Design of an upgrade to whole house - smart heating and hot water system
We are in the process of upgrading our home insulation (9” solid brick walls) and adding smart TRVs to the radiators and control of the hot water thermostat. I need detailed guidance on how to adapt the existing system to your system
The current set-up is as follows:
Upstairs - 10 radiators with a landing mounted thermostat
Downstairs - 11 radiators with a hall mounted thermostat
Kitchen - underfloor heating with a Heatmiser wall-mounted thermostat
Controller
- Horstman Channel Plus H37XL
- 3 zone: upstairs, downstairs, hot water
Boiler room
Two year old Grant oil-fired condensing boiler
4 recirculating pumps:
- upstairs
- downstairs
- hot water primary
- kitchen underfloor
There is also a circulating pump on the hot water with a separate mechanical timer
What we want:
- an integrated system controlled via an app so the whole house is operated via wifi controlled TRVs in each room
- no general thermostats, only for the kitchen underfloor
- demand in any room and/or the hot water able to fire the boiler and the relevant pump.
Am I able to achieve this using Tado?
Please can you provide me with:
- a schedule of what products to buy
- the set-up to provide to the heating electrician.
Many thanks.
Comments
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Don’t forget you’re contacting fellow tado° users here, not the support team . . .0
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Thanks @hugbilly my experience with support teams, from Tado and elsewhere, is that they aren't up to answering what I need to know and so I hoped that someone here might actually know a bit.
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@startledcod Hello Cod. The red flag for V3+ is 21 rads and UFH. That suggests you have a larger home. There are limits of 10 zones and 25 devices, not insurmountable but can be an operational nuisance. Many users in larger homes have range connection issues between the V3+ internet dongle and remote devices (mostly TRVs). That’s due to the 10 metre approximate range design limit of IEEE 802.15.4, not the Tado itself. The newer X version supports multiple Thread or Matter connections.
I don’t want to put you off, but I suspect you’ll walk into connection issues with the single V3+ Internet dongle and it’s best to say now. We have Tado V3+ working reliably in a 200 sqm 1960s home with 16 rads and 17 devices. Our rellie in their 200 sqm three storey Edwardian villa has 11 rads and 13 devices.
Most of your concerns Tado can workaround, but the big question for using the V3+ dongle is all about your home. What are the dimensions, rooms etc, and construction materials?
Edit: internet dongle and device numbers.
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Probably yes. But it will be complex. You will need a lot of thinking and planning perhaps with @wateroakley's help if you stick with v3. For now there are more basic things to address first
Need to know the following.
1. You comfy doing your own wiring or comfy with a sparkie altering the wiring in your primary wiring centre? Need to know which.
2. The Heatmiser dedicated wiring centre for the UFH. How many stats does it use?
3. According to your description there are 2 or 3 zone valves, one for HW, one for CH Downstairs, one for CH Upstairs. Is there one general thermostat which triggers heat to upstairs, and a similar one downstairs, outside the kitchen? Need to understand what causes those zone valves to wake up.
4. Can you record the wiring at the main wiring centre in photos?
5. What are the dimensions of the house and the thickness of internal load bearing walls. Do you have a plan of the building identifying where the boiler and router are placed? How many rooms in total?1 -
@wateroakley
Many thanks for you comments, it's actually a very long, old house with thick walls and, as I said, solid 9" external walls. The house is 5,000 sq ft with slightly more downstairs than up (upstairs we're very cottagey).Does the Tado system create its own network or would it use my wifi, if the latter I have got a Mesh system that works throughout, albeit with hard-wired access points.
What denotes a 'zone', is it, for instance, a room with 2 or 3 rads?
What are the 'thread' and 'matter' connections that the new X version supports?My issue is that I haven't found a sparkie/heating engineer who really understands this in a larger house and so am trying to get my own head around it so I can brief them.
Many thanks again for your help.
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@policywonk
Many thanks for your comments, I'll try and answer your questions.1. You comfy doing your own wiring or comfy with a sparkie altering the wiring in your primary wiring centre? Need to know which.
Whilst I'm comfortable wiring a socket etc. this work is way above my paygrade, I'll get a parkie to do it.2. The Heatmiser dedicated wiring centre for the UFH. How many stats does it use?
The Heatmiser uses a single built-in room stat.3. According to your description there are 2 or 3 zone valves, one for HW, one for CH Downstairs, one for CH Upstairs. Is there one general thermostat which triggers heat to upstairs, and a similar one downstairs, outside the kitchen? Need to understand what causes those zone valves to wake up.
Yes, there are thermostats in hall and upstairs landing which we leave set to quite high so that the individual TRVs in each zone can draw what they need. I'm keen, if poss, to do away with those thermostats so that the pump/boiler can be fired by a room needing heat.4. Can you record the wiring at the main wiring centre in photos?
I'll take some pics and post them here, not sure what they'll show but perhaps they will lead to your asking more questions.One more for you, can Tado do hot water as well?
Many thanks again for your help.
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Your answer isn't quite clear for me.
Motorised zone valves section off different parts of the building, the daytime areas from the nighttime areas. This reduces thermal waste.
It is possible to provide every rad with a smart stat but select the TRVs carefully. You may elect to Ieave the bathroom towel rads off the list of smart rads because they also have to dry towels).
It is also worthwhile having one stat in the floor respond to the other stats in its zone, and open the entire zone when at least one rad in the zone needs heat.
