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Heating Control Recommendations?
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17-04-2019 11:17am#1We're getting a bit of work done which will include upgrading the heating controls as per the SEAI grant.
We've got plumbing for 2 heating zones (radiators) and separate HW fed from an oil boiler.
The zones are split in a funny way which makes them unable to be controlled by a thermostat central to each zone.
i.e. the split is living vs bedrooms but the house isn't arranged or used that way.
Maybe down the line I am thinking of a collection of smart wifi valves on radiators to effectively have each room be it's own programmable area.
Anyway, I am thinking for now that I need a controller that has 7 day programing + easy boost/override control of 4 "zones":
-HW from oil
-HW from emersion
-Zone 1 heating
-Zone 2 heating
Another thought is possibly adding solar thermal, but jury is still out on the benefit of this.
Would that be another circuit I'd want to control? or is it just a case of it always feeding in what it can, whenever it can? (what happens on a dark cold night when the solar tubes would be cold? wouldn't want them cooling the HW lol)
So, given that I probably don't need any room thermostatic control, what controllers offer:
-control of 4 zones
-good UI
-Easy to boost or override. Ideally a boost being for a predefined length of time instead of having to remember to go back and turn it off. and an override would be in effect until the next cycle on the programing.0
Comments
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Look into Salus thermostats.
Good price/features and will do all what you mention.
You will need 1 for each heating zone.
I'm using Salus RT510RF which don't have internet control function.
But they have models with internet control as well.0 -
I should add, that Internet control is only a "nice to have". I mentioned wifi as a means to link separate devices in the heating network. If there is a way to do it and manage which radiators are linked as part of a room and adjust rooms separately from each other over a mesh/proprietor network or even just inside my intranet without going to the outside world that would be ok.
Also I'm not convinced that I need "smart" controls that auto program based on your habits.0 -
Currently in the process of getting a Honeywell Evohome system installed myself and going with a separate control for every radiator, if you're planning on expanding the system I'd say just check that it's possible to do so. Honeywell Evohome supports up to 12 zones and the radiator valves have thermostats built-in so we can program for different temperatures for each room.
Regarding solar, everything I've heard so far indicates that it's more to do with your HW cylinder rather than a separate zone. Need to purchase a HW cylinder that has a second heating input in addition to from the boiler and it wouldn't be a separate zone, rather just all part of the HW zone and the solar would continuously heat your HW all the time and the boiler would only come on if you have set the HW zone to heat the water and it's temperature was less than the required due to less/no solar.
You'd have to check with a heating specialist but I would presume there would be something that allows water to cycle back though the solar panels without going through the HW cylinder if the HW was warmer than the solar.0 -
electrofelix wrote: »Currently in the process of getting a Honeywell Evohome system installed myself and going with a separate control for every radiator, if you're planning on expanding the system I'd say just check that it's possible to do so. Honeywell Evohome supports up to 12 zones and the radiator valves have thermostats built-in so we can program for different temperatures for each room.
Yes, I'm just looking at the evohome in a different tab.
It looks like the sort of solution I was thinking of.
Can I ask a few questions? maybe you can only answer some after its been installed....
-did you consider any other products?
-how many plumbed heating zones have you got?
-how many zones will you configure using the TRVs?
-is there any way to effectively control an multi Rad area by using a mix of smart/dumb TRVs?
-will it control the emersion?
-is it easy to boost a zone (or hot water) for 30mins?
It seems to me that you either control zones at the rads with smart TRVs, or you control them with valves in the hotpress and a central thermostat, but combining the 2 methods is pointless???0 -
-did you consider any other products?
-how many plumbed heating zones have you got?
-how many zones will you configure using the TRVs?
-is there any way to effectively control an multi Rad area by using a mix of smart/dumb TRVs?
-will it control the emersion?
-is it easy to boost a zone (or hot water) for 30mins?- I had a look at Tado, Hive, Nest, & Ember in addition to the Honeywell Evohome, it was a combination of not requiring internet access, flexibility on zoning, as well as the radiator controls having the thermostats. Have a stove in one room so wanted the heating to shut off the radiator in that room if the stove was already heating it up without it shutting off the heating everywhere or needing multiple thermostats. Ease of purchase influenced as well. Tado seemed to cover most of the same but I wasn't super happy with what I was reading about them
- Have 1 plumbed zone, so this does impact because have to rely on placing smart TRVs on all radiators. If you have separately plumbed zones for HW and space heating already, you can consider leaving some central areas as well as bathroom radiators to just come on by default when the rest of the heating comes on. Would be simplier.
