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 Posted: Tuesday Sep 18th, 2012 06:35 am
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lwillerton
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Hi All,

I am after some hardware / configuration advice around z-wave and / or other way of tackling the problem.

I have a traditional heating system central heating plus hot water tank for water which is 98%+ efficient. I have been told in the colder months to run the system 24/7 and this is where the problem starts. I have one room stat in the hall way which is the coldest room , this is the only way of setting the temperature for the boiler to work to and therefore whilst the hall might be at 17 degrees the other rooms might be at 22 degrees. Which means whilst we are asleep or out of the house the vast majority of the house is running at a temperature higher than needed or the rooms are cold when we get home.

So what I want to do as a fix this year is start with 3 danfross z-wave radiator valves http://zwave-products.co.uk/shop/article_206/danfoss two for the lounge room and one for the bedroom.

I also need a boiler times boiler controller and  another z-wave wall mounted room stat for the hall way. Any suggestions welcome on what product is best would be welcome as there seem to be lots and I really don’t know which one to choose.

What I was hoping to achieve is when comfort is in away mode the heating system drops to a lower temperature but not so low the boiler is heating the house from 2 or 3 degree temperatures, I guess this would be controlled by a message to the wall mounted room stat or boiler controller.

Depending on movement around the house and time of day I would want to heat the lounge or bedroom to a pleasant level for using which is easy to program in comfort once the z-wave device is included and associated (not so easy to do I have found)

 

Hope this makes sense and if you could come up with ideas before I spend a few hundred pounds on hardware that doesn’t deliver it would be much appreciated.

Best Regards

Lee



 Posted: Tuesday Sep 18th, 2012 06:44 am
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Vangelis
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Hi Lee,

Am assuming your also running a Comfort II system with a ZWave 3 UCM (2 way comms)?

You might want to have a looksee at LightwaveRF products as they do the Rad controls (similar to danfoss) and thermostats etc - Comfort has recently announced its compatibility with the LightwaveRF products (via UCM and LightwaveRF WiFi bridge)

Not tried it personally but it is something I am planning so would also be interested which ever products you decide to go with :)

Vangelis...



 Posted: Tuesday Sep 18th, 2012 10:14 pm
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lwillerton
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Cheers for the feedback I will keep you posted.



 Posted: Monday Oct 8th, 2012 09:29 pm
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lwillerton
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Hi All,

I think I am going to go for a Horstmann CentaurPlus ZW and thermostat, but will talk to them tomorrow as this implies a combi boiler setup and mine is a traditional boiler with hot water tank.

Just wondering if anyone had any experience with this kit? and if they function ok?

Has anyone thought of a way of reporting low battery status of z-wave devices in to comfort?

Cheers

Lee

  





 Posted: Wednesday Jan 9th, 2013 09:18 pm
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lab-art
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How did you get on with this?



 Posted: Wednesday Jan 9th, 2013 10:19 pm
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lwillerton
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I have not moved forward at all, which is frustrating as I am sure I could reduce energy bills by reducing the temp when alarm set to away mode.

If you have any idea I would really like to hear them.



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 07:29 am
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lab-art
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I am at the moment I'm doing a full re-furb on my place.  I am contemplating installing a comfort system and one of the areas where I am still fully in the dark is the heating system.  I know that there are LWRF products, however, I have decided to stay away from LWRF for lighting so have thought about zwave instead.  They also have wireless radiator valves.  I have heard others that have used the temperture guadge on the comfort switches in conjuction wireless valves.  Could this work?



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 08:50 am
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juwi_uk
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I'm interested on what the solutions are for this too as I use ZWave for my lighting too. At the moment my heating is on the Honeywell SmartFit system and I connect to comfort via my old UCM/Smartfit. But both Smartfit and UCM/Smartfit are respectively discontinued products so want something to replace with.

Lab-art; the Zwave valves you are talking about are presumably on each radiator aren't they; surely the system here needs to be based on the main valve in the heating system too for switching between heat/water/both etc.

Some clarity from Cytech on what we can do for the Zwave world and heating now and on roadmap would be good. Can I do a replacement for my UCM/Smartfit solution in Zwave is a good start!

Julian



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 09:00 am
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juwi_uk
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Actually these look interesting as they are Zwave enabled.

http://www.horstmann.co.uk/central-heating.php

J



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:16 am
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Firstly ANY actuator valve needs VERY CAREFUL planning with regard to the fitting.

If you manage to get the correct thread don't assume that this is the end of it! You will need to check the functionality in full as the 'throw' of the solenoid pin may not be correct.

If this if interest let me know and ill post more when i have the time.......



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:27 am
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lab-art
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Yes please.  Any information you could post would be great.  Thanks.



