About to install Central Heating from scratch - Advice please!

[OliP]

I live in a flat with HS3Pro all over - except i don't have Gas or Central Heating..yet

Looking to get it installed in the next 2 months, done a bit of googling over the years about it and see a Nest thermostat in operation, but not overly convinced its the best thing out there.

Have also seen reviews on EcoBee3 which make me think its worth a closer look.

But the techie (tinkerer) in me says HomeSeer can handle all of this stuff already without the need for a thermostat. i have aeon labs multi-sensor everywhere already which could monitor zones, and with z-wave radiator valves i recon im good to go?

but i thought it best to ask the opinion of you guys.

Im in the UK so needs to be compatible, but any advice on what not to do, or things that have worked well for you?

Cheers in advance!

[Automated]

Could you do it, yes. Should you do it, no.

Environmental control systems should always run on their own discrete logic boards when talking about heating and cooling. It is an excellent idea to integrate with HS for management of the thermostat, but your environmental controls should be able to manage themselves without HS whatsoever. There are several thermostats, including Zwave ones, that HS can integrate with.

That being said, I did run our upstairs air conditioning off of a RFXCom temperature sensor, and a Zwave switch which was connected to the 24v supply that powered up the compressor and circulation fan for a month a few years back while I decided which direction I would go with my own thermostat. However, that was done only as a temporary fix, and I was at home during the entire period.

[OliP]

Exactly the info i was after, thank you!
The EcoBee seems to be the best option for me then.

Im still a little puzzled as to how the thermostat could control a single radiator without multiple zoning done by pipework but i guess more reading may enlighten me.

So you recon you stay away from z wave valves altogether and just trust in the traditional setup with a smart-thermostat?

[Automated]

Exactly the info i was after, thank you!
The EcoBee seems to be the best option for me then.

Im still a little puzzled as to how the thermostat could control a single radiator without multiple zoning done by pipework but i guess more reading may enlighten me.

So you recon you stay away from z wave valves altogether and just trust in the traditional setup with a smart-thermostat?

Someone with experience with radiators should comment, as I have no experience with those in particular. We have forced air heating and cooling here.

In principle though, I prefer architectures where HS can interface with environmental controls, but those controls are able to run on their own. HS3 is extremely stable, but from an architecture standpoint, the separation is still "better."

[sooty]

A typical wet heating system in a standard house here in the UK may consist of a gas or oil fired boiler, a number of radiators, a timer/controller/thermostat and some thermostatic radiator valves. Larger systems may have piped zones like upstairs / downstairs with separate thermostats / timers.

Generally the thermostat is installed at 1 location and is responsible for sending the demand / no-demand signal to the boiler. Of course this is fine so long as you can get the thermostat and your rad valves adjusted for maximum comfort.

Our house was built in 1870 and has solid walls with no insulation so it always suffered with large temperature differences between north and south facing rooms. To get a comfortable temperature in a north facing room I would have to ramp up the thermostat (to keep the boiler on).

A few years ago I installed the Honeywell Hometronic system which consists of a central controller, a boiler relay and 16 battery operated rad valves. Basically this turns a standard system into a zoned system without all the extra pipework and zone valves. Not sure if Hometronic is still available but Evohome is a more modern (and cheaper) alternative that does pretty much the same thing.

The central controller handles the scheduling (Zone>Temp>Times), so if you want the kitchen at 21C at 08:00 then at 15C at 10:00 etc, you set this up in the controller. At 08:00 the controller sends the set-point 20C to the kitchen rad valve. If the valve reports that room temp is below 20C then it sends a demand signal which causes the boiler relay to fire the boiler. Assuming all other valves (zones) have a lower set-point than actual temperature, then they will stay closed and won't be creating a demand signal so won't be consuming any hot water.

This setup has been 100% reliable for a good few years now and means that we have even temperatures in each room without any manual intervention.

I'm not sure if anyone has done a plug-in but I believe there is a level of integration between EvoHome and HS3 via IFTT.

You could of course do it with some Z-Wave rad valves, some temperature sensors, a Z-Wave switch module (for boiler control) and HS3 as the logic but IMO something like EvoHome is a much tidier stand-alone solution and use HS3 as an additional control for example to set a mode on EvoHome if the house is unoccupied etc.

Paul..

[mikedr]

I'm on the other side of the pond, but I'll second Automated. Have a standalone controller, preferably one you can communicte with via Z-Wave. Z-Wave is quite good, but it's not 100% reliable, and I wouldn't trust it for HVAC purposes (nor for security, for that matter).

