No offence Dave whilst you could wire it up the average electrician has no chance in my experience, I've had to sit and explain how to wire honeywell S plan in the past. Used to do a lot of work inside some of the more sensitive areas at rosyth dockyard and had a lot of problems getting controls engineers in as they hadn't got clearance and had to be escorted. We had a lot of good sparks, I thought we could get our guys to run sensor wiring etc. Was a bloody disaster.
- Thread starter reb78
- Start date
Thanks all, some good options here that I need to look into.
I think it might help if I give a bit more info.
The three boilers are all seperate and serve two buildings each. All are fed from a rather too small (1200l) oil tank. I have marked them on the diagram below. The 4 bed house is ours, the rest are setup as holiday lets. B1 is a larger boiler than B2 and B3. When we moved in, the POs had set this up so that for each boiler, controls were in one building and a thermostat in the other. The building with the controls just operated off of the boiler stat and the one with the thermostat only circulated heat when the stat called for it. The plumber is working on zoning these properly so that they all work off of independent timers and thermostats. At the moment though, these are all in the cottages and you have to go in to alter them and they are open to fiddling with by guests. Some but not all of the cottages have hot water tanks: so our house, and the one next to it - fed by B1, one of the pair fed by B2 and one of the pair fed by B3. The cottage without a hot water tank is fed hot water by next door - this isnt as big an issue as it seems as the bathrooms are all electric showers so the hot water is only for the kitchen sink and bathroom basin and is plenty.
Basically, I want to achieve the following for each cottage:
- Timer controls so that when guests are in the heating (and hot water where a tank is present) will come on in the morning and evening at preset times
- I don't want guests to be able to change preset times or thermostat settings
- Plumber is working on putting thermostats in where there are none and zoning as above so control can be for each cottage rather than each pair (dont ask me why it wasnt set up like this initially - the plumber is as perplexed as me as to why anyone would have set it up like this)
- I would like to be able to monitor the temps remotely (so as to be able to see when a cottage is actually cold and then put the heating on)
- I would like to be able to boost the heating and alter the timings remotely (say we have an old couple in who dont go out much - we would be happy to put the heating on for longer for them but this is easier if programmed without having to go into their cottage)
- I would like to be able to turn the heating off remotely (invariably if a guest leaves in the morning, I might not remember to turn the heating off until that evening and then it waits until the next day as I am lazy and dont want to get up and go outside!)
- We do have a WiFi Mesh system that covers all of the cottages - although currently it is two networks (each is fed by a separate 4G sim in a router)
Thats all actually pretty basic I think? I could make it more complex in our house but I have log burners in the main house so actually have the heating turned off a lot of the time although we will be adding a Rayburn that will feed into the CH.
The Inspire Heating Control system looks like it would do it for around £230 per cottage for a wireless CH/DHW version. The Google Nest looks a bit cheaper even - can you lock features on the Nest??
If I am honest, I dont have the time to try and set up anything like a Pi driven system - would love to learn but it will be one of those things I dont get round to.
Also, I realise this wont necessarily save much once the initial outlay is spent but it is surprising how fast that oil tank goes down when these boilers are all on. Without some careful management it could be emptied in a month with these three boilers on. Bigger driver is to save wasting oil (as it just annoys me) but mainly convenience of not having to go in while guests are there (as its intrusive) and being able to control things remotely (even if we are away for a day or two). I dont want people to be cold but I have an internal fit when I see windows open and the boiler blasting away!
I think it might help if I give a bit more info.
The three boilers are all seperate and serve two buildings each. All are fed from a rather too small (1200l) oil tank. I have marked them on the diagram below. The 4 bed house is ours, the rest are setup as holiday lets. B1 is a larger boiler than B2 and B3. When we moved in, the POs had set this up so that for each boiler, controls were in one building and a thermostat in the other. The building with the controls just operated off of the boiler stat and the one with the thermostat only circulated heat when the stat called for it. The plumber is working on zoning these properly so that they all work off of independent timers and thermostats. At the moment though, these are all in the cottages and you have to go in to alter them and they are open to fiddling with by guests. Some but not all of the cottages have hot water tanks: so our house, and the one next to it - fed by B1, one of the pair fed by B2 and one of the pair fed by B3. The cottage without a hot water tank is fed hot water by next door - this isnt as big an issue as it seems as the bathrooms are all electric showers so the hot water is only for the kitchen sink and bathroom basin and is plenty.
Basically, I want to achieve the following for each cottage:
- Timer controls so that when guests are in the heating (and hot water where a tank is present) will come on in the morning and evening at preset times
- I don't want guests to be able to change preset times or thermostat settings
- Plumber is working on putting thermostats in where there are none and zoning as above so control can be for each cottage rather than each pair (dont ask me why it wasnt set up like this initially - the plumber is as perplexed as me as to why anyone would have set it up like this)
- I would like to be able to monitor the temps remotely (so as to be able to see when a cottage is actually cold and then put the heating on)
- I would like to be able to boost the heating and alter the timings remotely (say we have an old couple in who dont go out much - we would be happy to put the heating on for longer for them but this is easier if programmed without having to go into their cottage)
- I would like to be able to turn the heating off remotely (invariably if a guest leaves in the morning, I might not remember to turn the heating off until that evening and then it waits until the next day as I am lazy and dont want to get up and go outside!)
- We do have a WiFi Mesh system that covers all of the cottages - although currently it is two networks (each is fed by a separate 4G sim in a router)
Thats all actually pretty basic I think? I could make it more complex in our house but I have log burners in the main house so actually have the heating turned off a lot of the time although we will be adding a Rayburn that will feed into the CH.
The Inspire Heating Control system looks like it would do it for around £230 per cottage for a wireless CH/DHW version. The Google Nest looks a bit cheaper even - can you lock features on the Nest??
If I am honest, I dont have the time to try and set up anything like a Pi driven system - would love to learn but it will be one of those things I dont get round to.
Also, I realise this wont necessarily save much once the initial outlay is spent but it is surprising how fast that oil tank goes down when these boilers are all on. Without some careful management it could be emptied in a month with these three boilers on. Bigger driver is to save wasting oil (as it just annoys me) but mainly convenience of not having to go in while guests are there (as its intrusive) and being able to control things remotely (even if we are away for a day or two). I dont want people to be cold but I have an internal fit when I see windows open and the boiler blasting away!
sako243
Member
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- My mansion in Wales
- my Aga has a bigger tank than that (1350l), the main house is 4500l
daleyd
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- 10,419
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- Wrexham, North Wales
Surely you would want the ability of your guests/tenants to be able to alter the temperatures? Maybe only until the next program change when it goes back to the programmed settings (ie not permanent changes) but I would have thought the ability for them to change settings is a fairly fundamental requirement.
Perhaps within a range or at least with a maximum they cant override - i.e. say 16C (dont really care what the lower end is) to 24C but I don't want them whopping it up to 30C and then opening windows....
