Hi all,
I recently moved into a house which has a traditional CH and HW system, ie cylinder/header tank/gas boiler, but no controls which allow me independent control of either or both - there is one timeswitch that turns the whole thing on or off. I would like to upgrade this to add a proper control digital programmer that will allow me to program various on/off times for the hot water and heating independently, as I'm finding there are many times when I need one but not the other and it's clearly not efficient to keep a cylinder of water warm all day in the winter (and in the summer, I don't want to have to go around the house and turn down all the TRVs manually when I just need water).
My understanding is that this is a matter of adding two motorized valves, one to open the HW circuit and one to open the CH circuit - then drop in the programmer and bob's your uncle. However, I recognize that this means a control cables will need to be run to each of these valves. Because the cylinder (where the valves will need to go near) is upstairs and the boiler and present timeclock are downstairs, this will mean gouging out of walls, requiring lots of tiling and replastering that I don't want to contemplate at the moment.
What would be really great would be a way to add this wirelessly. This way I could stick the box on the wall, and then have it talk over a radio link to the two motorized valves as required.
Alternatively, the present timeswitch obviously sends a control signal up to switch on the pump which is right beside the cylinder. I guess it just switches mains onto it. I wonder could that arrangement be reversed; I could put the new programmer beside the cylinder, have it control the two valves from there, and then have it use the wire currently used to operate the pump to switch mains downstairs which fires the boiler ?
Advice greatly appreciated ..