At least for AC, there are other considerations. You are not supposed to rapidly run the compressor -- i.e., once it's turned off, it's supposed to stay off for a couple of minutes. Dual-stage heat/cool systems can work by thermostat as well -- again, you can probably program this with z-wave, but if you made a mistake in your event logic, I wouldn't want to risk frying an expensive HVAC system.

The other thing is that there are quite a few solid Z-Wave thermostats. I have three of the Honeywell ones, which are rock solid (although one inexplicably had its backlight just die, which was weird).

[cheeryfool]

A typical wet heating system in a standard house here in the UK may consist of a gas or oil fired boiler, a number of radiators, a timer/controller/thermostat and some thermostatic radiator valves. Larger systems may have piped zones like upstairs / downstairs with separate thermostats / timers.



Generally the thermostat is installed at 1 location and is responsible for sending the demand / no-demand signal to the boiler. Of course this is fine so long as you can get the thermostat and your rad valves adjusted for maximum comfort.



Our house was built in 1870 and has solid walls with no insulation so it always suffered with large temperature differences between north and south facing rooms. To get a comfortable temperature in a north facing room I would have to ramp up the thermostat (to keep the boiler on).



A few years ago I installed the Honeywell Hometronic system which consists of a central controller, a boiler relay and 16 battery operated rad valves. Basically this turns a standard system into a zoned system without all the extra pipework and zone valves. Not sure if Hometronic is still available but Evohome is a more modern (and cheaper) alternative that does pretty much the same thing.



The central controller handles the scheduling (Zone>Temp>Times), so if you want the kitchen at 21C at 08:00 then at 15C at 10:00 etc, you set this up in the controller. At 08:00 the controller sends the set-point 20C to the kitchen rad valve. If the valve reports that room temp is below 20C then it sends a demand signal which causes the boiler relay to fire the boiler. Assuming all other valves (zones) have a lower set-point than actual temperature, then they will stay closed and won't be creating a demand signal so won't be consuming any hot water.



This setup has been 100% reliable for a good few years now and means that we have even temperatures in each room without any manual intervention.



I'm not sure if anyone has done a plug-in but I believe there is a level of integration between EvoHome and HS3 via IFTT.



You could of course do it with some Z-Wave rad valves, some temperature sensors, a Z-Wave switch module (for boiler control) and HS3 as the logic but IMO something like EvoHome is a much tidier stand-alone solution and use HS3 as an additional control for example to set a mode on EvoHome if the house is unoccupied etc.



Paul..

I just looked at the EvoHome solution. Very nice. Wish I'd had that in my Victorian house before I bought a one-way westbound ticket across the pond.

[ScottRennie]

I live in a flat with HS3Pro all over - except i don't have Gas or Central Heating..yet

Looking to get it installed in the next 2 months, done a bit of googling over the years about it and see a Nest thermostat in operation, but not overly convinced its the best thing out there.

Have also seen reviews on EcoBee3 which make me think its worth a closer look.

But the techie (tinkerer) in me says HomeSeer can handle all of this stuff already without the need for a thermostat. i have aeon labs multi-sensor everywhere already which could monitor zones, and with z-wave radiator valves i recon im good to go?

but i thought it best to ask the opinion of you guys.

Im in the UK so needs to be compatible, but any advice on what not to do, or things that have worked well for you?

Cheers in advance!

I have been playing with Stella and other z-wave TRVs for a year or two now and none of them work well enough - The Cube was unreliable, the TRVs noisy, the Stellas fiddly to work due to timing issues, the Danfoss!!! - anyway, none of the options could turn off the boiler so although I might have all the TRVs off, the boiler could still be turning and burning.

Last month I went down the Honeywell Evohome route (In in Aberdeen, UK). I can set the schedule completely independently of HS, tie in the TRVs with the boiler control (Worcester-Bosch Greenstar) and with the limited tie-in with IFTTT, have control using HS (via IFTTT). I am sure the IFTTT control will become more sophisticated and hopefully, the IPThermostat plugin thermostat will be developed to work in the UK or Honeywell will release the API and we can have an HS3 plugin.

It's too late to prove any savings yet, but the 'proof of concept' works!!

Cheers
Scott

[OliP]

I was looking at new Worcester Bosch appliances, they use WAVE as there online system. Just to confirm, i asked if public API was coming and got this back.

Just FYI - as im sure someone will ask at some point.

Thank you for your enquiry.

Unfortunately the Wave is not able to be integrated with any third party home automation systems, the wave has been designed to work on its own and will not be compatible with any third party software.

Regards,
Technical Support
Worcester, Bosch Group

[mrhappy]