- 11 Zones + HW. Most likely configured into 4 main groups, 1) study/office + common area, 2) bedrooms/bathrooms + common areas, 3) kitchen/sitting room + common area 4) hot water. The one limitation I'm aware of is that I'll have to zone each room that I want to schedule independently, so to have the study + kitchen + hallway on together if working from home, I'll have to schedule all three separately if I want to be able to schedule the sitting room + kitchen + hallway for the early evening and the hallway + upstairs bedrooms for the later evening, etc. If you already have a separate Hot Water zone with your plumbing, you can skip having your hallway as a separate zone and just let it be heated when one of the other zones activates. I'll probably just set up the upstairs bedrooms + en-suite + main bathroom as a multi-room zone to reduce the complexity.
- The smart TRV should shut-off the heating to the controlled radiator once the room reaches temp, so with a dumb + smart control you might end up with part of the room getting warmer than planned, also risk that you'll set the dumb one too low and that will result in the smart TRV constantly telling the boiler to put out more heat because the room is still too cold. But if you get the dumb one set right no reason it shouldn't work.
- There is a separate control unit to act as the relay for the immersion, I suspect I might need another TRV unit to turn off the output from the boiler going through the cylinder when set to do the space heating only, but this will only become clear in a little while (have an enquiry in with the theevohomeshop.co.uk and they have been good answering previously).
- Each of the smart TRVs have the ability to do a local temperature boost and AFAIK to be turned on from the unit not just via the control system and then will switch back to previous settings at the next switch point.
I'll definitely need some time to play with it to be sure that we've got everything done.It seems to me that you either control zones at the rads with smart TRVs, or you control them with valves in the hotpress and a central thermostat, but combining the 2 methods is pointless???
Yeah, besides the situation where we have a single feed and it's prohibitive/difficult to retrofit a separate HW line from a boiler through the house to put the HW on a separate feed, in general I'd expect most would either be TRVs in the hot press to do upstairs/downstairs/HW separately or manage the rooms with smart TRVs. There is only a slight efficiency benefit in being able to skip an upstairs circuit if you're only heating rooms downstairs, so I'm guessing that's why most don't bother.0 -
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electrofelix wrote: »
- I had a look at Tado, Hive, Nest, & Ember in addition to the Honeywell Evohome, it was a combination of not requiring internet access, flexibility on zoning, as well as the radiator controls having the thermostats. Have a stove in one room so wanted the heating to shut off the radiator in that room if the stove was already heating it up without it shutting off the heating everywhere or needing multiple thermostats. Ease of purchase influenced as well. Tado seemed to cover most of the same but I wasn't super happy with what I was reading about them
- Have 1 plumbed zone, so this does impact because have to rely on placing smart TRVs on all radiators. If you have separately plumbed zones for HW and space heating already, you can consider leaving some central areas as well as bathroom radiators to just come on by default when the rest of the heating comes on. Would be simplier.
- 11 Zones + HW. Most likely configured into 4 main groups, 1) study/office + common area, 2) bedrooms/bathrooms + common areas, 3) kitchen/sitting room + common area 4) hot water. The one limitation I'm aware of is that I'll have to zone each room that I want to schedule independently, so to have the study + kitchen + hallway on together if working from home, I'll have to schedule all three separately if I want to be able to schedule the sitting room + kitchen + hallway for the early evening and the hallway + upstairs bedrooms for the later evening, etc. If you already have a separate Hot Water zone with your plumbing, you can skip having your hallway as a separate zone and just let it be heated when one of the other zones activates. I'll probably just set up the upstairs bedrooms + en-suite + main bathroom as a multi-room zone to reduce the complexity.
- The smart TRV should shut-off the heating to the controlled radiator once the room reaches temp, so with a dumb + smart control you might end up with part of the room getting warmer than planned, also risk that you'll set the dumb one too low and that will result in the smart TRV constantly telling the boiler to put out more heat because the room is still too cold. But if you get the dumb one set right no reason it shouldn't work.
- There is a separate control unit to act as the relay for the immersion, I suspect I might need another TRV unit to turn off the output from the boiler going through the cylinder when set to do the space heating only, but this will only become clear in a little while (have an enquiry in with the theevohomeshop.co.uk and they have been good answering previously).
