Heating Control from Scratch

[alex88 71]

I'm putting it out there to anyone that can help with my heating solution.

My situation is that I have a mid-terrace house with approx 12 radiators installed in 10 rooms including bathrooms. I have a combi-boiler that is controlled via a battery operated thermostat which I suspect simply sends a signal to turn the boiler on or off based on the temperature threshold that I program it with.

I would like to be able to measure the temperature within each room and turn on or off the radiator in that room when I need to, for example, if one or more radiators need to be turned on then the boiler will turn on and those radiators will turn on. Otherwise the boiler will be off and the radiators will all be off.

My other requirement is that everything be mains powered. I will make sure that I can make mains cabling available where ever possible, however the solution has to be reasonable in its requirements for cabling as exposing new mains cable will cost quite a bit extra.

I do not have any allegiance to any manufacturer and am willing to take on which ever technologies I need to make a stable system.

Can you please suggest a working, stable solution that integrates well with Fibaro, will not cost be an arm and a leg and will be manageable to implement, configure and maintain?

Please consider that from my research and given that I can not re-zone my house (the heating currently works off of a single loop) it seems like the best solution would be to install some type of TRV *thermal regulating valve" at each radiator and have Fibaro HC2 control these based on individual temp sensor readings used in conjunction with scenes. That said, I do not want to tell you how I should do this, but instead get your advice of the best solution for me.

Finally, I like the idea of having override capability in some rooms via a temperature control units like this one (

Please login or register to see this link.

) that I am planning on installing in a bathroom when I get under floor heating installed, but i can't see how this would work with Fibaro.

I know this is a big set of questions, so if there are any how-to guides out there that you know of please direct me to them.

Thanks in advance!

[alex88 71]

What Z-wave equipment is there that can't do without hooking it up to mains because the battery-life simply becomes too short to be practical?

Well i was planning the following:

1. Fairly regular temperature updates from around 12 zones

2. Motion sensors that work all the time

I appreciate that most people can't mains connect their devices, but I am fortunate enough to be renovating. Otherwise I agree, it would be battery powered devices all the way.

[hvb83 1]

Thanks to the extensive explanation of Davedotnet on the drawbacks of battery power for Z-wave devices, I've decided I'll still be pulling wires for many of the devices I want to install, including the radiator valves. Same as Amilanov, I'm currently in a renovation situation, so it would be a shame not doing it right now.

But what I'm still a bit in the dark on... If I power the Danfoss valves through a power adapter, I don't have to care about energy consumption anymore. Will I be able to change HC2 / Danfoss setup in such a way that the valve will adjust the temperature instantly or not?

I get mixed stories, because some people say you can change the time at which the setpoint is sent to the Danfoss, but that it can still take up to 1,5hrs before the temperature is actually changed.

[alex88 71]

But what I'm still a bit in the dark on... If I power the Danfoss valves through a power adapter, I don't have to care about energy consumption anymore. Will I be able to change HC2 / Danfoss setup in such a way that the valve will adjust the temperature instantly or not?

I get mixed stories, because some people say you can change the time at which the setpoint is sent to the Danfoss, but that it can still take up to 1,5hrs before the temperature is actually changed.

+1 to the Danfoss question

It seems to me like there are a lot of drawbacks with using Danfoss and Fibaro.

Another drawback which I perceive is that you have to use the temperature sensor in the Danfoss unit. I am still uncertain as to how reliable this is.

[davedotnet 0]

... some people say you can change the time at which the setpoint is sent to the Danfoss, but that it can still take up to 1,5hrs before the temperature is actually changed.

@hvb83. I should have said in my explanation that with battery devices, you configure a WAKEUP time. This is when the ZWave radio is switched on, a ZWave WAKE_UP_NOTIFICATION message is sent to the controller (saying 'Hello, I'm awake for a second, do you have anything for me?'), at which point the controller must respond promptly, else the battery device will switch the ZWave radio off. There are challenges with controllers in responding to these messages and the bigger your network the greater the chance that it was busy talking to another device and failed to respond in a timely fashion. Outcome? Will have to wait to next wakeup period.

So, when you set parameters, change associations, or indeed attempt to manipulate settings, eg the SetPoint, the controller will queue the requests waiting for a ZWave WAKE_UP_NOTIFICATION message.

