RE: Choosing an Advanced Thermostat for Home

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Heating is a real bone of contention IMO - I was having a discussion with a
friend last night who at one point said "It's turned chilly again -
I've had
to put the heating on and here I was hoping it had come warmer so I'd
turned
it off."

I know a lot of "us" (i.e. people) do it but just why should we
turn the
heating off in spring and back on again in autumn? For one thing it's not
good for the heating system as it allows the sludge to settle!

Surely if we have a cold spell then the heating should kick in
automatically
to keep things comfortable and if the weather takes a turn for the warm
then
the heating should throttle back accordingly?

I've had a little project on the back boiler (if you'll forgive the pun)
for
a while which has been a zoned (currently 10 zones) heating / cooling
controller written in HomeGate and using a touchscreen interface. It's not
"finished" yet as at the moment I have no provision for actually
implementing it in my house but it basically works around whether the house
is occupied or not - it assumes that we're generally "in" at
certain times
(in which case it works to one set of temperatures) and generally
"out" at
other times (in which case it works to a set of knockback temperatures) but
also modifies its in/out behaviour depending on whether it sees the house
occupied at the time or not. I've had it sat running attached to a demo rig
(using fake control outputs) and it looks like it should work OK but
generally it's just used to show people on the training courses a bit of
advanced functionality and they almost without exception have real problems
understanding why it doesn't have a "timer". :-D

Phil



> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Simon McCaughey
> Sent: 20 March 2007 16:43
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Choosing an Advanced Thermostat for Home
>
> Since we automated the heating in our home the thermostat is
> basically redundant.
>
> I use detailed timed programs, for example 10 mins on, 10
> minutes off, to control the overall temperature. Using
> various patterns the heating control of the house is very
> easy, and surprisingly very stable.
>
> The other problem with our thermostats is that they are in
> the hall and landing, and have no bearing on the heat in the
> important rooms.
>
> Sometimes I think we over-complicate things, our heating
> requires some human input - ie does it feel cold in the house
> - yes then heat on for 30 minutes/hour, no then 15 minutes
> per hour - simple!
>
> S.
>
>
>
>
> On 20/03/07, Mark McCall <lists@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Carlton Bale has an interesting blog post on his
> investigations into
> > choosing an Advanced Thermostat for his home. Well worth a
> read of you
> > are considering automating your heating/ventilation system...
> >
> > http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1862.html
> >
> > M.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Regards
>
> Simon
>
> ---
> "Think. It's not illegal yet."
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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