Smart Heating

[sh4d0w]

Hello to everybody taking the time to read this post.
I hope it is oK to post this here.

I will start by introducing myself, I'm Martin from Stockport and I'm here today with a question I'd like to get some opinions on if I may…

Given the current climate with smart technology, I feel it time I dive in myself. Currently I have a Vaillant boiler with Vaillant controls and outdoor weather compensator, however the outdoor weather compensator has become faulty. So rather than replacing this at a substantial cost of £220 pounds. I would rather invest the money in new controls.

I am lost in the world of different brands and versions of heating controls. I think I have narrowed it down to Honeywell EvoHome, GeniusHub or Drayton Wiser.

Hopefully, somebody here can give me direction if I share what I have now.

ecoTEC Plus 624
VRC 470F Wireless Stat – Downstairs Zone
VR81 Remote Stat – Upstairs Zone
Albion 210 Hot water store with temperature probe running straight to the boiler, Electric stat is currently not wired up.
3 Honeywell zone valves all hard wired into my VR61, Upstairs Circuit, Downstairs Circuit and Hot Water. (will become 4 when UFH goes in)

I understand that my 470 offers true weather compensation and has better modulation for the most part BUT, the outdoor unit has failed and needs to be replaced.


Whats the issue

We live in a fairly large house with a total of 8 rooms and 9 Rads downstairs and 7 Rooms and 8 Rads upstairs. some of our rooms are unoccupied for weeks at a time or used very sporadically and without turning off the TRVs we have no control and feel its just a waste and other rooms heat up much faster than others creating some real hot and cold spots in the house - we did have everything balanced too. We also have no control via phone or any "smart" features.

What i would like

in an ideal world i would like a solution that can help save us some money and only heat the rooms we want at the times we want, so i am drawn to the EvoHome straight away, i know i would loose certain "key" things from my 470 but i believe the benefits of modern system will outweigh the loss ?; I would like to control the 3 zone valves as is to avoid any pipework modification and i would like to control thermostatically the hot water tank rather than it be a case of on/off, i dont believe the evo home can do that? we are about to embark on an extension project that will see the installation of a 3 zone single room underfloor heating system so will need to be able to control wet UFH.


Can anyone please help me try and decide on what to do here?

I also know that Vaillant are to bring out their new Senso stats but I suspect they will lack the power of the aftermarket units BUT will be propriety for my boiler which me be advantageous given that the vaillant boiler is not opentherm and only manageable through eBus.

 

[EricMark]

As far as I can work out, the EPH opentherm thermostats can work as master slave so you can have zones, but as far as I can tell they don't support links to TRV heads, so it seems there is not one thermostat that will do all.

So there seems to be a whole load of TRV heads, from £10 each to £80 with simple day/time/temperature set to blue tooth to wifi and some connect direct to phone/tablet/PC others connect to the wall thermostat, which is more of a hub than wall thermostat.

The problem with thermostatic control and geofencing is time. It it takes 1 hour to drive home, you have one hour to reheat the home, so TRV heads record how long it takes so they can speed the reheat, and also some wall thermostats do the same, I seem to remember the Drayton TRV and Nest wall thermostat have this system, but Nest does not have a TRV head any more, they did use Energenie.

So my house ground floor always needs more time to heat to upper floors, so I can use cheap bluetooth TRV heads on the upper floor because the problem is over heating of upper floors, so I only use wifi TRV heads down stairs.

The idea is to try and let the boiler modulate rather than switch off/on, there are many ways to do this, two main ways are monitor return water temperature, or connect to the ebus.