Can't help but being intrigued by these wifi based programmable thermostats as covered here:
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Clearly, their profile has been raised by the 'Hive' adverts and Google's purchase of Nest.
With a rambling house and 'er indoors working from home, it seems they could have something to offer us. On the other hand, the upfront cost is pretty significant, if you go for individual room control (14 controls at 70 quid each on top of 250 quid for the Honeywell controller = £1230), which is what we would need.
The savings quoted (400 pa for an average house in that BBC article) sound impressive, if they are true, and could easily be significantly greater for our house, so payback time could be under a couple of years. On the other hand, that could be around about the same as the obselecence time as it's these systems will be developed rapidly if they catch on. Development and competition is likely to bring the capital cost down over time, too.
I've no idea what it would cost to zone the system, but I can't see that as a cost-effective way of getting this level of room by room control.
So what's the consensus on these systems, chaps? Are they starting to look worth it or is it all just gadgetry for its own sake/snake oil?
The ability to fine control your heating system remotely can be a very big win. It depends heavily on the occupancy of your home, and the type/response of the heating. I would go as far as saying that in some circumstances, it's a bigger win than insulation.
If your home is always occupied, you won't benefit as much as if the occupancy ratio is lower, and is unpredictable or doesn't follow any type of pattern that a timeswitch can deal with.
I did two houses 14 - 15 years ago, and wouldn't be without it now. I switch the heating on as I'm coming home, like it mentions in that article. At the time I installed the system, I was working for Sun Microsystems (which is no more), frequently flying off somewhere, and it was great not to be heating the house whilst I was away, but to be able to switch the heating on as the plane touched down at the airport.
Smartphones didn't exist then - I used a telephone keypad to drive it (and can still do so), although over the years I added ssh access and then a web interface, which works on smartphones (although not an app).
I have zoned a system, but it's not as simple as you think. Boilers won't cope well with just one or two rooms calling for heat - the load is far too small. If you split into lots of zones, you need some quite intelligent logic which will operate the boiler when, say, half of the zones are capable of using it. You will probably find that splitting a typical 3-4 bed home into more than two zones gives you significantly diminishing returns, not worth the cost above simple TRVs. My all-upstairs zone cannot absorb the minimum boiler output at condensing boiler temperatures, so it will cause cycling. Smaller zones would work better with a heatbank, but I doubt you would recover the extra costs and losses incurred.
Certainly worth it if you can build your own and write off your time as a hobby. When I have looked at the cost of commercial systems, they're still too expensive in my mind.
My heating and hot water load (3 bed detached house, insulated to
1990 standards) is 6000-6500 kWh/year. I haven't worked out the comparative figures for the consumption before it was brought under home automation control - I probably don't have enough data to do so.
I think you'd be better off with an air sourced heat pump for the working room and turn the rest off. Since fitting one of these for her, the heating bill reduced by 2,000KWH ( about £ 110 roughly) in the last quarter compared with last year when we were away for a whole month and it was much colder.
I can turn my heating on and off remotely which I find useful and I have a programmable thermostat. My heating is not zoned. Introducing zoning would be awkward to install and would not give much benefit given the physical characteristics of the house and our lifestyle.
That's very interesting Andrew. Clearly you were well ahead of the curve on this.
My guess is that there are gains to be had and if, as you say, it were possible to home-brew, the returns would be more significant. It may well be that controlling the whole system flexibly (Hive etc) brings some gains, though I'm sure this depends on usage patterns. Using a phone app certainly has its attractions.
The Honeywell system quoted in that article (although I couldn't find details of it on their website at a glance - will take another look) indicates individual room controls which, presumably, are Wifi controlled TRVs. (Re-thinking on the basis of one per rad instead of per room, this means I would need 20 at 70 quid each!) I doubt most people would be able to make these for themselves, so home-brew seems unlikely. This would obviate zoning as each rad would be its own zone but it had crossed my mind that this could give an issue with boiler cycling.
My other reservation, apart from cost, is that of standards. The tendency is for individual manufacturers to be incompatible with each other and for early designs to be short-lived. Replacing the control for the whole house with something more sophisticated shouldn't give a major problem (if it fails, just get another) but having a mix of devices talking to each other all over the house could lead to issues when one fails, as it inevitably will. If I were cynical, I might guess that the value Google put on Nest includes some benefit from rolling obselescence.
I might have a go with a basic versi> >> Can't help but being intrigued by these wifi based programmable
Insulation and draughts are a rolling programme but much easier than training SWMBO to use the controls we already have. I have yet to achieve that in the context of closing doors.....
In my particular circumstances remote control of the heating is the main be nefit I can see to this kind of system - going away for a few days can leav e you with the choice of leaving the heating on at its regular settings or changing the settings to frost protection mode, which means coming home to a cold house and keeping your coat on for several hours...
Many programmers now incorporate a 'holiday' mode whereby you can tell it y ou'll be away for x days and it'll return to normal programming for your re turn. Of course, it's only any good if you know when you'll be back and doe s usually only go by the day rather than the hour you'll be returning.
Do the same here and it's days before the place becomes comfortable again, BTDTGTTS. Thick stone walls have a lot of thermal mass, let 'em got cold and they take rather a long time to warm back up. Advantage is that provided you keep the heating on winter internal temperature variations are smoothed out and in summer inside is nice and cool even when it gets to 25+ C outside.
It's an annoyance when I'm trying to cook dinner - I had a near miss when the sleeve caught the handle of a saucepan without my noticing it, so I tend to be a bit careful. It usually takes around half a day to get back to temperature, but since I usually arrive in the evening that means a few hours before going to bed, with the temperature getting back to near normal by about breakfast time...
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