Hi all
I'm in the latter stages of a large-ish selfbuild project and need a bit of advice regarding heating controls.
At the heart of our system is a thermal store. The boiler heats this directly when the twin stats on the store call for heat.
Downstairs we have UFH throughout, there is a tapping off the store low-down which supplies the UFH manifold/pump assembly; this pump only runs when at least one of the programmable room stats is calling for heat.
That side of it all works a treat.
Upstairs will be rads throughout, pipework is all in place but rads not on yet. There will be 5 rads and 3 towel rails.
There is a tapping off the store (higher up) for the rad circuit, there is also a rad pump and time programmer fitted to the store.
My question is about controlling the rad pump.
With TRVs on all rads, there is the likelihood that they will all close while the time controller is still running the pump.
Now I guess a bypass valve would solve this problem? But it still leaves the pump on the store running all the time the controller tells it to - which is a bit wasteful electricity-wise.
(Remember that the boiler is effectively separate and controlled solely by the store stats, so can be ignored).
Is there any way that I've not thought of to automatically shut the pump off when all TRVs are shut ?
I could stick a wireless stat in somewhere, but there's no sensible location, and it'll never match up to the times the TRVs are all shut.
Only other idea was to fit some kind of flow sensor to the bypass valve that stops the pump when flow through the bypass exceeds a certain level, but then you get the obvious problem of the pump constantly stopping & starting, unless there's a way round that ???
Ideas ?
Many thanks !
I'm in the latter stages of a large-ish selfbuild project and need a bit of advice regarding heating controls.
At the heart of our system is a thermal store. The boiler heats this directly when the twin stats on the store call for heat.
Downstairs we have UFH throughout, there is a tapping off the store low-down which supplies the UFH manifold/pump assembly; this pump only runs when at least one of the programmable room stats is calling for heat.
That side of it all works a treat.
Upstairs will be rads throughout, pipework is all in place but rads not on yet. There will be 5 rads and 3 towel rails.
There is a tapping off the store (higher up) for the rad circuit, there is also a rad pump and time programmer fitted to the store.
My question is about controlling the rad pump.
With TRVs on all rads, there is the likelihood that they will all close while the time controller is still running the pump.
Now I guess a bypass valve would solve this problem? But it still leaves the pump on the store running all the time the controller tells it to - which is a bit wasteful electricity-wise.
(Remember that the boiler is effectively separate and controlled solely by the store stats, so can be ignored).
Is there any way that I've not thought of to automatically shut the pump off when all TRVs are shut ?
I could stick a wireless stat in somewhere, but there's no sensible location, and it'll never match up to the times the TRVs are all shut.
Only other idea was to fit some kind of flow sensor to the bypass valve that stops the pump when flow through the bypass exceeds a certain level, but then you get the obvious problem of the pump constantly stopping & starting, unless there's a way round that ???
Ideas ?
Many thanks !
