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#1
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Controlling new complex heating system
Hi,
We are greatly extending our house and with it fitting a new heating/ hot water system. In summary it will consist of the following.. - 2 system boilers - Megaflow tank - One room (zone) with water UFH - 3 zones (1 per floor) for the heating - 1 "zone" to cover the towel rails in the bathrooms so that they can be warm in summer with the heating off - secondary loop for the hot water to reduce draw down time of the hot water in the other side of the house - all rads with TRVs The question is how on earth do I control all this??? Having looked her and search the web a lot, I have seen the following "possible" solutions and was wondering if anyone here has a fairly cost effective solution? Option 1 - programmable room stats The thought here was to have a programmable room stat per zone (assuming the UFH is an additional zone) located in the hallway/ landing of each floor and in the room with UFH. Centrally control the hot water and towel rails on a timer. Seemed a good solution until my wife thought about the scenario where we come in during a time when the heating is off and want to turn it on again. We would have to go to each room stat and turn it on.... Option 2 - use some X10 controllers I have not had any experience with these but in theory I guess you could control them via a timer and also in the scenario of coming in when everything is off, switch them on with a central controller(s) from anywhere in the house. Has anyone used these? Is this a good idea? Option 3 - a comercial controller. I saw that Honeywell seem to do a fancy controller which optimises the bolier firing and timing based on your temperature requirements and the outside temperature. I couldn't get a great deal of information (nor find anyone who sold it!!) but believe it is called an AQ2000. This would resolve the issue of managing the 2 boilers and the central control when you get into the house but then provides the flip side of how do you switch the heating on when you are upstairs? In summary, despite a great deal of searching, I haven't been able to come up with anything that is flexible and resolves the problems above. Wouldn't it be great if you could call it to turn the heating on on your way home (like you can with alarms to switch them off)?? All ideas and thoughts appreciated. Also, any issues with the current design? thanks in advance Lee. |
#2
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Controlling new complex heating system
On 20 Jan, 13:05, wrote:
David Hansen wrote: On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:29:32 -0800 (PST) someone who may be wrote this:- - 3 zones (1 per floor) for the heating North/south zones are generally better, unless whole floors will be unoccupied. With north/south zones weather compensation is easier as is coping with solar gain. Option 1 - programmable room stats [snip] Seemed a good solution until my wife thought about the scenario where we come in during a time when the heating is off and want to turn it on again. *We would have to go to each room stat and turn it on.... Master time clock. Programmable thermostats have occupancy programmed into them. Master time clock will enable or disable output from every thermostat. Going out, turn off heating at master time clock. Coming in, turn it on at master time clock, only those rooms where the thermostat is programmed for occupancy at the time will warm up. Even better is to separate the concepts of timer zones and temp zones, andhave one temperature zone per room. Its cheap to do with bimetal stats. Your timers each control several rooms, but local to each room, each room has its own stat. This means you can switch off or turn down the heat in any one room at will. You then have a master switch to turn the whole system down to frost protect, and use that when you go away. Note on frost protect setting the system relies on a single central stat, the individual room stats are effectively not operating in this mode since they will all always call for heat, but the system will be controlled then by the frost stat.. NT- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - individual room stats sounds like an idea. Do you have a link to a bimetal stat as I haven't heard of these before. How would I get each floor to come on at different times? |
#3
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Controlling new complex heating system
wrote in message ... Hi, We are greatly extending our house and with it fitting a new heating/ hot water system. In summary it will consist of the following.. - 2 system boilers - Megaflow tank - One room (zone) with water UFH - 3 zones (1 per floor) for the heating - 1 "zone" to cover the towel rails in the bathrooms so that they can be warm in summer with the heating off - secondary loop for the hot water to reduce draw down time of the hot water in the other side of the house - all rads with TRVs The question is how on earth do I control all this??? Firstly a simple system change. Get rid of the Megalow and fit a heat bank/thermal store. This does the DHW at mains pressure. All the zone can be taken off the store of water directly or a small header for the 3 rads zones and bathroom rail zone. Each zone has a pump and check valve in front. Simple and the same price as zone valves and less problematical. The rad and rail zones can have Smart pumps on each, which means TRVs all around and no silly by-pass valves or wall thermostats. The UFH can be taken directly off the thermal store cylidner lower down where temperaures are lower. Use a single speed pump and blending valve. The boilers? Take each one to the store cylidner with its own flow and return. No header. No need to sequence the boilers. Have two cylinder stats for anti-boiler cycling purposes - the boiler comes in the reheat the whole cylidner ASAP in one long efficvient burn. That is the mechanical side sorted. Control: Timer for DHW, which calls in the boilers. In summer one can be manually switched out. Each boiler requires its own isolating switch. Cheap single stage Timer for each zone. It switches on a relay. The relay switches the Pump for the zone and the boilers. Relays are approx £5 from Maplin and put in a nice large plastic box. Have a wall stat for the UFH between the timer and the pump. The timers can all be in one position in the house. Each function (zone, boioer DHW) work totally independently. In winter have the DHW come well before the CH, so that the CH rads get hot immediately by dumping the hot water directly into heating loops from the cylidner store. For an explanation: http://www.heatweb.com These will make the thermal store/heat bank for you. Specify the number of tappings, etc. Stainless steel. http://www.advanceappliances.co.uk/g...e_systems.html Get back if you wnat to know more. |
