How do you control your heating?

[pservais]

Finally we bought a house in which I can unleash all of my automation dreams
One issue I have is how to control the heating.
Now we have a old Remeha w21 eco kettle and a honeywell chronotherm thermostat (opentherm connected).
I would like to control and read the temp for each room seperately with Domotiga, but how do I start?
Already I found the Danfoss Living Connect, FHT, Horstmann, opentherm gateway and other solutions, but I don't understand how to implement them in the current heating solution
After searching, reading and understanding the many topics on this forum and the internet I decided to ask the experts.

So how do you control and monitor your heating?
Does anyone can provide me with some usefull pointers to get started?

Tnx.
Patrick

[sj3fk3]

I'm not one of the experts, but I'm just ahead of you. What I did is buy stuff from ELV MAX! to remote control the radiator valves. Oregon thermo/hydro meters to exactly measure temperature and humidity connected them to domotiga with RFXtrx433 USB 433.92MHz Transceiver. It's good thing to have anyway, because it also let's you interact with klikaanklikuit stuff (and more). Next project is the Opentherm Gateway (getting one soon).

I strongly sugest more or less the same route.. First install stuff to really measure (and record) and add more controls from there (meten is weten).

n.b.
ELV MAX! support in domotiga is still in development.

[raymonvdm]

I started with an RFXtrx433 to control KaKu and later on also added Cresta temp sensors, after that i have build myself an OpenThermGateway. Now i`m able to control the setpoint of the Honeywell Thermostat and therefore i`m able to enable/disable the heating.

The next step is to replace all radiator valves with valves that can support thermostatic knobs. When replacing is finished i would like to make it room controllable but i`m not sure which solution to choose

[pendul]

Just a new question, which relates to this topis: I have bought the "thermostat-set FHT8" from Conrad to control the radiator. This packages includes two items: FHT8R-3 and FHT8V-3

I know that for the controller this set is not two way (for that I need the FHT80b). But is there a way to directly control the valve (FHT8V-3) with Domotiga? (or even read out any data from it) Because what ever I do, I can not get it working in Domotiga.

The CUL interface I am using is flashed with the last available firmware; in dmesg this is my output:

[ 8246.750197] usb 3-2: USB disconnect, device number 2
[ 8249.424100] usb 3-2: new full-speed USB device number 3 using uhci_hcd
[ 8249.597179] usb 3-2: New USB device found, idVendor=03eb, idProduct=204b
[ 8249.597193] usb 3-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 8249.597203] usb 3-2: Product: CUL868
[ 8249.597209] usb 3-2: Manufacturer: busware.de
[ 8249.600391] cdc_acm 3-2:1.0: ttyACM1: USB ACM device

and the output for lsusb:

Bus 003 Device 003: ID 03eb:204b Atmel Corp. LUFA USB to Serial Adapter Project

So the CUL interface is (as far as I know ) correctly detected.

I can also control the valve with the FHEM-software, but no results what so ever in Domotiga. I do not even see any available CUL-devices, I am a bit stuck here, any hints or tips?

[christiand]

At the moment I am trying to get the zwave danfoss living connect radiator thermostats working under Domotiga with the help of Alex (he does all the real work and I just test ). Pairing it with a HRT4-ZW Set it should let heating be controlled independed of each room from Domotiga. The problem is that the danfoss thermostats and its z-wave standards support isnt implemented that well by Danfoss itself. Hopefully it will work in the end.

[alphadomo]

Hi Greg,

I'm new on the forum. I'm actually looking for a heating solution but not only. After many research my choice goes for domotiga. I have already the rpi with raspbmc + logitech media server ( squeezebox ) + domotiga installed. I use another computer for the client and maybe open remote for the IHM. I have spent a lot of time to search some valve for radiator zwave bit expensive and apparently the result is not so good right now. Then I have find the ELV valve exactly what I need. I would like to do like you use external sensor like the oregon THN132N. Could you provide me a feedback on how work your system.

Kind regards,
Thomas

[sj3fk3]

Domotiga works really well with http://www.rfxcom.com/ and can read stuff like THN132N, but if you (only) after the roomtemperature the MAX ELV valve has that information as well. Currently domotiga still needs to implement the protocol fully. But if you give them a notice you also want this, they might do it faster

[alphadomo]

Thanks you for the reply. So you have the ELV MAX and its works great, the sensor give you the good temperature ? I would prefer to have in each room an external sensor like the THN132N and then I control the valve. I not trust the sensor inside the valve. Normally when you have to install a thermostat its all the time at 1.50m high nor the sensor in the valve close to the radiator that sound not really accurate.

[kriz83]

Mmm ... seems everybody is using radiator valves ...
My home is heated using hot air which is blown through vents... Anyone controlling that ?
I don't need to specify the temp in each room, just global on/off with set temperature would be awesome !

[sj3fk3]

Thanks you for the reply. So you have the ELV MAX and its works great, the sensor give you the good temperature ? I would prefer to have in each room an external sensor like the THN132N and then I control the valve. I not trust the sensor inside the valve. Normally when you have to install a thermostat its all the time at 1.50m high nor the sensor in the valve close to the radiator that sound not really accurate.

The valves only report the temperature when you change the setting and are indeed not that accurate as sensors like the THN132N that also report humidity. I uses sensors like that in every room. The valve temp is nice to have extra control.

[alphadomo]

Ok thank you. I will do the same, external sensor and the ELV just for control the valve on the Radiator.

kriz83
Mmm ... seems everybody is using radiator valves ...
My home is heated using hot air which is blown through vents... Anyone controlling that ?
I don't need to specify the temp in each room, just global on/off with set temperature would be awesome !


You could use one THN132N and a simple on/off wireless depending your protocol. And then set in domotiga an Event when the set point 21degree for exemple is reach switch off the contact.