Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:46 pm
#1870700
I'm sure this has cropped up before but a search for heating brought back far too many hits and the home automation thread long departed from the "101" of it's title
Looking for recommendations for smartening up the home heating system.
My main requirement is future adaptability (and obviously relative cheapness. I am a pilot...)
The current set up is extremely dumb. We are in a fairly new build which is built to passivhaus standard (but without the certification). So we should be able to have the house heated and controlled fairly efficiently.
Our current water set up is:
Cold Water:
Heating
Domestic Hot Water:
Over time I want to improve the overall system but I imagine costs will be fairly significant so I need to do it in chunks as and when required.
I have access to two plumbers in the family so installation isn't a problem. I also have a tame electrician for anything that is beyond me or needs certificates. I am fairly happy with the principles of coding / rasp pi / arduino etc but I would need to be pointed at some worked examples or github projects to stand a chance.
What do I want in the mix:
Initial priorities:
In the future we will add solar hot water heating into a thermal store with an immersion and the ASHP as alternate sources. At this point I expect to switch over to the thermal store providing all of the hot water be it through a closed heating circuit or a coil heating incoming drinking water for the hot water taps. I would expect whatever control system I put in now to continue to be able to operate albeit with additional control of the system pumps and valves so that the heat source and the heat supplied are separated with the heat store in the middle of the 3 supplied circuits and 3 heating sources.
So far I have found the Honeywell Evohome system, it seems to tick all of my immediate boxes and appears to be fairly adaptable.
Does anyone have any experience with it?
Any other recommendations?
medals will be awarded to anyone who made it this far thanks in advance for any advice.
Looking for recommendations for smartening up the home heating system.
My main requirement is future adaptability (and obviously relative cheapness. I am a pilot...)
The current set up is extremely dumb. We are in a fairly new build which is built to passivhaus standard (but without the certification). So we should be able to have the house heated and controlled fairly efficiently.
Our current water set up is:
Cold Water:
- Pumped cold water supply from next door's borehole - pressure is around 1.5-2 bar
Heating
- Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) which is a closed circuit for heating only
- Upstairs - rooms are standard radiators controlled by TRV on each rad (They cope fine with heating the room to comfortable temp in the winter as the house is v.well insulated, windows are appropriately sized/oriented to minimise heat loss)
- Downstairs - Under Floor Heating (UFH) split into four zones with local wall mounted mechanical thermostats wired back to the manifold. Each zone is split into two loops so in theory they could be broken into 8 control zones if we really wanted to go to town.
- The absolute max water temp in the circuit is controlled by the ASHP control panel. The stats and TRVs then open/close on demand as required but with no control beyond a call for heat.
Domestic Hot Water:
- Immersion heater in a water storage tank, controlled by mechanical time clock... I know! ...house was built by a farmer (not The Farmer I hasten to add)...
Over time I want to improve the overall system but I imagine costs will be fairly significant so I need to do it in chunks as and when required.
I have access to two plumbers in the family so installation isn't a problem. I also have a tame electrician for anything that is beyond me or needs certificates. I am fairly happy with the principles of coding / rasp pi / arduino etc but I would need to be pointed at some worked examples or github projects to stand a chance.
What do I want in the mix:
Initial priorities:
- Control of the immersion heater. It will remain my only hot water source for a while yet. Ideally, fully customisable timed switching on and off, plus a boost option. But as a minimum, a 7-day programme with at least 2 on/off periods per day
- Change over from mech stats in UFH zones to electronic sensors. Reporting back to a hub and allowing me to control temp of each zone remotely. The main ASHP controller is not able to be interfaced with so the heating circuit will continue to flow 24/7 with water temp at a set range. But I do want to have more control of the zones.
- Control of the rads. We would like to set an individual room temp, ideally without adding room stats but happy to look at that if required (these would have to be wi-fi to work in the house). Ideally with the ability to set a 7-day timer routine along with temp set limits for each room (one rad per room).
In the future we will add solar hot water heating into a thermal store with an immersion and the ASHP as alternate sources. At this point I expect to switch over to the thermal store providing all of the hot water be it through a closed heating circuit or a coil heating incoming drinking water for the hot water taps. I would expect whatever control system I put in now to continue to be able to operate albeit with additional control of the system pumps and valves so that the heat source and the heat supplied are separated with the heat store in the middle of the 3 supplied circuits and 3 heating sources.
So far I have found the Honeywell Evohome system, it seems to tick all of my immediate boxes and appears to be fairly adaptable.
Does anyone have any experience with it?
Any other recommendations?
medals will be awarded to anyone who made it this far thanks in advance for any advice.