These recommendations will need @wateroakley's or @davidlyall's agreement, as i am not a professional:
a) Install a Tado wireless receiver, aka extension kit, with one primary zone for CH and one for HW.
b) Swap the wired stats which originally controlled all CH for that floor with Tado wired stats that act as a proxy for the rad stats, opening up the zone valve for its floor when needed.
c) Swap the UFH thermostat for a Tado wired stat.
d) Have a sparkie rewire your wiring centre so that the CH trigger on the extension kit is the primary switched live issuance point, with the zone valves for Gnd floor, kitchen, 1st floor controlled by those wired stats as one of three, zone valve switched CH zones. This removes the for three seperate channels to be controlled, but maintains the zones.
e) Have the sparkie transfer the HW call for heat without significant change to the Tado extension box.
f)The decision as to whether it's an X system or V system is down to the size of your home. @wateroakley is right, you will save a lot of trouble if you go for the x environment.
g) A lot of work then needs to be done in the app, making sure that the wired stats are declared zone controllers. They can be set to follow the lead of the stats on the floor to call for heat, so your concern about one stat having excess control on the whole floor is addressed, ie the Trvs drive the call for heat, but the floor level wired stats keep heat waste down.
h) A lot of thinking is needed to keep the number of logical devices down.
i) It helps to have one stat control the temp in each room and make all TRVs in that room respond to that chosen one.1 -
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Many thanks, there's much to take in there, would be great if @wateroakley and/or @davidlyall give it their endorsment and I will then start planning with the sparkie.
Many thanks, again.
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@startledcod
The last sparkie who worked on that wiring centre was logical. The change is not difficult.
Horstman does another wireless timer which can be controlled by an app. You could use that to replace the timer on the HW tank loop to the rooms. And there are other options which could measure temperature on feed and return to throttle the HW-room feed pump. These need to be studied because the HW room loop loses heat quickly if the pump is not throttle controlled. Many options- Google is your friend.
Also, looking at your pumps it seems the main CH pumps could benefit from being changed for ones which change their output based on differential pressure and/ or differential temperature. Saves more money at our charity centres than we ever expected.0 -
@startledcod There’s a lot to take in …
I see two challenges. First, your home is quite large for the Tado V3+ internet dongle to cover. It talks to the devices using a Wi-Fi connection to the 802.15.14 standard and 6lowpan. This is designed for low data rate IOT connections and a range of circa 10 metres. It’s not Wi-Fi 802.11 that we all use at home.
I suspect you can cover the core of your home, perhaps using your Wi-Fi to plug the dongle into, with trial and error for coverage. You’ll probably end up with some rooms too far for the dongle to reach TRVs wirelessly. The option then is to leave dumb TRVs on these remote rads. A ‘zone’ can ‘call for heat from a zone controller that is wired into zone valves. If you exceed 10 zones, the room can be set at ‘independent’, which acts like a smart scheduled TRV, but won’t turn on the heating.
The X version supports multiple internet dongles, which ‘should’ work for larger homes. Don’t get hung up on Thread and Matter - too much tech-talk. X was due for launch in U.K. for the autumn. Though it’s not appeared yet.
The other challenge is figuring out the embarrassing wiring and Honeywell box with a mix and match of Tado devices, probably wired thermostats and a wireless receiver as the zone controllers to successfully control CH and HW with your zone valves.1 -
This may help. There was another forum member who was going through the process of swapping a 3 channel controller for a Tado setting. In this link the guide to the steps to change the wiring centre was provided: Help with 3 channel thermostat — tado° Community
Your sparkie should understand the strategy quite rapidly. In fact, while you are making a decision on whether to go with V or X, you can arrange for the sparkie to make the changes and give the Horstman back to you operating in TWO channel control mode.
That will then leave you with a simple process of swapping the Horstman's front with the Tado Extension kit.
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@policywonk and @wateroakley giving good advice there. I've not done a 3 channel system but it makes sense
My main concerns are those already raised. Your home is long and has a large floor area. I would be very concerned with the range of the V3+ bridge. Unfortunately V3+ does not use mesh networking despite it being part of the 6LoWPAN standard and even being mentioned on their website when I bought mine 5 years ago.
For the small cost, I would suggest buying a second hand bridge and TRV in order to test connectivity in your home. Place the bridge a high and central as possible then try the TRV at different locations around the house to see if connection is maintained. This will help you understand how much of your home can be managed by Tado V3+ and potentially save you investing in something that's not going to be viable
You could try Tado X but this is a new product and I believe there are mixed reports at the moment. Perhaps better to let Tado iron out the teething issues before jumping in.
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It it was my home I think I would seriously consider investing in the Drayton Wiser system where range extenders are available as part of the kit. An off the peg three channel Wiser version is also available from Drayton . . .
https://www.screwfix.com/p/drayton-heating-hot-water-3-channel-wiser-thermostat-control-kit/4081V?gclsrc=aw.ds&ds_rl=1249404&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD8IdPxT4xqOjPQ7nH9ILc97HoK5c&gclid=Cj0KCQjwveK4BhD4ARIsAKy6pMJM3DUr5xTAZd7rBQZ_p0LbT1LNp_Djz1lhS9M262Z8NvyaPASOvUsaArOOEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
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@davidlyall 's idea is brilliant!!!!!!
It really would work, to test the reach of the Internet bridge in your home, just by placing the Internet bridge either centrally or as high as possible and then trying the smart stat in each room to see if it mates.1 -
@startledcod As per @davidlyall and @policywonk, you could e.g. purchase a wireless starter kit, wired room stat, and TRV from your preferred supplier* with a 30 day return policy, and test the connectivity in your home. If it works, you can build on the knowledge. If the connectivity is duff, nothing to lose.
* e.g. Screwfix or the big 'A…' internet supplier.
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