#5
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Controlling new complex heating system
individual room stats sounds like an idea. Do you have a link to a
bimetal stat as I haven't heard of these before. How would I get each floor to come on at different times? Cheap thermostats are bimetal, as are almost all old stats. The idea is to keep the inital costs down and thus improve payback. Bimetals work more or less as well as electronic, and are far more reliable. http://www.screwfix.com/prods/84704/...oom-Thermostat You could implement your originally suggested zoning, so each floor is on its own time control, the only difference is you have one thermostat per room instead of one stat per floor zone. This means the room stats must control the rads in that room via a valve of some type. Electricaly controlled TRV heads are available for under £30, such as the Danfoss RA 2912. There are choices as to how you control boiler firing, depending on the details of the setup. Maybe it would be better to talk of floor sized 'zones' and room sized 'subzones' to reduce confusion. NT PS this gives more info on the Danfoss products http://randall.danfoss.com/PCMPDF/410.pdf |
#6
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Controlling new complex heating system
wrote:
The question is how on earth do I control all this??? Having looked her and search the web a lot, I have seen the following "possible" solutions and was wondering if anyone here has a fairly cost effective solution? Option 1 - programmable room stats The thought here was to have a programmable room stat per zone (assuming the UFH is an additional zone) located in the hallway/ landing of each floor and in the room with UFH. Centrally control the hot water and towel rails on a timer. Seemed a good solution until my wife thought about the scenario where we come in during a time when the heating is off and want to turn it on again. We would have to go to each room stat and turn it on.... (Ignoring the boiler sequencing for a mo, and just looking at the room and water temperature control) If you went with this as a baseline, but added a separate programmer in an accessible location that fed all the prog stats then you should be able to achieve what you want. Program all the stats to achieve the required temperatures that you need. Set them such that you maintain a reasonable minimum fallback temperature when you think the zones will be unoccupied and/or overnight. Set your timed programmer so as to achieve the minimum level of running that you require when out or on holiday etc using its "once" or "twice" setting. For normal operation switch it to "always on" and let the prog stats do their stuff. When you come in, you flick the programmer back to always on. The prog stats will then set about heating any zone that is currently below its target temperature for that time period. Option 2 - use some X10 controllers I have not had any experience with these but in theory I guess you could control them via a timer and also in the scenario of coming in when everything is off, switch them on with a central controller(s) from anywhere in the house. Has anyone used these? Is this a good idea? Depends on how clever you want it to be - and how much effort you want to put into getting it all working. Do a google on this group for some of the information posted on this in the past. All ideas and thoughts appreciated. Also, any issues with the current design? Have a look at this thread on sorting out the demands to the boilers: http://groups.google.com/group/uk.d-...b1d3d6da1cca93 -- Cheers, John. /================================================== ===============\ | Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \================================================= ================/ |
#7
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Controlling new complex heating system
John,
Thanks very much for your reply..... Sounds like a plan but I am a little confused about the following When you come in, you flick the programmer back to always on. The prog stats will then set about heating any zone that is currently below its target temperature for that time period. In normal operation, wouldn't the programmer be set to "always on" anyway as we are relying on the programmable stats to decide when heating should be on by zone? If it wasn't for some reason, switching it to "always on" wouldn't override the times set on the stats would it. i.e. if the stat says turn off/ go to minimum temp at 10:00 and at 11:00 I switch the central programmer to "always on", the stat will override it? thanks Lee. |
#8
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Controlling new complex heating system
writes:
You could implement your originally suggested zoning, so each floor is on its own time control, the only difference is you have one thermostat per room instead of one stat per floor zone. This means the room stats must control the rads in that room via a valve of some type. Electricaly controlled TRV heads are available for under £30, such as the Danfoss RA 2912. That's not electrically controlled; it's a remote bulb connected by a capillary. I've not seen a Danfoss thermoelectric head for anywhere near that cheap. The link Richard Skeen posted in the "Timer TRVs" thread for Heatmiser in-line wax valves was the cheapest I've seen, but I don't know what TRVs the heads would fit, and I don't know how easy it is to get the heads separately. -- Jón Fairbairn http://www.chaos.org.uk/~jf/Stuff-I-dont-want.html (updated 2008-04-26) |
