Smart controller for large heating system

[RichD1]

We have 17 radiators spread over three floors in our house, so to use something like Wiser TRVs is prohibitive. However, it is possible to divide the system up into 4 heat zones using 2 port valves (or is there a better solution?) controlled say through Wiser smart plugs and then use a combination of Wiser TRVs and Thermostats to control each room or combination of rooms.

In practise the middle floor is not used regularly just occasionally for our kids when they come home or for guests. So one zone valve would be adequate plus a Wiser thermostat. The top floor is our master bedroom so a couple of TRVs in the bedroom and en-suite would probably suffice. The ground floor is quite open plan apart from the hallway and has five rads spread around the area. So again, maybe a strategically placed thermostat would suffice.

Does anyone know if the Wiser App can provide control for the zone valves?

 

[omega015]

Something like honeywell evohome or other smart TRV's will give you control over each room to create your own zones. Why do you say the wiser trv's are prohibitive? Looking at the wiser trv page they say individual radiator control too.

 

[RichD1]

Due to cost.

 

[omega015]

While you could use motorized valves to create zones for the floors / bigger areas, do you have the access to the pipes? Have the cable runs from the motor to where they will be wired and controlled from? Given a simplified zone creation using those would still cost at least £150-200 I would suggest perhaps starting with smart TRV's for the mostly used rooms where you want control and putting the middle floor rads on low settings then as you can allocate funds to more TRV's slowly upgrade each rad as you can. It will give you greater flexibility in the long run and keep things simply without having to mess around with pipe runs, cables etc.. not to mention those valves can stick or you need to gain access to put them on bypass etc...

 

[ericmark]

I have started to install Wiser, but as yet no Wiser TRV heads, I have three types, Kasa, Energenie, and eQ-3 the latter were the cheapest, cost me £15 each in 2019, I have 9 programmable TRV heads, and 5 non programmable, three thermostats and 2 zone valves, the zone valves allow me to turn 4 rooms which are arranged as a self contained flat off, but in the main only need thermostats of linked TRV heads in key rooms.

So TRV heads, can be simple wax, can't really see the point using them, but still have 5 left as said, OK at £5 each you can get them cheap, but I find a pain trying to work out what *123456 means in degrees C. And a quick google and these showing at £15 each, so seems pointless not to have programmable TRV heads, the Terrier i30 and the eQ-3 come as just programmable, the eQ-3 also has a bluetooth version which allows you to pair them when two radiators in the same room, but will only pair to one phone, and only show temperature set, not the actual temperature of the room, the slightly more expensive Kasa is wifi, so can connect to multi-phones and to Nest Mini system so can be set with voice control, same with the Energenie, the Energenie will connect to a wall thermostat, but the wrong way around, wall thermostat sets TRV temperature not the TRV using the wall thermostat as a hub to turn on the boiler.

But in real terms if the coldest room has a Wiser thermostat which will start boiler, then other rooms only need to control the flow in the room they are in, OK if we have a set of rooms heated 9 am to 10 pm, and another set of rooms heated 10 pm to 9 am, then two linked TRV heads, for the two time zones, but only in the coldest room.

I have a wall thermostat in the hall and living room of main house, hall controls overnight, and living room during the day, and it seems to work well, and a staggered start with just 10 minutes between each TRV head calling for heat, gets the radiators hot in sequence so important rooms heat up first.

Tried using geofencing with Energenie and it was a failure, found the anti-hysteresis was OTT, and to heat a room to 20ºC by 8 am, had to set to 22ºC at 7 am, and then back to 20ºC at 8 am. Also tried geofencing with Nest Gen 3, this was useless as no way to set at how many miles away it starts the reheat, only control was the comfort and eco setting, never tried geofencing with Wiser, it uses the IFTTT as does Energenie I think this now costs.

Biggest cost is the 20 batteries each year for the TRV heads and wall thermostat.