Now, typically, the wakeup interval is long, so, if you're powering by mains, you could set the interval as short as possible. For some battery devices that can be seconds, others it can minutes. I don't know what it is offhand for the Danfoss, but you should be able to get it to be fairly short.

The only thing to remember, is that, whilst you know it's being powered by the mains, neither the thermostat nor the controller know that, with the controller still thinking the thermostat is battery powered.

One last thing, remember that the current Beta mentions "FLiRS". This is where a battery device will listen for 100ms in every wakeup period. So if the wakeup period is 1 minute then the device will listen for a 100ms. This means the controller must behave differently with these devices and issue a Wakup command to the device numerous times in the hope it's listening. A lot of the new ZWave door locks (battery operated) use this feature, given that you couldn't wait an hour say to unlock the door remotely.

[Guest Futuretech]

One last thing, remember that the current Beta mentions "FLiRS". This is where a battery device will listen for 100ms in every wakeup period. So if the wakeup period is 1 minute then the device will listen for a 100ms. This means the controller must behave differently with these devices and issue a Wakup command to the device numerous times in the hope it's listening. A lot of the new ZWave door locks (battery operated) use this feature, given that you couldn't wait an hour say to unlock the door remotely.

Yesterday I asked what SIS and FLIRS was about. I got an answwer from Fibaro and later on someone else from Fibaro reports that it shouldn't be in this versionn and it ain't working yet.

I'll edit this post when I can find the thread I'm talking about.

*Edit

I don't know how to show url for topic so I try it like this:

What means z-wave library (in config-panel) SIS and FLIRS

It should be removed from this version as it's not working yet. It will be activated in next updates.

[davedotnet 0]

With respect to FLiRS, I think all they/Fibaro are saying is that they will support devices that exhibit this behaviour. The major difference is that a typical battery operated device wakes up periodically, then sends a message that the controller (HC2) responds to. It's very much cause and effect. With devices that support FLiRS, it's a different paradigm.. here the controller has to say "Are you listening?", and you hope the device is, and responds.

For me.. this feature should be way down the roadmap.

[hvb83 1]

Thank you Davedotnet, this cleared many things up for me. So I'll just make sure I install wires to every thermostat, guess that's the only way for me than. Great to hear this will work the way I would like it to be.

+1 to the Danfoss question

It seems to me like there are a lot of drawbacks with using Danfoss and Fibaro.

Another drawback which I perceive is that you have to use the temperature sensor in the Danfoss unit. I am still uncertain as to how reliable this is.

I don't have the Danfoss units yet, but in my current home I have the good old Honeywell HR20 electronic valves installed. They can't be controlled by radio or something, but they can be programmed to a certain program and measure the temperature the same way the Danfoss units do.

And I must say it works great. It's much easier to maintain a stable temperature than with the classic mechanical thermostats. Mind you, under various conditions; very cold, at night, with sun, without sun.

So in that respect I think these Danfoss things will probably work great too. The only thing I hope is that they're more quiet when they're adjusting, because that's the only thing I don't like about the HR20's: unsuitable for the bedroom if you're a light sleeper.

[alex88 71]

looks like there is info about this here:

Please login or register to see this link.

Frequently Listening Routing Slave (FLiRS)

A special case of a battery-powered routing slave is the rrequently listening routing slave (FLiRS). This is a routing slave configured to listen for a wakeup beam in every wakeup interval. This enables other nodes to wake up the FLiRS node and send a message to it. One example of a FLiRS node is as chime node in a wireless doorbell system.

[ Added: 2014-07-01, 14:54 ]

For anyone interested, in the end my heating control system was installed and running a few months ago. My setup is as follows:

Plumbing

- Each radiator and towel rail is independently piped back to the boiler; 11x units in total + 1 zone with 5 units (in the old un-renovated part of my house)

- Near the boiler I have a manifold which basically is where all the pipes come together and connect to the boiler with a single set of pipes

Electrics

- At the manifold each outflow pipe has a Honeywell electric actuator installed; I considered many options of controlling the radiators/towel rails in the house next to the radiators / towel rails, but I could not find an solution that looked slick enough; with this setup the radiators / towel rails are simply hung on the walls with no extra cables/devices attached and there are no hidden panels in the wall to distract. That said, if you aren’t doing a major renovation it is possible to set this up locally to control each unit at the unit rather than in a single location

- For each pair of Honeywell actuators I have a single Fibaro 2x 1.5w relay connected; ie each Relay controls two actuators

- The Honeywell actuators are “normally off”, so that when a current is passed from the Fibaro Relay they then turn to “On”; stopping the current allows them to revert back to their “normally off” state; the actuators consume 6 watts when running so the system currently consumes 66 watts + the Relay energy consumption when fully on.