- Each of the smart TRVs have the ability to do a local temperature boost and AFAIK to be turned on from the unit not just via the control system and then will switch back to previous settings at the next switch point.
I'll definitely need some time to play with it to be sure that we've got everything done.
Yeah, besides the situation where we have a single feed and it's prohibitive/difficult to retrofit a separate HW line from a boiler through the house to put the HW on a separate feed, in general I'd expect most would either be TRVs in the hot press to do upstairs/downstairs/HW separately or manage the rooms with smart TRVs. There is only a slight efficiency benefit in being able to skip an upstairs circuit if you're only heating rooms downstairs, so I'm guessing that's why most don't bother.
Quote "The one limitation I'm aware of is that I'll have to zone each room that I want to schedule independently, so to have the study + kitchen + hallway on together I'll have to schedule all three separately if I want to be able to schedule the sitting room + kitchen + hallway"
You dont need to schedule them seperatly In Evohome you can set up a multiroom Zone which can have seperate Smart TRVs but all will operate to the one schedule0 -
I'm thinking that due to the number of radiators we have and the cost of TRVs for all of them, a Evohome-like solution is something that I will aspire to.
It would have been perfect if the Evohome "hub" controller was less about portability and more about being wired in so that it could control the power/scheduling to existing valves. Then I'd be able to expand it over time by adding the wireless rad TRVs.
For me it is looking like stage one will be replacing the 4 mechanical timers that control 2 heating zones + HW and emersion with a centralized controller that will do all in one place. I'm thinking it might be worth adding an extra heating zone for upstairs as that should be simple and beneficial.
So, ideally I'm on the look out for 4 or 5 zone electrical timer.
I see there is an EPH product that might be ok??
https://www.ephcontrols.com/section/4-zone-programmer-2/0 -
Quote "The one limitation I'm aware of is that I'll have to zone each room that I want to schedule independently, so to have the study + kitchen + hallway on together I'll have to schedule all three separately if I want to be able to schedule the sitting room + kitchen + hallway"
You dont need to schedule them seperatly In Evohome you can set up a multiroom Zone which can have seperate Smart TRVs but all will operate to the one schedule
So each TRV can be part of *multiple* zones? That's not something I've been able to pin-point, it would be very nice, just didn't seem obvious that was the case.I'm thinking that due to the number of radiators we have and the cost of TRVs for all of them, a Evohome-like solution is something that I will aspire to.
It would have been perfect if the Evohome "hub" controller was less about portability and more about being wired in so that it could control the power/scheduling to existing valves. Then I'd be able to expand it over time by adding the wireless rad TRVs.
For me it is looking like stage one will be replacing the 4 mechanical timers that control 2 heating zones + HW and emersion with a centralized controller that will do all in one place. I'm thinking it might be worth adding an extra heating zone for upstairs as that should be simple and beneficial.
So, ideally I'm on the look out for 4 or 5 zone electrical timer.
I see there is an EPH product that might be ok??
https://www.ephcontrols.com/section/4-zone-programmer-2/
AFAIK the EPH doesn't support TRVs on radiators yet, there was mention that it would be added a few times in the past, but not there when I last looked.
You can make use of motorized valves to control your entire space heating separately if your plumbing is already set up to have separate zones and then add radiator TRV's as needed see https://heatingcontrols.honeywellhome.com/Documents/All/pdf/evohome%20Connected%20Installation.pdf pages 42-43 which shows how it can be configured.
In my case we're going with the "Stored hot water and zoned heating" set up because the there isn't an easy way to add a valve to control the space heating due to the existing plumbing, instead have to let all the piping heat up and have a valve prevent it entering the HW cylinder and HR92 to control the radiators.
However if you had a motorized valve in place you can leave it without any TRVs initially and then add them in the future or just add a few while still having the ability to heat your water and space separately.0 -
Thanks,
I'll take a look at that.
We do indeed have 2 motorized valves on 2 heating zones (looks easy to add a 3rd), plus 1 on the HW zone.
While I understand the need to have wireless and battery solutions at the rads, I'd prefer to use the existing wiring to the plumbing zone valves.
edit:
just looked at the install guide and it's as I feared.
The link from controller to existing motorized valve is via a wireless relay.
They are so close to where the heating controls would go and there is already an electrical connection that could/should be reused it would be a shame to do wireless for that part of it.
