Best Heating Control for CH + Underfloor

[Seb101]

Hi,

I'm about to completely remodel the ground floor of my house, in the process I'm going to be laying hard-floors and installing underfloor heating throughout - removing all the CH radiators as well.

This means I will have a 4 zone underfloor heating setup downstairs (Hallway, Kitchen, Dining, Living room), then the 1st and 2nd floor will retain the central heating radiators (single zone). CH+DHW is from a combi (Opentherm compatible).

Does anyone have a recommendation for a single heating control system that can work across the two technologies?

Ideally what I want is each underfloor zone to be individually thermostated, but centrally scheduled, then they first/second floor CH to be separately thermostated and separately scheduled - but all controlled from a single unit, if that makes sense. So a system that's capable of maintaining different schedules for each zone.

I currently have a Nest 3rd Gen controlling the CH, which I like, however I can't see how this can be integrated with the underfloor systems, so I'm not tied to this. However I would like to keep certain features of the Nest system is possible: remote control from App, automatic home/away.

Thanks in advance for advice.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Evohome

 

[Seb101]

Evohome

Perhaps I am misunderstanding or didn't make it clear, but I have just used the 'Evohome configurator' on the Honeywell website and it says this:

• Hall - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• Kitchen - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• Living Room - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• Dining Room - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• We have made the assumption that our radiator controllers will fit on the existing radiator valves. Please check the valves as part on your onsite visit.

Which would seem to make the Evohome useless for this task?

 

[Dan Robinson]

Hi,

I'm about to completely remodel the ground floor of my house, in the process I'm going to be laying hard-floors and installing underfloor heating throughout - removing all the CH radiators as well.

This means I will have a 4 zone underfloor heating setup downstairs (Hallway, Kitchen, Dining, Living room), then the 1st and 2nd floor will retain the central heating radiators (single zone). CH+DHW is from a combi (Opentherm compatible).

Does anyone have a recommendation for a single heating control system that can work across the two technologies?

Ideally what I want is each underfloor zone to be individually thermostated, but centrally scheduled, then they first/second floor CH to be separately thermostated and separately scheduled - but all controlled from a single unit, if that makes sense. So a system that's capable of maintaining different schedules for each zone.

I currently have a Nest 3rd Gen controlling the CH, which I like, however I can't see how this can be integrated with the underfloor systems, so I'm not tied to this. However I would like to keep certain features of the Nest system is possible: remote control from App, automatic home/away.

Thanks in advance for advice.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding or didn't make it clear, but I have just used the 'Evohome configurator' on the Honeywell website and it says this:

• Hall - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• Kitchen - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• Living Room - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• Dining Room - evohome cannot control this room as it is electrically heated.
• We have made the assumption that our radiator controllers will fit on the existing radiator valves. Please check the valves as part on your onsite visit.

Which would seem to make the Evohome useless for this task?

It would help if you mentioned it was electric ufh.

How do you think you will get OpenTherm to work with that?

 

[Seb101]

It would help if you mentioned it was electric ufh.

How do you think you will get OpenTherm to work with that?

My bad - forgot to mention that. The electric UFH in each room has it's own thermostat - which I would set per room, essentially I just want the scheduling part of the CH controller to send on/off switching to the 4 UFH controllers so I can schedule and control them centrally, rather than having to set and change a schedule for each room individually.

 

[Seb101]

Having said that- I don't see why full OpenTherm control would not work with this set up. Isn't OpenTherm at it's most basic just capable of sending on/off and a target temperature? An electric UFH system should be able to respond to that.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Having said that- I don't see why full OpenTherm control would not work with this set up. Isn't OpenTherm at it's most basic just capable of sending on/off and a target temperature? An electric UFH system should be able to respond to that.

No

 

[Dan Robinson]

Having said that, Evohome should be able to control at least a single electric zone in the new year. Still waiting on the details.

 

[Dan Robinson]

OpenTherm is about controlling the output of a gas boiler. It's a two way protocol.

 

[Seb101]

I understand that boiler modulation/output control was the genesis of the OT protocol, but in reality, there is no reason that the same protocol couldn't be applied to electric UFH. The modulation in this case is just the wattage output of the UFH controller - pretty much everything else is the same.

How does Evohome control the open/close of zoned heating valves? Could the same signal be used to switch the UFH controller through a relay?