I would like to zone my basement hot water radiators separately from
the rest of the house since it doesn't seem to get warm enough there
before the thermostat upstairs turns the system off. I would like to
install a zone valve that controls the water to the upstairs. I would
also install a thermostat downstairs. I have a Honeywell Aquastat
relay type L8148A on the system (hooked up to the upstairs thermostat).
I believe I need to wire the upstairs thermostat to the zone valve and
then to the Aquastat and that I need to wire the downstairs
theromostat to the Aquastat as well. Is this the proper way to wire
the system? Can you wire to thermostats to the same screws on the
Aquastat?

"balboni" wrote in message
oups.com...
I would like to zone my basement hot water radiators separately from
the rest of the house since it doesn't seem to get warm enough there
before the thermostat upstairs turns the system off. I would like to
install a zone valve that controls the water to the upstairs. I would
also install a thermostat downstairs. I have a Honeywell Aquastat
relay type L8148A on the system (hooked up to the upstairs thermostat).
I believe I need to wire the upstairs thermostat to the zone valve and
then to the Aquastat and that I need to wire the downstairs
theromostat to the Aquastat as well. Is this the proper way to wire
the system? Can you wire to thermostats to the same screws on the
Aquastat?

Zoning is more that just adding thermostats. The loops in the system must
be independent. You also need either a single circulator and two zone
valves, or you need two independent circulators, one on each zone.

What you really need is a good book on hydronic heating systems.

Have you thought about just adding more radiators in the basement, a
cheaper and easier solution then another pump and the controls. Opening
up old pipes to make a zone may have bad suprises

The upstairs loop is independent of the basement loop. Unfortunatley,
there is no good place to put a zone valve on the downstairs loop
without redoing a lot of the plumbing. (All of the plumbing is less
than 3 years old, but the downstairs was done afterwards by a
contractor finishing the basement, and they did not do a very tidy
plumbing job). But there is a good spot to put the zone valve on the
upstairs loop. There are two scenarios that I want the circulator on:
1. Upstairs and downstairs need heat so the upstairs zone valve is open
and the circulator is on.
2. Only downstairs needs heat (it's always cooler in the basement and
we use it very much, so we would never just want the upstairs heated)
so the upstairs zone valve is closed and the circulator is on.

The third scenario is the circulator is off.

So can I hook two thermostats up to the Aquastat? If my understanding
of a thermostat is correct, all it does is close a circuit, so it would
be like hooking up two regular light switches to the same light.

balboni wrote:

So can I hook two thermostats up to the Aquastat? If my understanding
of a thermostat is correct, all it does is close a circuit, so it
would be like hooking up two regular light switches to the same light.

Sure, but I doubt it is going to turn the heat on. The aquastat will
control the water temperature by turning the burner off and on. You have to
activate the circulator. See my note about getting a book.

--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/

If you have a triple aquastat on the boiler, it will maintain temperature in
the boiler. You need to separate the two zones, as Ed said, by either two
circulators, or one circulator and two zone valves. Zone valves would be
easier as you don't have to add switching relays. Each thermostat controls
its respective zone valve and each zone valve has an end line switch that
turns on the boiler by connecting to the "tt" on the aquastat relay that you
currently have



"balboni" wrote in message
oups.com...
I would like to zone my basement hot water radiators separately from
the rest of the house since it doesn't seem to get warm enough there
before the thermostat upstairs turns the system off. I would like to
install a zone valve that controls the water to the upstairs. I would
also install a thermostat downstairs. I have a Honeywell Aquastat
relay type L8148A on the system (hooked up to the upstairs thermostat).
I believe I need to wire the upstairs thermostat to the zone valve and
then to the Aquastat and that I need to wire the downstairs
theromostat to the Aquastat as well. Is this the proper way to wire
the system? Can you wire to thermostats to the same screws on the
Aquastat?