Is it possible to buy a programmable thermostat control for your central heating that can be programmed to around a month in advance, at the moment I can only find controls that do either 5 or 7 days, Ideally I'd need one for two to four weeks.
Thats what the "holiday" feature does. It suspends the normal 5+2 or 7 day cycle for n days. You can set the value of n normally up to 99 days and the temperature below which you don't want the house to fall for frost protection. After the n days are up the normal cycle restarts.
OK you'd have to set it each time you left for the duration of your absence but I don't know of an off the shelf solution that will do repetitive cycle of 4 weeks frost protection 1 week normal etc. I guess part of an home automation system would do it or you could use a PLC.
Good points. Every time I go to set the holiday time on my own system, though, the thought strikes me: I am actually advertising to any potential and clueful burglars just how long the house is likely to be unoccupied ?
What with that and the massive thermal inertia in my house, I often just leave it on, especially if it's just a long weekend.
Personally I think pressing the holiday button 21 times is the easiest but... Say really want to go the whole hog and have a fully programmable heating system you could change your current heating controls to the Honeywell smartfit system, then connect these via this interface
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to the Comfort home control system. This will give you the control you seek plus the option to override programs by phone or optional web interface. (check this - quite cool really
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) If you are really curious, it will phone you up if it gets frosty. The interface is about £160, the Smartfit around £125, and the complete system should leave change from £1k.
My house heats up in 1 hour when I get back from holiday, so I don't really see this as a problem.
Ok, that would make sense and provide me with a way to achieve this. I've had a look at a few models, but can't seem to find one with a "holiday" setting, can anyone recommend a model.
I have a Danfoss TP75(*) which has a "holiday" setting. Fairly sure that the other popular one, the Honeywell CM67 has it as well. The smaller programable stats seem to only have a frost protection which is manual on/off rather than reverting to the programed mode after n days.
In which case, why do you need something to switch the heating on in advance of your return at all ? Come in, fire it up, pop out for a Chinese, and by the time you get back the house will be warm...
I don't. The OP wanted a solution. These things all look good on paper, but at the end of the day the simple solution (keep coat on, get neighbour to switch it on for you etc.) win for me every time
If you go to the Maplin web site and then search for product code N34BF you'll get a remote control board which will work with a mobile phone - cost is £14.99.
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'd obviously have to mount this somewhere, so add the cost of a box etc.
How does it work (i.e. put it together), there doesn't seem to be any information on the site. How do you access it through your mobile. I definitly want one of these if someone can explain how I can make it work.
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