Re: Control central heating via PC, ideas please?

["Jon Wilkins" <jonpdwilkins@xxxxxxxxx>]

Gary,

I am sure you will get lots of replies on this subject as there are a
numbe=
r
of ways discussed occasionally and on the AH forums.  There are a number of
vendors & routes to getting better control... many will give
impriovements
without a PC, but that will depend on how far you want to go, and what
leve=
l
of control you currently have.

The simplest solution to get lots of time zones is probably to *replacing
your RF Stat *with a timer/temp ("programmable stat") to vary
temperature
demand by the time of day... e.g during nighttime (in the winter) you want
to keep the chill of the place, so 15C is adequate.  Early mornings you are
getting up going out ... 18C... evenings at home you might want 19C etc...
you get the idea.
**
Of course this wont justify the new mini-itx PC though :-)

You could go further and zone the property into different room/floor zones.
Then you could vary temperature by location & time  (e.g. why heat the
bedrooms during the early evening if you're always in the lounge?; why heat
the lounge in the morning when all you do is get up, wash & go to
work?).
This would require some wet changes to put valves in to split the CH pipes
so you can independantly control either different rooms or different floors
of the house (Floors means less zones than rooms, but is often OK because
our homes tend to be organised so different floors have different functions
... bedroms on one, living on another etc).

At this point there are multi-zone controllers, which could be hooked up to
time variable stats.  Some will interface with a PC.  Or more complicated
H=
A
type solutions that require/rely heavily on a PC being available.

I'm part-way through a similar small project; we needed to replace our 15
years old boiler (it was burning incredible amounts of gas and still not
heating our house).  So I took the opportunity to get the plumbing modified
so I've now got a different temp zone per floor.  I decided to use the
Idratek products and am putting in a mix of per-floor and per-room control,
with each zone/room having it's own temperature/time profile.    There are
though, many other options at this level depending on your preferences
&
budget.


Have a look on the AH forums ... there's a dedicated CH section....




On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 7:15 PM, Gary <questuk1@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>   Hi,
>
> With the just announced price rise in gas prices, I think it's time to
> see if i can save money by controlling my boiler using a lower Power
> PC such as a mini ITX. Then I can have lots of different time zones
> and more accurate control of the temperature at giving points in the
day.
>
> For example, I have a RF wall mounted thermostat, but you can only
> adjust this in 1=B0 intervals, and sometimes that can make it too hot
in
> a room, wasting gas.
>
> I'm not sure how to interface and control the boiler yet may be
> Ethernet if there is such a way? or perhaps using RF control?
>
> As I work electronics that side isn't too hard its more the software I
> will have trouble with?
>
> Has anyone attempted this on the group?
>
> I'm sure many of us now have a requirement for such control, so any
> comments welcome and also any ideas.
>
> Regards Gary
>
>=20=20
>



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