Hi all,

I recently moved into a house which has a traditional CH and HW system,
ie cylinder/header tank/gas boiler, but no controls which allow me
independent control of either or both - there is one timeswitch that
turns the whole thing on or off. I would like to upgrade this to add a
proper control digital programmer that will allow me to program various
on/off times for the hot water and heating independently, as I'm finding
there are many times when I need one but not the other and it's clearly
not efficient to keep a cylinder of water warm all day in the winter
(and in the summer, I don't want to have to go around the house and turn
down all the TRVs manually when I just need water).

My understanding is that this is a matter of adding two motorized
valves, one to open the HW circuit and one to open the CH circuit - then
drop in the programmer and bob's your uncle. However, I recognize that
this means a control cables will need to be run to each of these valves.
Because the cylinder (where the valves will need to go near) is upstairs
and the boiler and present timeclock are downstairs, this will mean
gouging out of walls, requiring lots of tiling and replastering that I
don't want to contemplate at the moment.

What would be really great would be a way to add this wirelessly. This
way I could stick the box on the wall, and then have it talk over a
radio link to the two motorized valves as required.

Alternatively, the present timeswitch obviously sends a control signal
up to switch on the pump which is right beside the cylinder. I guess it
just switches mains onto it. I wonder could that arrangement be
reversed; I could put the new programmer beside the cylinder, have it
control the two valves from there, and then have it use the wire
currently used to operate the pump to switch mains downstairs which
fires the boiler ?

Advice greatly appreciated ..