Link Electric Underfloor Heating to Central Heating Controls

[Neil2020]

I'm currently fitting a new kitchen at home, but want to add electric underfloor heating to take the chill off the floor tiles.

Our central gas heating is controlled through a smartphone (tado) and a manual set of controls next to the boiler.

Is there a controller/thermostat available for electric underfloor heating that I can link to the central heating controls so that the underfloor heating comes on when I turn on the gas central heating?

I'm thinking of a controller that not only has it's own on/off switch and live fused spur feed for power but one that can also take a switched live from another controller to 'link' them together?

 

[Dan Robinson]

Doubt it with Tado.

I've done it with Evohome but getting floor overheat protection was was a clunky affair.

 

[Neil2020]

Why wouldn't it be possible with Tado? As I understand it, all the smart controllers work exactly the same way to turn the boiler on and call for heat. There is simply a single switched live from the control unit to the boiler to call for heat. I want to take that same switched live into a controller for the underfloor heating.

So are there any underfloor heating controllers that accept an external switched live to turn on/off?

 

[Dan Robinson]

Depends on your knowledge of relays.

So I suppose you could force tado to work. But you need floor overheat protection.

 

[muggles]

There is, but it'll get expensive. You'll need a Heatmiser NeoStat-e, a Heatmiser hub, and an IFFFT account. Then you set up an IFFFT rule that says "If I turn my central heating on using Tado, Then activate my Heatmiser electric underfloor heating thermostat".

You might be disappointed controlling it like this though - electric UFH takes a good hour or two to warm up the floor

You'd get better integration if you flogged the Tado and went over to Heatmiser for everything

 

[Dan Robinson]

Forgot about Neo.....

 

[Neil2020]

There is, but it'll get expensive. You'll need a Heatmiser NeoStat-e, a Heatmiser hub, and an IFFFT account. Then you set up an IFFFT rule that says "If I turn my central heating on using Tado, Then activate my Heatmiser electric underfloor heating thermostat".

That's useful thank you. I hadn't considered IFTTT. Not to fussed about the delay with the floor warming up. We always turn the heating on in advance of when we want it warm anyway.

Depends on your knowledge of relays.

So I suppose you could force tado to work. But you need floor overheat protection.

Your missing my point. I am enquiring if it is possible to do this with an existing underfloor heating controller which would already incorporate a floor thermostat. I don't want to jerryrig the underfloor heating direct to the Tado, I want the Tado to send a signal to a seperate underfloor heating controller.

I cant beleive there isn't a simple solution for this. Plenty of properties have mixed heating sources and i cant beleive people turn on their heating, and then visit rooms with supplementary underfloor electric heating and also turn those own.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Your missing my point

No I'm not.

. I don't want to jerryrig the underfloor heating direct to the Tado,

Tough.

I cant beleive there isn't a simple solution for this.

There is. It's called planning ahead

 

[Neil2020]

There is. It's called planning ahead

Sorry, I completely forgot to intervene in the building of the property 20 years ago when I was still in school to ensure the considered all future advances in home automation and alternate heating methods.

 

[bernardgreen]

I'm currently fitting a new kitchen at home, but want to add electric underfloor heating to take the chill off the floor tiles.

You might be disappointed controlling it like this though - electric UFH takes a good hour or two to warm up the floor

If it is to just take the chill off the tiles and there is other heating for the kitchen then do not bother connecting them together. Either :-

1/ set the thermostat for the underfloor heating to a very low but warm setting and leave it on all the time

2/ set it to a slightly higher temperature and use a time clock to switch it on an hour before you are going to use the kitchen and OFF an hour before you have finished using the kitchen.

What ever you do when installing he under floor heating make sure the temperature sensor in the floor is fitted in a duct so it can be easily removed and replaced when it fails. Otherwise you will end up removing tiles ( they break ) or having no control over the temperature of the under floor heating

 

[Dan Robinson]

Sorry, I completely forgot to intervene in the building of the property 20 years ago when I was still in school to ensure the considered all future advances in home automation and alternate heating methods.

Did they put the electric underfloor heating and home automation in 20 years ago then?

 

[stem]

If your electric floor heating system has a floor thermostat / overheat protection with it, and can also be wired to a standard room thermostat, there is no reason why you cannot fit an additional Tado thermostat, in the same way that you could use more than one Tado thermostat to control a wet central heating system with with more than one zone. As far as the wiring is concerned, the Tado is just an on/off switch the same as other thermostats; it doesn't know what it's switching.

The limitation will be the rating of the Tado switching contact which is rated at 6A for resistive loads. If your underfloor heating has a higher loading, then as Dan Robinson mentioned earlier, you could use the Tado to operate a relay which in turn has a heaver duty contact to operate the UFH.

 

[Neil2020]

Did they put the electric underfloor heating and home automation in 20 years ago then?

No, hence why I think your comment about 'planning ahead' is just a waste of time and completely unhelpful. I have to work with what I have, and that is a house with gas central heating, Tado heating controls and a desire to install electric underfloor heating in the kitchen to lift the temperature of the floor (not as the main source of heating the large room).

So if you can explain HOW I should of planned ahead better? All I could imagine you meant by your sarcastic comment is that when the house was built they should of been able to predict the future and install a control system that would do as I want it to now.

So unless you have anything useful and helpful to say, please don't say anything at all.

 

[Dan Robinson]

You've been told how by 3 of us now.

Now, picked your toys back up and grow up.

 

[bernardgreen]

Did they put the electric underfloor heating and home automation in 20 years ago then?

If you research on the houses built in the Future Home Exhibition, Kents Hill, Milton Keynes in 1994 you will find some iof them did have electric under floor heating amd at least two had "home automation". The automation system in the Mashford-Ainscow house was built into a tall 19 inch rack cabinet. ( Kerry Mashford worked for the same company as I did at that time)