- All the Fibaro relays are physically electrically connected to the boiler interface panel so that when any Fibaro Relay turns on a signal is sent to the boiler to also turn it on

- As more Relays turn on the signal continues to be passed through keeping the boiler running; this process keeps working until the last Relay turns off at which point the boiler also turns off

- The connection to the boiler from the Relays is the exact same connection that my battery powered thermostat was using to turn the boiler on and off previously; it took a bit of communicating between my electrician and plumber to figure out how to do it, but in fact it’s actually a very simple setup to connect all the Relays to the panel.

Sensors

- Rooms are occupied with a combination of Aeotec Multi-sensor (4x currently) and Fibaro Multi-sensor (1x currently); in the end I will need another 8 or so temp sensors but I’m looking for an alternate device to do this

- Each Aeotec multi-sensor is power by mains via a transformer connected to a USB adapter; the Fibaro sensor is obviously battery powered

Configuration

- Each Fibaro relay is named after the radiator / towel rail that it is connected to

- Using linked devices I have connected the temp sensors to one or more relays; in the end when I install the remaining temp/multi-sensors it will be a 1:1 relationship

- In the heating panel I have created zones for each level in the house and configured accordingly

- All of the Fibaro relays are saved in a room called “Heating”; this way I can get a quick look at what is on/off and I can also override (temporarily) the status of a Relay; both of which were very helpful in testing the setup in the early days

All-in-all the system works pretty much as expected (fortunately none of the devices appear as dead nodes so it’s actually very stable, that said it hasn’t been used much in the past month or two so the true test will be next winter), however I still have a few things to sort out:

1. Finding an alternate (mains powered) multi-sensor or deciding to roll out either the Aeotec or Fibaro sensors for the remaining rooms

2. Working out how to get the comfort level to improve. Currently it can be 21C at night and comfortable but when I wake up in the morning it is still around 21C but it feels cold. I think placement of the sensors is critical, which is a shame as I set my hard wiring up near the ceiling for aesthetic purposes. I also think that humidity is playing a part in it although I’ll have to wait for next winter before I start to care about playing around with the comfort level settings. If any one has had similar problems with comfort versus temperature I’d love to hear about it

Thanks for all the help from the forum. I hope this helps anyone thinking about how to setup their heating system.

[fi-bar-oh 47]

looks like there is info about this here:

Please login or register to see this link.

Frequently Listening Routing Slave (FLiRS)

A special case of a battery-powered routing slave is the rrequently listening routing slave (FLiRS). This is a routing slave configured to listen for a wakeup beam in every wakeup interval. This enables other nodes to wake up the FLiRS node and send a message to it. One example of a FLiRS node is as chime node in a wireless doorbell system.

[ Added: 2014-07-01, 14:54 ]

For anyone interested, in the end my heating control system was installed and running a few months ago. My setup is as follows:

Plumbing

- Each radiator and towel rail is independently piped back to the boiler; 11x units in total + 1 zone with 5 units (in the old un-renovated part of my house)

- Near the boiler I have a manifold which basically is where all the pipes come together and connect to the boiler with a single set of pipes

Electrics

- At the manifold each outflow pipe has a Honeywell electric actuator installed; I considered many options of controlling the radiators/towel rails in the house next to the radiators / towel rails, but I could not find an solution that looked slick enough; with this setup the radiators / towel rails are simply hung on the walls with no extra cables/devices attached and there are no hidden panels in the wall to distract. That said, if you aren’t doing a major renovation it is possible to set this up locally to control each unit at the unit rather than in a single location

- For each pair of Honeywell actuators I have a single Fibaro 2x 1.5w relay connected; ie each Relay controls two actuators

- The Honeywell actuators are “normally off”, so that when a current is passed from the Fibaro Relay they then turn to “On”; stopping the current allows them to revert back to their “normally off” state; the actuators consume 6 watts when running so the system currently consumes 66 watts + the Relay energy consumption when fully on.

