Central heating

[IanIreland]

I currently have a gas fired boiler sending hot water round radiators. I think it likely that I will change to an all electric heating system. The question is what! As an HS user I would want something that I can control with HS and WAF is also important. Has anybody got such a system? Id so what components have you used? Cheers.

[jon00]

Just FYI, when I was on vacation, the property had both an oil and electric boiler to heat the radiators. A simple switch decided which was used but was set to electric. Never seen an electric boiler before but seemed to work fine. Took a photo so had the details!

https://www.heatraesadia.com/product...boilers/amptec

[IanIreland]

Just FYI, when I was on vacation, the property had both an oil and electric boiler to heat the radiators. A simple switch decided which was used but was set to electric. Never seen an electric boiler before but seemed to work fine. Took a photo so had the details!

https://www.heatraesadia.com/product...boilers/amptec

Thatnks. I've looked at something similar. I would be happy to lose the pipes and water!

[jon00]

What are you looking at? Heat Pump(s) and underfloor heating? With the cost of energy rocketing, I hope it is cost effective for you!

[IanIreland]

What are you looking at? Heat Pump(s) and underfloor heating? With the cost of energy rocketing, I hope it is cost effective for you!

Energy costs are one of my drivers! My crystal ball says that electricity is likely to be greenest and cheapest in the long run.

[billt]

Energy costs are one of my drivers! My crystal ball says that electricity is likely to be greenest and cheapest in the long run.

Maybe, but at the moment electricity is about 5 times the cost of gas. If you design a heat pump system very carefully you can probably get a COP of up to 3.5 overall, which means that gas is noticeably cheaper to run than electricity. What the future holds is uncertain of course, but gas is used to produce about 50% of the UKs electrcity, so electricity prices are likely to track gas prices for a year or two yet. There's also the capital cost to consider, likely to be rather more than £10,000 if you've got a larger than average house.

Personally I don't see any good reason to integrate heating control with Homeseer. I like to have independent and reliable systems to control important services like heating.

I use a Drayton Wiser system, which is retrofitable to radiator heating systems, is highly programmable and remotely controllable. In my installation every room has TRVs controlled by the Wiser controller, so energy use is optimised. There are other systems which operate similarly, like the Evohome, but most of them rely on cloud connections, the Drayton system only uses the cloud for remote control, control is local. It is possible to integrate it with HomeSeer using a NodeRed flow. I just use that to extract room temperatures and humidity, but HomeSeer could control it if desired.

[jon00]

With a 54% increase of the energy price cap in April, we are all going to be broke!

[IanIreland]

Maybe, but at the moment electricity is about 5 times the cost of gas. If you design a heat pump system very carefully you can probably get a COP of up to 3.5 overall, which means that gas is noticeably cheaper to run than electricity. What the future holds is uncertain of course, but gas is used to produce about 50% of the UKs electrcity, so electricity prices are likely to track gas prices for a year or two yet. There's also the capital cost to consider, likely to be rather more than £10,000 if you've got a larger than average house.

Personally I don't see any good reason to integrate heating control with Homeseer. I like to have independent and reliable systems to control important services like heating.

I use a Drayton Wiser system, which is retrofitable to radiator heating systems, is highly programmable and remotely controllable. In my installation every room has TRVs controlled by the Wiser controller, so energy use is optimised. There are other systems which operate similarly, like the Evohome, but most of them rely on cloud connections, the Drayton system only uses the cloud for remote control, control is local. It is possible to integrate it with HomeSeer using a NodeRed flow. I just use that to extract room temperatures and humidity, but HomeSeer could control it if desired.

If Drayton had been around last time I was changing the system I would have considered it. I went with Evohome and whilst there is a cloud in the picture, the control is local unless you are out of the house. I have Evohome integrated with HS for increased flexibility., but that bit does rely on the cloud!

[ewkearns]

The bulk of posters are in the UK, but here in the US, electric heat is by far the most expensive. LPG is cheaper and an on-demand LPG water heater is the most practical (especially considering the rewiring necessary to meet the amperage draw requirements).

91,500 BTUs (or one gallon) of propane = 27 kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity which comes to $2.899 vs. $3.51 for my last bill. YMMV.

PS
Propane can vary widely in price, but there isn't a base charge
Electrical can vary as well, since there is a base charge and a cost per kWh, making the apparent cost per kWh vary with the amount used

PPS
As HST no longer carries thermostats in their store, you are kinda on your own. Be aware that if you choose Z-Wave technology, that only guarantees that the software controller included classes will work with the thermostat included classes.