1 year on, still looking to "HA my heating"

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

OK, so work rather forced me to postpone my plans to HA-ify my central
heating system for a while, but I'm back on the case now, I have
budgetary approval from the "FD" (aka SWMBO), and British Gas
today
refused to certify my current boiler safe, so that rather puts the
pressure on to sort something out.



There are just sooooo many choices available and decisions to make that
I am having a hard time seeing the wood for the trees, so any advice,
thoughts, experiences from the group would be most welcome!



The main decision drivers are:



I have a mains-pressure combi boiler & standard radiators. The boiler
*will* need replacing, so I need to select the "best" (most
suitable)
replacement. I have a preference currently for a Vaillant model, since I
have heard only good things about these, but I am open to any
suggestions regarding this choice. I have fairly low mains water
pressure, (Thames water!) so I need a boiler that will work well in
these conditions. Clearly I will be replacing with a condensing model,
but I have no desire to re-engineer my heating system, so I will be
staying with a mains pressure combi design, to keep the job to
(hopefully) a straightforward boiler swap-out. Important considerations
for the boiler choice are the best flow rate available (given our
already low mains pressure, so minimal losses in the boiler itself are
key), and the fastest response time to produce hot water (to wit I
believe there are models that maintain a small reservoir internally of
water that is kept "hot and ready") - just like SWMBO... ;-)
(perhaps that's too much information!)



I have Comfort G2 installed, and I want this to be the main control
system for the HA control over the heating. - Specifically, I want
Comfort responses able to switch the heating based on alarm state, and
the ability to manually control and monitor the system status both
locally from any location in the house, and remotely via phone or web.



I have CBUS lighting installed, and I have a CBUS UCM linking this to
Comfort. Thus CBUS switches anywhere in the house can trigger Comfort
responses. I also have a CBUS PAC for more complex logic/processing
where required.



I have a 24x7 HA PC running Homeseer, this is fully integrated with
Comfort via a UCM and a Comfort plug-in. This is not to be regarded as
part of the "core" system, since a PC is not guaranteed to be
100%
reliable (although mine *is* pretty damn stable as it happens). What
this does give me however, is the web interface into Comfort, and all
the additional "nice to have" layers on top of the core
functionality.



I have a CAT5 cable run going to each of my radiators, installed in
anticipation of wanting to install remotely controllable rad valves at
some point. I currently have TRV's on all but one of my rads.



Zoned control might be "nice", but I don't view it as an
essential
requirement; - we don't have zoned control now, so we won't miss what
we've never had, plus we live in an old, leaky Victorian house, so
"zones" are a little bit of a nonsense here, since heat moves
around
between rooms all the time anyway, with not much we can do to stop it! -
The house is, pretty much, 1 big open plan zone in effect...



I don't need independent control of hot water & heating. In fact I
don't
need any control of hot water at all (after all, it can't turn the taps
on for me can it!) - actually, yes - I *do* know that I *could* in
theory automate taps to do auto-filling of the bath for instance, but
that's for the next house!. All I want this time round is heating
control.



Oh, and I always have a preference for a wired control system over a
wireless one where possible, since I have yet to experience a wireless
system that has never let me down. (with the possible exception of my
DECT phones?). On that note, X10 as a control system is a no-no as well,
- just not reliable enough, and I'm in the process of expunging
virtually all X10 from my house anyway.



Based on the above information, I'm thinking that maybe the Honeywell
Smartfit system would be a good fit for my needs... - Does anyone here
have one of these? - does anyone here have one integrated with Comfort?
Does it work with my design of heating system (i.e. mains pressure
combi) - and what the **** is the difference between "S-plan"
& "Y-plan"
anyway?



Anyone care to offer any other suggestions? - obviously I've looked at
the Honeywell Hometronic system as well, but this does seem like massive
overkill for my requirements. I am absolutely set on the integration
with Comfort; - I don't want to bring into the house another disparate
HA system with its own control mechanisms... - Integration is key! I saw
quite a few systems at the Smarthome show last month, but almost without
exception, they were closed, proprietary systems with their own
controllers and so on.



Right, I think I've rambled on long enough now...  Thanks for reading
this far!



Paul G.









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