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:27 am
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lab-art
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juwi_uk wrote: Actually these look interesting as they are Zwave enabled.

http://www.horstmann.co.uk/central-heating.php

J


Can these be connected to the Comfort system?

W



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:41 am
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ident
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In principle, yes as Z-wave is a standard which Z-wave enabled products must comply with. However different products may have their own idiosyncracies

It so happens that another user may be sending us one of these to test, so if that happens we will share the results



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 12:10 pm
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wexfordman
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I think one thing missing from the overall comfort suite, is a decent affordable heating controller. By this I mean a device where it is possible to enter temps, times and schedules etc relatively easily be the end user which update relevent counters etc within comfort.

The devices should simply be an input device, it would not have to control and specific heating interface etc, comfort is well capable of doing that, but it lacks a bit in regard to user input device for heating control.

I'm velbus enabled, so was looking at something like the velbus vmb1tc, but wondering could i get this to work through comfort! Actually, that question is prob for a different forum, so Ill post a new thread in the velbus section on that.

Point regarding an input device overall for comfort hating control still stands though, woudl beinterested in any opinions!



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 06:21 pm
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OK

Part of the reason that heating is 'complicated'is because it directly involves two disciplines - plumbing and electrics.

In order to control something properly it is best that you understand how it works and thus its strengths and limitations.

Your plumbing may consist of something to heat the water (usually the boiler) a means of storing the water and a means of getting it around the house - usually a hot water circuit and a heating circuit. Laid on top of this is the controller which in its most basic form will be a means of measuring the room temperature and a way of operating the system when heat is required.

Usually systems that store water for use in radiators will incorporate a timer that limits the use of the boiler to peak demand times and that can 'readily' be adjusted by the end user. With a heating system that incorporated under floor heating the time lag is such that in many cases there is no timer..... which leads me onto one of most important features of a modern heating controller - the ability to set the heating control to different 'modes'.


It appears to be relatively standard to have heating modes that closely reflect the operational modes of Comfort, Away, night, day and vacation. The mode is based around the temperature variation of the set point. So for example day mode may be equal to the set point, where as night mode may be (say) 5 deg below the set point and vacation mode would be set to frost protect etc.

Hey presto the actual interaction between comfort and a heating control can be so simple to implement in a basic form where by if someone leaves the house (sets Comfort to away mode) the heating goes to 5 deg below the set point.

This might actually encourage some people to set their alarm to vacation mode once in a while.


If you want more just let me know.........



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 09:43 pm
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wexfordman
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I agree, it is relatively simple to implement a basic heating control solution in comfort. But it pretty much needs and engineer to set it up. How do you make it easy for the end user to, for example, change the set back temperature, or adjust the temperature for a zone. These should be things that are relatively easy to do for the end user and require an easy to use interface.

What are the options for this? Should or could cytech look at a simple heating controller that is along the lines of an Scs but with a simple lcd screen that would allow users to input temp settings which would feed into a comfort counter and timer settings?

Again, there are loads of options and ways of turning heating on/off, and reading temp settings using lots of comfort interfaces, what's missing is the user friendly input device!



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:24 pm
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lwillerton
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Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback, I would love to see a wiring diagram. I have seen the info in the comfort manuals. However, I would just like to see something that has actually been implemented and the hardware used.

I think because we live in a smart phone / apps world the answer for use interfaces starts here I think. There are lots of products and comfort seem to interface with most of them, but personally I don't want to have 2 or 3 other boxes I just want to use comfort.

Cheers

Lee



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:29 pm
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wexfordman
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Yep, the smart phone has definitely changed how we interface with comfort, the app has literally improved the product 100 fold,, I can't praise it enough.

Again, I havmt figure out how to input or vary temp levels via the appeither, not sure if it can be done, or how to go about it.

I do think that while the app is a ggreat interface, some forms of in wall thermostat or input device is still required.

I do have a wiring diagram of my setup, I will dig it out and send it on. I use velbus not z wave but the principle would be the same irrespective of what technology you are using for control.

Last edited on Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:30 pm by wexfordman



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:34 pm
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lwillerton
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nice one thanks



 Posted: Thursday Jan 10th, 2013 10:50 pm
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wexfordman
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There is a wiring diagram near the end of this https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1zlDoqP2HdxUGVJdnY3WGtYamM

I am using Scs switches for activities voting heating as well as the iphone app. I have a 3 zone oil fired heating system, and also a stove with back boiler. Comfort knows when the back boiler is on and works the heating accordingly. The programming is pretty straight forward as the implementation is not complex and to be honest does not use the hardware to its fullest extent.

The Scs switches have temp sensors on them so I can tell what the temp is in each room. I havmt implemented any temperature based heat control however, purely for the reasons stated above, I can't figure out an easy way for user input to change temp settings



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