Smart heating controls

jennifernil

At present we have 2 boilers that heat only the 4 huge radiators in each of the 2 big halls, plus a third one that is a combi boiler that heats only the corridor, utility room, kitchen, toilet area and small meeting room radiators, plus provides hot water to all taps, of which there are a total of 7.

All boilers are controlled by Danfoss timers that have up to 3 different settings per day over 7 days.  All radiators have TRVs.  There are no room stats.

The 2 big halls are used at different times on the various days, so we need to be able to set all boilers to different times.

Heating is only active when someone is actually coming to use the building, otherwise we have frost stats that can activate  heating if necessary.

The current set up  works well, but needs someone to visit weekly, which of course is no bad thing, to set or cancel time slots as required so as not to waste gas.   Also, sometimes meetings need to be cancelled at short notice, so this requires someone......at the moment me......to go to the  building to do that.

I started looking after the building, with assistance on the DIY front from my OH, back in 1995, when DD was a 10 year old Guide, ( she is 38 now) as  nobody else would take it on as it is  very tying.  I was a SAHM so had the time to do so.   Over the years we have had a lot of work done on the building, quite a bit of it done by my OH.   He still does various little jobs there.

  When OH retired in 2007, and we wanted to be away on holiday more, finding someone to step in was very difficult, and things often went wrong.      We did eventually find another retired   parent to take over, and I "retired" as hall keeper in 2017, but remained as Treasurer.    

 Now, the current person has had to give up as he needed a knee replacement, so I have had to step back in until we find a new volunteer.   This is very difficult as most parents are both working and just do not have the time to devote to looking after things.   Being  able to set and alter the heating remotely would be a big plus, 

ThisIsWeird

jennifernil said:

At present we have 2 boilers that heat only the 4 huge radiators in each of the 2 big halls, plus a third one that is a combi boiler that heats only the corridor, utility room, kitchen, toilet area and small meeting room radiators, plus provides hot water to all taps, of which there are a total of 7.

All boilers are controlled by Danfoss timers that have up to 3 different settings per day over 7 days.  All radiators have TRVs.  There are no room stats.

The 2 big halls are used at different times on the various days, so we need to be able to set all boilers to different times.

Heating is only active when someone is actually coming to use the building, otherwise we have frost stats that can activate  heating if necessary.

The current set up  works well, but needs someone to visit weekly, which of course is no bad thing, to set or cancel time slots as required so as not to waste gas.   Also, sometimes meetings need to be cancelled at short notice, so this requires someone......at the moment me......to go to the  building to do that.

I started looking after the building, with assistance on the DIY front from my OH, back in 1995, when DD was a 10 year old Guide, ( she is 38 now) as  nobody else would take it on as it is  very tying.  I was a SAHM so had the time to do so.   Over the years we have had a lot of work done on the building, quite a bit of it done by my OH.   He still does various little jobs there.

  When OH retired in 2007, and we wanted to be away on holiday more, finding someone to step in was very difficult, and things often went wrong.      We did eventually find another retired   parent to take over, and I "retired" as hall keeper in 2017, but remained as Treasurer.    

 Now, the current person has had to give up as he needed a knee replacement, so I have had to step back in until we find a new volunteer.   This is very difficult as most parents are both working and just do not have the time to devote to looking after things.   Being  able to set and alter the heating remotely would be a big plus, 

I feel your pain... There are never enough volunteers.

Could I have pics of these Danfoss timers, please? Where are they positioned - adjacent to each boiler?

Being able to remotely set - and alter in a few seconds - the schedules for each zone, is a real boon.

jennifernil

No pictures at present, they are there and I am at home.  Timers are next to each boiler, all boilers are in a small room next to theq entrance door.

ThisIsWeird

jennifernil said:

No pictures at present, they are there and I am at home.  Timers are next to each boiler, all boilers are in a small room next to theq entrance door.

No rush, obviously. 

Since you don't have room stats currently fitted, almost certainly you'll need to replace these Danfosses with Hive receivers, and then you place the Room Stats in the best location for each zone.

They might even be a straight swap for the receivers - might.

jennifernil

They look like this, but are not this brand

https://www.bes.co.uk/secure-single-channel-7-day-time-control-12143/

ThisIsWeird

That appears to have a standard backplate, so there's a fair chance the Hive receiver will clip straight on. But you may wish to swap them over in any case - not at all complex, but the power must be fully isolated.

Typhoon2000

If you have an old mobile phone you can use that as a detracted app controller for the second Tado system, instead of switching accounts.
Tado does not work on wifi. The bridge is hardwired to the router, and it communicates with the TRV via a low frequency, low power radio. You could run cable for each bridge and locate them where you want, centrally in the house. Alternatively something like a HomePlug will work too.

jennifernil

Yes, standard backplate.  These are not the original timers (from the mid 90s) but ones my OH fitted about 10 years back.  He is good at that sort of thing.

At present the timers just turn the boilers on/off at the  desired times, temperature in the rooms depends on the TRVs, when these all close the boiler(s) turn off, it is a fairly simple system.  Heating never needs to be on for longer than 4 hours in one go.

Really, what we need are just timers that can be set remotely, but such a thing does not seem to exist.

We cannot fit Smart TRVs as the kids are prone to fiddling with the TRVs.

jennifernil

This is the tado kit, same as the one we have....

https://www.screwfix.com/p/tado-v3-black-edition-wireless-heating-hot-water-smart-thermostat-starter-kit-black/701kg

though we also have the Smart TRVs.

Once we have internet installed in the building, February at the latest, I was thinking we could temporarily take our second tado system down there and try it out on one of the boilers.   By that time we will have been able to see if more than one tado on the same wifi will work OK, or whether we need something different

Typhoon2000

Well Tado ( and I am sure others) have child locks to disable manual control of the TRV. So you just set the timer and temperature on the app. You can also have a wireless temperature sensor in the room at a height where children won’t get to it, for manual override of the temperature if needed.