#9
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Controlling new complex heating system
wrote:
John, Thanks very much for your reply..... Sounds like a plan but I am a little confused about the following When you come in, you flick the programmer back to always on. The prog stats will then set about heating any zone that is currently below its target temperature for that time period. In normal operation, wouldn't the programmer be set to "always on" anyway as we are relying on the programmable stats to decide when heating should be on by zone? If it wasn't for some reason, switching Yes, it to "always on" wouldn't override the times set on the stats would it. i.e. if the stat says turn off/ go to minimum temp at 10:00 and at 11:00 I switch the central programmer to "always on", the stat will override it? This is true. I was assuming you would set the stats such that they keep the house at the temperature you require when you require it. However the addition of the programmer would would allow you to reduce the heating for times when you are not following your normal pattern of occupation - i.e. everyone out for the day, or on holls etc. You would then have the timer set to run the heating just enough to keep it ticking over. To be fair a frost prevention stat would probably do this just as well. If you particularly wanted to be able to force the heating on at a time when the programmable stats are already satisfied, there is nothing stopping you adding an override switch or programmer. A simple one that has a "boost" facility would allow you to push one button and have the heating run for an hour regardless of the stats being satisfied. However I am not quite sure why you would want to do that unless you plan to program the stats to a very low temperature for the bulk of the day when you expect to be out, and need to account for unexpected periods of occupation. -- Cheers, John. /================================================== ===============\ | Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \================================================= ================/ |
#10
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Controlling new complex heating system
If you particularly wanted to be able to force the heating on at a time when the programmable stats are already satisfied, there is nothing stopping you adding an override switch or programmer. A simple one that has a "boost" facility would allow you to push one button and have the heating run for an hour regardless of the stats being satisfied. However I am not quite sure why you would want to do that unless you plan to program the stats to a very low temperature for the bulk of the day when you expect to be out, and need to account for unexpected periods of occupation. -- Hi John, This is exactly what we wanted . However, I guess the programmable room stats would turn a motorised valve on as well as firing the boiler. In the case of hitting the boost button, the boiler may start but the valves not open. Not sure if this is the way it works though? thanks Lee. |
#11
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Controlling new complex heating system
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#12
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Controlling new complex heating system
wrote:
If you particularly wanted to be able to force the heating on at a time when the programmable stats are already satisfied, there is nothing stopping you adding an override switch or programmer. A simple one that has a "boost" facility would allow you to push one button and have the heating run for an hour regardless of the stats being satisfied. However I am not quite sure why you would want to do that unless you plan to program the stats to a very low temperature for the bulk of the day when you expect to be out, and need to account for unexpected periods of occupation. -- This is exactly what we wanted . However, I guess the programmable room stats would turn a motorised valve on as well as firing the boiler. In the case of hitting the boost button, the boiler may start but the valves not open. Not sure if this is the way it works though? You would connect your override button(s)/programmer across the contacts of the room stat(s). That way it will fire the system/zone in exactly the same way as the stat. -- Cheers, John. /================================================== ===============\ | Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \================================================= ================/ |
#13
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Controlling new complex heating system
On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:21:41 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
That allows the stats that drive the valve motors to be on a different live..useful as you may want to link into the local ring main for that. Ooo, no, please. The entire heating system should really be fed via a single DP isolator switch. You don't want bits here and there live when other bits or not. Apart from the safety aspect when working on the system it's quite likely to confuse people if it acts strangely if a ring main trips. As this system is likely to "evolve" I'd run all the contacts of any device back to a central wiring cabinet and do the appropiate cross connections there. I've done that here and it makes changing things very simple, like adding pump over run or possibly replacing the relays with a PLC. -- Cheers Dave. |
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Controlling new complex heating system
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