- All the Fibaro relays are physically electrically connected to the boiler interface panel so that when any Fibaro Relay turns on a signal is sent to the boiler to also turn it on

- As more Relays turn on the signal continues to be passed through keeping the boiler running; this process keeps working until the last Relay turns off at which point the boiler also turns off

- The connection to the boiler from the Relays is the exact same connection that my battery powered thermostat was using to turn the boiler on and off previously; it took a bit of communicating between my electrician and plumber to figure out how to do it, but in fact it’s actually a very simple setup to connect all the Relays to the panel.

Sensors

- Rooms are occupied with a combination of Aeotec Multi-sensor (4x currently) and Fibaro Multi-sensor (1x currently); in the end I will need another 8 or so temp sensors but I’m looking for an alternate device to do this

- Each Aeotec multi-sensor is power by mains via a transformer connected to a USB adapter; the Fibaro sensor is obviously battery powered

Configuration

- Each Fibaro relay is named after the radiator / towel rail that it is connected to

- Using linked devices I have connected the temp sensors to one or more relays; in the end when I install the remaining temp/multi-sensors it will be a 1:1 relationship

- In the heating panel I have created zones for each level in the house and configured accordingly

- All of the Fibaro relays are saved in a room called “Heating”; this way I can get a quick look at what is on/off and I can also override (temporarily) the status of a Relay; both of which were very helpful in testing the setup in the early days

All-in-all the system works pretty much as expected (fortunately none of the devices appear as dead nodes so it’s actually very stable, that said it hasn’t been used much in the past month or two so the true test will be next winter), however I still have a few things to sort out:

1. Finding an alternate (mains powered) multi-sensor or deciding to roll out either the Aeotec or Fibaro sensors for the remaining rooms

2. Working out how to get the comfort level to improve. Currently it can be 21C at night and comfortable but when I wake up in the morning it is still around 21C but it feels cold. I think placement of the sensors is critical, which is a shame as I set my hard wiring up near the ceiling for aesthetic purposes. I also think that humidity is playing a part in it although I’ll have to wait for next winter before I start to care about playing around with the comfort level settings. If any one has had similar problems with comfort versus temperature I’d love to hear about it

Thanks for all the help from the forum. I hope this helps anyone thinking about how to setup their heating system.

Is this still being used daily? need to think about ditching my thermostat it is a very unreliable / uncomfortable form of heating

[fi-bar-oh 47]

looks like there is info about this here:

Please login or register to see this link.

Frequently Listening Routing Slave (FLiRS)

A special case of a battery-powered routing slave is the rrequently listening routing slave (FLiRS). This is a routing slave configured to listen for a wakeup beam in every wakeup interval. This enables other nodes to wake up the FLiRS node and send a message to it. One example of a FLiRS node is as chime node in a wireless doorbell system.

[ Added: 2014-07-01, 14:54 ]

For anyone interested, in the end my heating control system was installed and running a few months ago. My setup is as follows:

Plumbing

- Each radiator and towel rail is independently piped back to the boiler; 11x units in total + 1 zone with 5 units (in the old un-renovated part of my house)

- Near the boiler I have a manifold which basically is where all the pipes come together and connect to the boiler with a single set of pipes

Electrics

- At the manifold each outflow pipe has a Honeywell electric actuator installed; I considered many options of controlling the radiators/towel rails in the house next to the radiators / towel rails, but I could not find an solution that looked slick enough; with this setup the radiators / towel rails are simply hung on the walls with no extra cables/devices attached and there are no hidden panels in the wall to distract. That said, if you aren’t doing a major renovation it is possible to set this up locally to control each unit at the unit rather than in a single location

- For each pair of Honeywell actuators I have a single Fibaro 2x 1.5w relay connected; ie each Relay controls two actuators

- The Honeywell actuators are “normally off”, so that when a current is passed from the Fibaro Relay they then turn to “On”; stopping the current allows them to revert back to their “normally off” state; the actuators consume 6 watts when running so the system currently consumes 66 watts + the Relay energy consumption when fully on.

