feedback on heating plan

[enix]

Hi all,

we're in the middle of renovating our house and have reached the point where we need to decide on heating. The current kettle and thermostat both need replacement so we can start from scratch. I'm pretty new to domotica but have been writing software both for fun and profit for many years.

The house comprises of the following rooms and floors;

First/Base floor;
- living room with Robot floor heating (1). This is a new system as well, never turned on so far.

Second floor:
- five radiators for two sleeping rooms, a bath room and two (small) study rooms

Third floor:
- four radiators for the master bed room and a bath room

What I want to achieve is controlling the different temperature zones using a central linux system. I have a couple of Sparmatic / Aldi / Thermy radiator valves (2) that I want to patch with an nRF24L01 RF module (3) and update with new software (4) to direct the water flow.

The setup I'm leaning towards is the following;

- Remeha Quinta PRO 45S with an external boiler Or Remeha Calenta 40L CW6
- iSense thermostat
- Opentherm Gateway connected to a Raspberry PI
- Some software

Are there people here that control their heater using the OTG or is this primarily used to monitor?

Also, what systems are suitable for controlling the water flow to floor heating? Can I simply block the main line using some valve or should I close each floor zone separately? I know Robot has some RF systems as well, any experiences with this in a domotica setup?

There are probably tons other questions that will arise during this project, but for now I'm looking for feedback, general pointers and choice of hardware.

Thanks for you time and efforts!

cheers,
Ernst


references
---
1: robot; http://www.robot-vloerverwarming.nl/?On ... daard_unit
2: radiator valve; http://www.conrad.be/ce/nl/product/5603 ... laar-K-Wit
3: RF module; http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/ ... F/nRF24L01
4: Radiator software; https://github.com/gnbl/sparmatic2011

related topics
---
http://www.domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=127
http://www.domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?t=6801
http://www.domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?t=6958

[raymonvdm]

I use the OTG for controlling my heating when i don`t use the wall thermostat. I have two scripts one for setting day_mode (high temp) and one for night_mode(low temp) which can be triggerd by the mobile phones (HSTouch) or my alarm clock (HomeSeer script) The OTG also logs the changes tot the wall thermostat to see if someone is touching it.

Al radiator`s are equipt with a manual valve and are controlled by hand (for now)

I know Honeywell also has 24v valves which can be used by a normal open/close thermostat in every room. You can also use an Relayboard for this

http://www.plusonderdelen.nl/producten/ ... lc-nc.html
http://denkovi.com/page/22/usb-eight-ch ... tware.html

If it is possible i would suggest to pre-wire each radiator and use wireless only on existing builds (i have a lot of wireless issues in my three story house with concrete floors (for instance i have an Wireless access-point on each floor)

However i`m thinking about one of the following solutions
http://www.conrad.be/ce/nl/search/?sear ... 2C_eq3-max

or

Danfoss Z-wave thermostatic knobs (if homeseer will support them)
http://www.hashop.nl/Webwinkel-Product- ... ostat.html

[enix]

Hi raymonvdm,

thanks for your reply.

After some more browsing on the forum and internet I stumbled upon the equipment page of the OTG. There it lists (in great detail) each boiler / thermostat message that is supported by different vendors. I've also read a thread on this forum that the iSense can be configured to accept an external Set Point override, so all in all the Remeha family seems like a fairly safe bet.

message list: http://tclcode.com/opentherm/matrix.cgi
iSense setpoint override: http://www.domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8089 and http://www.domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=8146

Thanks for your suggestion on pre-wiring. I've been thinking about this and simply need to give it a try. The house itself is pretty old (i.e. build somewhere around 1900) so everything is wood. But I do have troubles receiving WIFI so the RF stuff may also fail. Perhaps I can install a local (wired) repeater on each floor that can act as a router.

I'll have a look at the Honeywell 24v valve as well to see if it fits my Robot Floor heating.

cheers!

[marck]

Hi Enix,

Just wondering, have you considered electric floorheating. And if that's not the case, why did you make that choice.

I'm similar situation, where I need to make some important choices.

Rg
Marck

[enix]

Hi Marck,

no not really to be honest. I've always been under the impression that electrical heating in way more expensive, both in running costs and environmental impact. Since we've have to re-do the complete first floor with concrete, installing conventional floor heater was the only option I considered logical.

cheers,
Ernst

[marck]

I actually thought that in terms of cost, the difference is currently marginal between gas and electricity, given that the price of gas has increased significantly. But I have no data to back this up.

But, thanks for your reply anyway

[raymonvdm]

Although the price of gas has raised i think it is the best choices to go for traditional heating (water heated by a gas driven boiler) in the future you can choose to add a solarboiler or a WTW unit.

The price of the OTG is actually quite low (arround 60 euro`s for a complete unit) and i would really encourage u to test one out, because there are no thermostats with this features