house when it got chilly.

I went down the route of replacing the wall stat with a smart one (cheap one from Amazon) I hit a stumbling block with there being no neutral wire behind the stat. I could have pulled one from the light in the toilet under the stairs but would have meant cutting holes which my wife was not too happy with!!

The ease of installation of the Wiser, and the control of individual rads attracted me to it.

The way we were heating the house meant all our TRV's were open fully!

deezell wrote: »

Grey and Orange valve microswitch wires are connected through to somthing, so it's possible the relays are wired to fire the boiler, but the single timer is the only live source connected to the zone stat relays and directly to the boiler. This would explain why the bouker continues to burn as long as the timer is active. Just replacing the old stats with smart ones will not immediately solve this problem. The wiring needs to be configured to a proper S plan in order for the stats to cut the boiler when they are off. Not a huge job for a sparks, you could simply replace the two wall stats with wired Tado, or locate wireless Hive receivers next to tye valves, disconnect the bouler firing from the old timer and have it supplied by the two valve relays. HW would heat during CH calls, but not when both CH are off. It's just a case of tracing the wiring, but I'm seeing the valve relays wired in that box.

Thanks for the help

Thing I'll leave it as is , if was a straight forward thing I could I was going to do it

steve584 wrote: »

Hi Deezell, thanks for your reply,

We have a basic wall stat in our hall which we have probably set too high but as we were only really using the EPH to time the heat to come on in the morning to heat the house before anybody got up, or used its boost function to heat the house when it got chilly.

I went down the route of replacing the wall stat with a smart one (cheap one from Amazon) I hit a stumbling block with there being no neutral wire behind the stat. I could have pulled one from the light in the toilet under the stairs but would have meant cutting holes which my wife was not too happy with!!

The ease of installation of the Wiser, and the control of individual rads attracted me to it.

The way we were heating the house meant all our TRV's were open fully!

Now you probably have a two zone gravity system. This works on the basis that timer fires the boiler, but the stat controls the circulation pump only . Replacing the old stat with a wired smart one will only allow you to bring the pump in and out, and the CH, but the boiler would need to be fired by the old timer. Replacing the eph by the HubR will give you CH control only. You wont be able to time the boiler without the ch pump being on, so no heating HW only. It sounds like you never did this anyway.
The timer for this arrangement is a specific two zone type which has one timer for HW, and one for CH. The boiler is fired by the HW timer, but the same terminal goes live for and CH timing event. The CH terminal is simply used to power the pump via the wall stat. The Drayton 2 zone hub, for CH and HW, has no gravity mode, hence it can't be wired in to replace an existing two zone gravity timer. (Tado can btw). If you really want to use your sysyem for HW only, leave the old stat in, and turn it right down. Any CH timed events will fire the boiler, but the pump won't run and CH won't heat. Might be useful in the summer

deezell wrote: »

Now you probably have a two zone gravity system. This works on the basis that timer fires the boiler, but the stat controls the circulation pump only . Replacing the old stat with a wired smart one will only allow you to bring the pump in and out, and the CH, but the boiler would need to be fired by the old timer. Replacing the eph by the HubR will give you CH control only. You wont be able to time the boiler without the ch pump being on, so no heating HW only. It sounds like you never did this anyway.
The timer for this arrangement is a specific two zone type which has one timer for HW, and one for CH. The boiler is fired by the HW timer, but the same terminal goes live for and CH timing event. The CH terminal is simply used to power the pump via the wall stat. The Drayton 2 zone hub, for CH and HW, has no gravity mode, hence it can't be wired in to replace an existing two zone gravity timer. (Tado can btw). If you really want to use your sysyem for HW only, leave the old stat in, and turn it right down. Any CH timed events will fire the boiler, but the pump won't run and CH won't heat. Might be useful in the summer

Thanks again for your reply,

I've shelved the idea of a wired smart stat since I've purchased the Drayton. My idea with the smart stat would have been to have the timer "always on" with the smart stat telling the boiler to fire.

Now with the Drayton I was to leave the old stat on the wall on high when I've this installed. As you said turn it down in the summer to prevent any timed events from kicking in but need to check out how the app for the system works.

You're correct with the timer system, the heating was controlled by the EPH while the hot water for the taps etc. was controlled by a second timer in the hot press. We only use this occasionally, normally off, roar up the stairs to the young fella to switch it on!

Actually the Drayton I bought is the heating one only (same as EPH), no hot water control as I was aware the control of the hot water was separate from the heating.

Apologies for repeating myself a bit. I posted previously for suggestions on how to manage a smart heating system with a dual fuel source.

I've now confirmed that I'm going to sell the Defro slack burner. So will be using oil alone. I have 2 zones for rads, using motorised valves. Current controls are a dumb single channel Drayton clock and 2 switches to control the zones. If both switches are off, it heats the water only. It is not possible to heat the rads but not the water.