- All the Fibaro relays are physically electrically connected to the boiler interface panel so that when any Fibaro Relay turns on a signal is sent to the boiler to also turn it on

- As more Relays turn on the signal continues to be passed through keeping the boiler running; this process keeps working until the last Relay turns off at which point the boiler also turns off

- The connection to the boiler from the Relays is the exact same connection that my battery powered thermostat was using to turn the boiler on and off previously; it took a bit of communicating between my electrician and plumber to figure out how to do it, but in fact it’s actually a very simple setup to connect all the Relays to the panel.

Sensors

- Rooms are occupied with a combination of Aeotec Multi-sensor (4x currently) and Fibaro Multi-sensor (1x currently); in the end I will need another 8 or so temp sensors but I’m looking for an alternate device to do this

- Each Aeotec multi-sensor is power by mains via a transformer connected to a USB adapter; the Fibaro sensor is obviously battery powered

Configuration

- Each Fibaro relay is named after the radiator / towel rail that it is connected to

- Using linked devices I have connected the temp sensors to one or more relays; in the end when I install the remaining temp/multi-sensors it will be a 1:1 relationship

- In the heating panel I have created zones for each level in the house and configured accordingly

- All of the Fibaro relays are saved in a room called “Heating”; this way I can get a quick look at what is on/off and I can also override (temporarily) the status of a Relay; both of which were very helpful in testing the setup in the early days

All-in-all the system works pretty much as expected (fortunately none of the devices appear as dead nodes so it’s actually very stable, that said it hasn’t been used much in the past month or two so the true test will be next winter), however I still have a few things to sort out:

1. Finding an alternate (mains powered) multi-sensor or deciding to roll out either the Aeotec or Fibaro sensors for the remaining rooms

2. Working out how to get the comfort level to improve. Currently it can be 21C at night and comfortable but when I wake up in the morning it is still around 21C but it feels cold. I think placement of the sensors is critical, which is a shame as I set my hard wiring up near the ceiling for aesthetic purposes. I also think that humidity is playing a part in it although I’ll have to wait for next winter before I start to care about playing around with the comfort level settings. If any one has had similar problems with comfort versus temperature I’d love to hear about it

Thanks for all the help from the forum. I hope this helps anyone thinking about how to setup their heating system.

 

I opted for this today and it seems to be working quite well...

 

6 rooms - 6 x dallas temp sensors from 2 universal binary sensors - 6 radiators - 6 trv lc13 danfoss - 3 x 1.5*2 relays 1 per sensor 6 relays in total

 

linked devices + heating panel

 

boiler cuts out when all temps met and starts when one room goes cold

 

i dont have a local manifold but still more effective than either leaving boiler running 24/7 or having a room stat!

 

comfort levels MUCH BETTER!

 

thank you for the idea

[Guest Lode]

I'm looking for a rocksolid solution too.

To start from scratch i first need a decent valve.

I'm testing a danfoss lc-13 now for six months and it's working well

Just keep in mind that these valves need DIRECT COMMUNICATION with your controller otherwise you will face some problems.

This is step 1 for me.

I will do more testing with these valves...

[JelleO 0]

A rocketsolid solution doesn't exist as I have learned from my experience with Fibaro.

Actually there is nothing that works in their heating panel, not the Danfoss Valves, nor the Danfoss Thermostat...

[alex88 71]

Batman,

First of all, apologies, I didn’t see your post from earlier this year.

 

Yes, I am still using the system described above. I am planning to expand it to cover water based underfloor heating and more radiator based zones. All due in the next 12 months or so.

 

The cons of the system:

Some time has passed, so I thought I'd update this:

 

1)      Valves versus TRVs

Apparently fully opening a valve to pump water through a boiler is inefficient, this is why TRVs work the way they do (ie. Partially open). I mitigated this by turning the boiler temp down. I guess given you have installed the Dallas modules that you don’t have this problem. To confuse matters I talked to a British Gas plumber who said my system wasn’t really inefficient at all. It just meant that the rooms heat up quicker. Go figure.