I'll price the relays anyway (will need 4 of them!). At least the shouldn't need batteries....?0 -
edit:
just looked at the install guide and it's as I feared.
The link from controller to existing motorized valve is via a wireless relay.
They are so close to where the heating controls would go and there is already an electrical connection that could/should be reused it would be a shame to do wireless for that part of it.
I'll price the relays anyway (will need 4 of them!). At least the shouldn't need batteries....?
The wireless relays are intended to use standard house electricity power supply, not sure they would even work with battery as they are intended to be able to switch and control systems up to a max rating of 5 AMP (~1KW according to their product page). Pretty certain there's no slot for a battery. The wireless part is about communication, so that you don't need to run additional wires to talk to the controller or other evohome devices.
However the HW temperature sensor is battery powered, you could ask the technical help on theevohomeshop.co.uk to see if there was any way to wire that up to power to avoid needing to replace batteries. I know that the electrician will be wiring in the relays and controller with wall mount to the house power supply.0 -
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Thanks,
I'll take a look at that.
We do indeed have 2 motorized valves on 2 heating zones (looks easy to add a 3rd), plus 1 on the HW zone.
While I understand the need to have wireless and battery solutions at the rads, I'd prefer to use the existing wiring to the plumbing zone valves.
edit:
just looked at the install guide and it's as I feared.
The link from controller to existing motorized valve is via a wireless relay.
They are so close to where the heating controls would go and there is already an electrical connection that could/should be reused it would be a shame to do wireless for that part of it.
I'll price the relays anyway (will need 4 of them!). At least the shouldn't need batteries....?
Your Existing Motorized valves are powered when calling for heat all you need to do is bypass existing switch to make valves permanently on then disconnect valve cable place BDR Relay beside valve connect cable you disconnected to relay to power it and then connect Valve to switched side of relay then EVO home will switch relay on off to call for heat which will open close existing valve
The BDR Relays are only a switch to control valves which get a signal from EVO they are powered by mains not batteries0 -
Yes, I did assume they would be mains powered.
Still a shame that the EVO has no ability to control the switching on a wired connection when everything is already in place for that.
Wireless should be used as a necessity not a preference.
couple of questions....
When controlling a relay in EVO, does there have to be a thermostat in the circuit or can the control be timed only?
And later on if I add the rad TRVs....
if I tell EVO to heat a room with rad TRVs to a certain temp for a certain time, will it control the BRD relay for that particular plumbed zone?
i.e. will it link the room zone to the plumbing zone (relay) to act together, while still operating the plumbing zone separately on it's own schedule?
Like a dependency I guess...0 -
Yes, I did assume they would be mains powered.
Still a shame that the EVO has no ability to control the switching on a wired connection when everything is already in place for that.
Wireless should be used as a necessity not a preference.
couple of questions....
When controlling a relay in EVO, does there have to be a thermostat in the circuit or can the control be timed only?
And later on if I add the rad TRVs....
if I tell EVO to heat a room with rad TRVs to a certain temp for a certain time, will it control the BRD relay for that particular plumbed zone?
i.e. will it link the room zone to the plumbing zone (relay) to act together, while still operating the plumbing zone separately on it's own schedule?
Like a dependency I guess...
Depends if the relay is Boiler Control relay or Zone Valve relay
If BDR Relay is used to Control Heating Zone Valve then YES the Zone will need a Stat either a DTS92 or Y87RF to sense Zone Temp to control Valve
The second Question is not clear normally if you add HR92 Valves to a previous Zone Valve Circuit then you either remove the Zone Valve or Lock it open and HR92 Valves become the new control0 -
Thanks.
I was hoping that the EVO might allow the control of relays purely on timer.
I already have mechanical thermostats that I want to upgrade over time and initially want to have a controller to just manage the timer controls.
I thought it would be achievable if a relay could be configured as a simple of/on based on schedule but also if a smart TRV could have a relay configured as a dependency so that as the SMART TRV (HR92??) calls for heat, the EVO turns on the relay too.0 -
Hi. Have a problem with auto bypass valve. I have a daikin altherma air to water heat pump. When I turn on a room with stat it comes on ok but the bypass does not close hence the return temp catches flow quickly and shuts down pump. I have tried everything. It just stays open and will not close. For me to have pump running I need to heat at least 8 pipes to divert water through floor so the bypass does not overrun it.0
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