Any suggestions on systems to go for? I have 16 rads, don't need or want smart TRVs on them all, but what's the best way to go?

I'm completely ignorant on this stuff, apologies.

Spark recommends Hive.

championc

So are you saying that you don't want TRV's on them ALL, meaning that it might be worth adding them to some ?

Tado would do 10 and they would essentially turn those rads into individual zones, so you could leave one of the current zones permanently open if all rads in that section had TRV's. I say this because the Tado can only drive one CH and one HW zone.

@deezell will have better suggestions no doubt

I'd suggest adding a HW motorised valve, then a Drayton wiser kit 3 to give you 3 independent zones, 2 CH and one HW. A little wiring required to control boiler firing from the valve relays rather than directly from the three drayton receiver SLs, which are connected solely to the valve actuator motors. TRVs a DIY option for the future. Flogging the Fying Scotsman boiler will cover the cost of kit and labour, and pulling it out I reckon. Tado can do 2 or more stat zones, but only one can be wireless to the receiver ext kit, the other wired directly from the stat. You cant have more than one ext kit in a system.

This is a rough floor plan showing rads.

The red are on the living room zone, the green on the bedroom zone.

The current clock & switches are in the kitchen marked orange.

The rooms with purple Xs are spare rooms, office etc that don't need to be kept very warm or don't get used often.

The important rooms are the 2 bay window rooms. Right is the master bedroom where you want to have full control so it's not too hot or cold. The door to that room is always closed unless we're in there (to keep the cats out).

The left bay room is the living room. We have a stove in there so if that's on and roasting the rads need to go off. The door to that room is open to the hallway pretty much 24/7.

And the hallway of course is the coldest part of the whole house as it is so big, so open and has both front & back doors opening into it. There is a door between the back hall and the main T shaped front hall but it's always open. So essentially the front hall, living room, back hall, utility, back loo, kitchen are all one continuous space with no closed doors.

So where would be best to place stat/stats and which rads to add smart TRVs to?

I know (or think) this doesn't work out with Evohome but would it be possible to control all the green zone rads with a thermostat rather than TRVs?

A stat in the bedroom would ensure that the bedroom is spot on. And given that nearly all the other green zone rooms are in the rarely used category then I could just turn down the dumb valves on their rads. Meaning that the bedroom and bathroom would be a comfy 20 degrees etc, and the other rooms would sit a little colder by manual adjustment.

Then add another stat in the hallway to control the red zones, with smart TRVs in the living room so that they work on a separate control within the red zone?

Does this scenario exist outside of my warped brain?

PS pic updated, I forgot the 2 small rads in the bedroom...

You're spot on. Put the bed zone stat in the master. Tweak the other beds' valves to tick over, or fit a cheap manual TRV valve on each to cap their temperature. You'll need TRV valve bodies on the rads for this, so if you only have screw down valves on the rads, you'll need to get it changed to a pin type TRV valve before your can fit TRV heads, smart or manual.
Position the living zone stat in the corridor but not in the space between both external doors. Say, outside the living room. A smart trv on both living room rads, or even a manual one, will cap living room rads when the stove heats the room.

BoardsMember

Not sure this is the right thread....doing a refurb including new extension, new boiler. Just wondering if I should be taking any automation considerations into account when choosing boiler? Or do I leave automation to stats based approach, i.e. the boiler is on/off based on combination of timer and stats, so the boiler is agnostic of the automation solution.

deezell wrote: »

You're spot on. Put the bed zone stat in the master. Tweak the other beds' valves to tick over, or fit a cheap manual TRV valve on each to cap their temperature. You'll need TRV valve bodies on the rads for this, so if you only have screw down valves on the rads, you'll need to get it changed to a pin type TRV valve before your can fit TRV heads, smart or manual.
Position the living zone stat in the corridor but not in the space between both external doors. Say, outside the living room. A smart trv on both living room rads, or even a manual one, will cap living room rads when the stove heats the room.

Excellent, thanks.

And that Drayton wiser 3 will still do the trick for that? 3 channel controller (red, green, water) and 2 stats.

Might have already been answered, but do those stats operate wirelessly or do they need wired back to the clock?

And does the app then give me full on/off temp control of each zone and water?

Also can I then add smart TRVs for the living room that will connect to the Drayton system?

DrPhilG wrote: »

Excellent, thanks.

And that Drayton wiser 3 will still do the trick for that? 3 channel controller (red, green, water) and 2 stats.

Might have already been answered, but do those stats operate wirelessly or do they need wired back to the clock?

And does the app then give me full on/off temp control of each zone and water?

Also can I then add smart TRVs for the living room that will connect to the Drayton system?