My plumber replaced all my Honeywell TRVs with wax based TRVs, so this isn't an issue anymore, not that I'm sure it was an issue to start with.

 

2)      Comfort Levels

The outside temperature and inside humidity affect the temperature felt in a room. My heating is MUCH better now than previously, but it is still not perfect. To this end, I bought a Netatmo Weather Station to measure outside temp. I am in the process of writing a scene to modify the setpoint temp in the house based on the outside temp. I will set summer/winter variables and tweak the inside temp by up to 1-2C. For example, if the minimum temp is 12C I may have the internal temp at 20C. If the minimum temp drops to 2C then I may boost the internal temp in a room to 21.5C. I have yet to play around with humidity, but it will work on a similar basis.

I have created a VD that caters for multiple temp profiles which addresses this issue

 

 

3)      Overriding temp – Android

I am using various Android phones/tablets. I struggle to get the thermostat overrides to work. In the end and for the past couple of years I have just been logging into the web interface to override temps. There have been lots of updates to the apps, from Fibaro, saying they have fixed this issue, but I am still experiencing it and Fibaro still have not implemented my (most important) request which is when you select an override and it is accepted by the HC2 the icon in the app should change somehow (how exactly I couldn’t care less – colour change, icon change, whatever) to identify that the override is active. A bit like when you turn a light on you can see the light icon changes colour from grey to yellow. Fibaro, if you are reading this … please, please implement this feature.

EDIT: Resolved this by creating my own VD which overrides temps. Seems to work a treat for now. Will test it thoroughly next winter.

The VD I created works fine 

 

4)      Sticky Fibaro Relays

From time to time, especially when I upgrade my HC2 (not very often at all these days), relays get stuck or report the wrong status. This means heating can be turned on permanently or report as on when off. The easy fix for this which I have learnt the hard way, is that after I upgrade my HC2, to manually turn every relay on and watch the heating panel turn them off again. Seems to fix it every time.

EDIT: Seems like a soft reconfigure of devices brings them back to operating as expected

This ended up being an issue with too much zwave traffic, which has been resolved now. refer below post:

 

 

On the pros side of things, it just works which is great and …

After all of my updates above I can't think of any cons

 

Item 1) doesn’t bother me. My gas & electricity bills are around 40% lower since installing my home automation system despite increasing the footprint of my house by around 30% - yes, some of this is driven by lower supplier costs

Item 2) above isn’t a great deal – more a nice to have.

Item 3) above is a great deal and another step towards meeting the Wife Acceptance Factor.

Item 4) is an annoying bug, but the workaround is reliable

 

@JelleO

My setup for heating is pretty darn close to rock solid, so would disagree with your comment. Maybe when using TRVs there isn’t a reliable solution, but using the Honewell valves, I use, the system runs as expected.

 

EDIT: Reading my post from July 2014, I now have 10 Fibaro Motion sensors plus the 4 Aeotec. Surprisingly the Fibaro Motion sensors, which are used for lighting as well as temp as running very well. The sensors in the kitchen area are under high usage detecting motion most of the day and yet they are still running at around 75% having been installed around Sep 2014. Good stuff Fibaro!

 

EDIT2: My system is now controlling over 20 heating zones with over 30 temp sensors supporting electric underfloor heating, water underfloor heating and radiators and it works great now!

 

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by amilanov

[cyber 0]

guys, I am working now with heating solution, so I have simple idea, but for some reason don't have solution. 

Each room has zwave temperature sensor, and tablet on the wall with fibaro app. so I need kind of virtual thermostat that will turn on and off boiler, ventilation and cooling etc.  heating panel don't give that option to control temperature from interface, change  it etc. 

of course I can put zwave thermostat and it will fix my problem. but what the reason for it if I have themperature sensor. and I don't want that my wall has so many devices, thermostat, tablet etc. just one tablet that control all.

 

so any suggestion?  Thank you

[alex88 71]

have you created a linked device between your temp sensors and the device you are using to control your boiler e.g. a relay?

[cyber 0]

yes, I did create linked devise, but I can control temperature, for example I want warmer, go up or go down, also how about ventilation, I have hydronic heating and ventilation is separate,  maybe I don't understand something 

[cyber 0]

I finf the issue, I have beta update version heating panel not working, so waiting no official release