On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:46:29 +0100, "Roger Mills"
mused:

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:


If I had my time again I'd zone every single room. With a motorised
valve, and run a ****load of cables back to the timer and pumps etc.

We have a lot of rooms we don't use all the time, and it would be far
more economical to simply flick a switch and have them go to 'frost
stat' settings when not in use.

It would certainly be nice to have an S++++ system, with a programmable stat
in every room - so as to be able to heat each room only when needed. You
could probably do it without too much plumbing by using (don't know the
correct description) things like TRVs with little heaters in them to turn
individual rads on and off by remote control. Would need a lot of wiring
though, and I don't know whether these things have secondary contacts which
close when the valve is open - like a proper 2-port zone valve.

You can get mini valves that can be fitted to each rad. Not exactly
sure where you would source the as I've never looked tbh.

Such a system would be a nightmare to programme though unless your room
usage followed a very regular pattern. Even then, you'd have to tell each
individual stat about things like going on holiday for X days. Really needs
to be programmable from a single point - with the ability to apply global
settings to all stats in one go - but I'm not sure how to go about that. I
don't really want to run a dedicated PC *just* the operate the heating!

You can get commercial heating controls that could do all that with
relative ease, and mostly low voltage for sensors in the rooms rather
than programers.
--
Regards,
Stuart.