Writing a custom HVAC script

[slbailey]

OK, here's my situation... I have an RC100B thermostat in our family room (using the HAI plugin, not the thermostat plugin) and a remote temperature sensor in our bedroom (again, using HAI plugin). What I want to do is have the thermostat heat until the bedroom temperature is optimal. Since I can't tell the thermostat to heat, I can only play with the heat point, I'm trying to find the best way to script a solution. Right now, here's the way I think the script should work.

The script should:
1. Store the heat point in a virtual device.
2. Set heat point to something high (85 F for example).
3. Create an event so that when the bedroom temperature "is greater than" the temperature we want, it will run a second script.

The second script should:
1. Delete the temporary event created in step 3 above
2. Lower the heat point back to the heat point stored above
3. Create another event so that when the bedroom temperature "is less than" the temperature we want, it will run the first script again.

Does that sound like a reasonable course of action or am I overthinking an obviously simple solution?

Steve

[dschoppe]

Steve,

Although you might save the original heat point to a virtual device, once your desired bedroom temperature is reached, why not just read the current temperature from the stat, and use it to set a new heat point reference rather than immediately restoring the saved value? You may find that setting the heat point to the current temperature (or a degree up/down) would then allow the thermostat to work independently for the remainder of the night, i.e., without having scripts drive the cycling by manipulating the heat point. Then, in the morning, or whenever the bedroom becomes unoccupied, you could restore the original, lower saved heat point?

Just an idea...

Don

[Steve Q]

Although I can't offer any advice regarding your specific question, I would like to offer a general recommendation. I use Homeseer to control my HVAC. During the Christmas holidays we were out of town. While we were gone, there was an 10 hour power outage. When the power came back on, Homeseer restarted properly and everything restored properly except my heat did not come back on. Fortunately the temperature was warm so we did not have any frozen pipes. So, my advice is to make sure that you consider the possibility of a computer failure or a power outage in your design. I now have Homeseer send me an email whenever it restarts and I have included some additional device default settings in my startup.txt file.

Steve Q