fernicarry
Member
- Messages
- 511
- Location
- Argyllshire
Its a very valid point, I confused myself the other week revisiting something that I'd done earlier, was nearly tempted to fix something that wasn't wrong. I have a spreadsheet of all the wiring connections to help keep me straight, it was found to be a little inaccurate however... I do worry somewhat about handing it over to the next owner but accept that they may not value it in the same way I do and if they rip it all out and put in a combi instead so be it. I suppose we all run that risk with our labours of love.
Heatmiser room stats in almost every room (8 of 12 commissioned to date), these wire back to a wiring centre, basically a box full of relays. Replace the head on each TRV with the same sort of electric actuators used on UFH manifolds (they just screw on) and wire back to the wiring centre with 5-core mains cable. Our downstairs radiators are actually plumbed back to a manifold hidden in the kitchen wall so that we don't spoil the look of the nice cast iron rads. Similarly the actuators in the bathrooms will be hidden behind the bath panel. The actuators each have a limit switch so when any one of them opens up the circulation pump runs. In that sense I suppose its fail safe in that if the actuator doesn't open the pump doesn't run, but you also don't get heat. I also have pressure and temperature contacts on the heating loop that stop the pump if something is wrong.
Indeed, or in our case the living room is the biggie when it comes on in late afternoon so putting other rooms on hold would help it in its mammoth struggle to get up to temp. Knowing the size of each zone and whether its calling for heat could also feed into the store upper and lower temps. On low load we could let it cool down more before firing up the boiler. A potential future phase!
When we moved in the heating controls were virtually non-existent, just a single stat in the hall which was basically an on-off switch. Actually it was just an on switch because the hall temp would fall so low that it was below the lowest setting on the stat. Even with the boiler running non-stop we were still freezing... Instead of trying, and failing, to heat the whole house we can now heat the bits that are in-use and the rest just ticks along at a steady but lower temperature (thus deterring condensation). Yes, you could do the same by going round the house twice a day twiddling the radiator valves but this was what appealed to me, plus there's a smartphone app!
-AL
