Re: Z-Wave Pool Thermostat with Water Temperature Sensor

[Richard Kaplan <richardkaplan3@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 23, 7:09 pm, Richard Kaplan <rkap...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I am researching options to control a pool heating system as part of a
> home automation system.

Just some follow-up for those who are interested..and a thanks to all
those who offered help while I was researching this.

I have completed the home automation system installation and it has
been working well for a couple of weeks now.

I was able to locate two remote water sensors for the RCS TZ40 Z-wave
thermostat.  I connnected one of these thermostats to my pool heat
pump and another to the pool gas heater.  I also connected two more
TZ40 thermostats inside my house for my heating and air conditioning
systems.  For the pool I also set up Z-wave switches for my main pool
pump, a recirculator pump to heat my pool dome, and assorted lights
working on motion detection.  And I set up a number of lights inside
my house with Z-wave switches as well to increase coverage of the Z-
wave network.

For temperature sensing I installed an RFXCOM receiver which reads air
and water temperature at various locations using Oregon Scientific
probes.

I also re-plumbed my pool heat sources so the heat pump and gas heater
run in series and thus I can operate either or both without switching
any valves.

I installed HomeSeer software to operate all of the above, and I am
tweaking the control logic to determine the most efficient way to
manage the various heat sources - in particular this setup lets me
choose between the heat pump and gas heater in a manner which is
energy-efficient depending on the outside temperature.   Also the
control logic can turn on the pump in freezing temperatures to avoid
frozen pipes. I can control all of  this in an automated fashion via
HomeSeer events or I can monitor and control the system remotely via
an Internet link to my PC which runs HomeSeer.

So far so good... it seems like a very nice solution to the problem of
pool automation with dual heat sources.