Yes, the wiser, with a single 3 zone receiver, or the hive with two receivers, a CH/HW and a CH, are fully wireless to the two stats. Tado is limited to one wireless.
If you install an extra zone valve for HW only, you can fit a cylinder stat to control the HW temperature exactly.

deezell wrote: »

Yes, the wiser, with a single 3 zone receiver, or the hive with two receivers, a CH/HW and a CH, are fully wireless to the two stats. Tado is limited to one wireless.
If you install an extra zone valve for HW only, you can fit a cylinder stat to control the HW temperature exactly.

Next question...

Do the room stats have to be wired back into the control? Or are they wireless/wifi?

BoardsMember wrote: »

Not sure this is the right thread....doing a refurb including new extension, new boiler. Just wondering if I should be taking any automation considerations into account when choosing boiler? Or do I leave automation to stats based approach, i.e. the boiler is on/off based on combination of timer and stats, so the boiler is agnostic of the automation solution.

If you're retaining a traditional system with HW cylinder, one or two valved CH zones, then a basic on off boiler that responds to the stats is all you need. If you decide to install a combi boiler with direct HW, you might want to consider OpenTherm control of the boiler for efficient operating. OT does not sit well with valve zoned s plans systems, e.g, upstairs downstairs, but works well in TRV zoned systems, with a single receiver instructing the boiler when and how to fire. It might hike the price a lot for a small return on efficiency, and you need to have an installer who is comfortable with such systems. Honeywell Evohome TRV system us well set up for combi, but it's costly. Tado or Drayton should work well with a combi boiler and TRV zones, using on off or OT but equally well with a zone valved system with HW cylinder, and a standard boiler.

BoardsMember

deezell wrote: »

If you're retaining a traditional system with HW cylinder, one or two valved CH zones, then a basic on off boiler that responds to the stats is all you need. If you decide to install a combi boiler with direct HW, you might want to consider OpenTherm control of the boiler for efficient operating. OT does not sit well with valve zoned s plans systems, e.g, upstairs downstairs, but works well in TRV zoned systems, with a single receiver instructing the boiler when and how to fire. It might hike the price a lot for a small return on efficiency, and you need to have an installer who is comfortable with such systems. Honeywell Evohome TRV system us well set up for combi, but it's costly. Tado or Drayton should work well with a combi boiler and TRV zones, using on off or OT but equally well with a zone valved system with HW cylinder, and a standard boiler.

Thanks. Was planning to keep it simple, have a big hot water tank. The only thing I am mulling over now is whether I put UFH in the extension (40-50sq m), with existing rads everywhere else. Feels like I would often be heating up the water to cool it down for UFH temps, which doesn't seem to make sense.

BoardsMember wrote: »

Thanks. Was planning to keep it simple, have a big hot water tank. The only thing I am mulling over now is whether I put UFH in the extension (40-50sq m), with existing rads everywhere else. Feels like I would often be heating up the water to cool it down for UFH temps, which doesn't seem to make sense.

UFH is a fair commitment, but its a really nice heating experience, the odd time I've encountered it in hotel rooms. The cooling thing is misleading. The hot flow is blended with the cold return from the underfloor pipes, and this mix is circulated to avoid burning the soles of your feet. Theres no net loss of heat, no cost. It does require a UFH mixing valve and pump unit for each manifold. Get quotes and decide.

maxamillius

Anyone got a sample of a Tado schedule for 3 bed semi? Just trying to get my brain firing for when I set it up tomorrow.

championc

maxamillius wrote: »

Anyone got a sample of a Tado schedule for 3 bed semi? Just trying to get my brain firing for when I set it up tomorrow.

It's not something that you can really do. I don't think that I have any two rooms with identical setups.

I work in the dining room, so this is 20deg from 9 to 6, Mon to Fri, and is off the rest of the time, the kitchen would be set to about 19 from about 9 to about 8 Mon to Fri and to 20 over lunchtime and on from only about 10 on a Sat. The Bathroom and Bedrooms would be Mon to Sun but be warmer in the evenings than during the days. The sitting room is off during mornings and on for afternoons at the weekend, and then warmer in the evenings. I would decrease the temp from maybe 22:00 to 23:00 on the basis that I'm cooled off a bit by midnight.

It takes a while if you want to put in the effort, but if you do, you'll make quite decent savings, without compromising on comforts. Yes, you may need to keep room doors closed if you don't currently, if you have differing schedules set for neighbouring rooms.

It's a pity there is no copy option especially when configuring setups for Mon to Fri and then the weekend.

TIP : create even back to back slots of 1 or two hours, so that if you set an override temperature, it will reset at the next interval on your schedule. So if someone changes a room from 20 to 25, it won't be active for the whole day.