Beginner: HVAC automation question

[MarcDencker]

I am looking to start with home automation

my constraints/requiremetns:

1. I want my heating and airco to be controlled by software and a panel (for the wife); the sofware will ahve to run on Vista 64 or Windows Home Server
2. my heating (gas based) is in the basement, my airco is in the attic (3rd floor) each has a seperate thermostat (that will need replacement)
3. my house is old and has very old electric wiring and stone walls
4. I want to control a few lights
5. in the future I might want to extend home automation to security

based on what I have read sofar z-wave and homeseer seem good technologies to use.

my question is:
what exactly do I need?

• how many thermostats? which ones?
• Do I need a control unit? what kind of control unit should I get
• how do I connect this to the PC?

 

[upstatemike]

I am looking to start with home automation

my constraints/requiremetns:

1. I want my heating and airco to be controlled by software and a panel (for the wife); the sofware will ahve to run on Vista 64 or Windows Home Server
2. my heating (gas based) is in the basement, my airco is in the attic (3rd floor) each has a seperate thermostat (that will need replacement)
3. my house is old and has very old electric wiring and stone walls
4. I want to control a few lights
5. in the future I might want to extend home automation to security

based on what I have read sofar z-wave and homeseer seem good technologies to use.

my question is:
what exactly do I need?

• how many thermostats? which ones?
• Do I need a control unit? what kind of control unit should I get
• how do I connect this to the PC?

Marc- I think you need to provide some detail about what you mean when you say you "want your heating and airco controlled by a PC". What exactly do you want it to do? For example: I use manual changes to thermostat settings as triggers for automation events. (I have announcements that confirm the setting just made or sometimes over-ride a setting if it is too far out of bounds). You usually can't do that with thermostats based on lighting protocols such as Z-Wave or Insteon because they don't generally report manual changes in real time. You would need a serial based themostat such as one from RCS or HAI for this type of control.

If all you want to do is use the PC as a fancy thermostat setback timer then Z-Wave thermostats would work just fine. This would get you the ability to control the thermostat remotely from a touch screen or over the Internet but you won't be able to use manual thermostat changes as triggers in your system.

 

[MarcDencker]

I am looking to start with home automation

my constraints/requiremetns:

1. I want my heating and airco to be controlled by software and a panel (for the wife); the sofware will ahve to run on Vista 64 or Windows Home Server
2. my heating (gas based) is in the basement, my airco is in the attic (3rd floor) each has a seperate thermostat (that will need replacement)
3. my house is old and has very old electric wiring and stone walls
4. I want to control a few lights
5. in the future I might want to extend home automation to security

based on what I have read sofar z-wave and homeseer seem good technologies to use.

my question is:
what exactly do I need?

• how many thermostats? which ones?
• Do I need a control unit? what kind of control unit should I get
• how do I connect this to the PC?

Marc- I think you need to provide some detail about what you mean when you say you "want your heating and airco controlled by a PC". What exactly do you want it to do? For example: I use manual changes to thermostat settings as triggers for automation events. (I have announcements that confirm the setting just made or sometimes over-ride a setting if it is too far out of bounds). You usually can't do that with thermostats based on lighting protocols such as Z-Wave or Insteon because they don't generally report manual changes in real time. You would need a serial based themostat such as one from RCS or HAI for this type of control.

If all you want to do is use the PC as a fancy thermostat setback timer then Z-Wave thermostats would work just fine. This would get you the ability to control the thermostat remotely from a touch screen or over the Internet but you won't be able to use manual thermostat changes as triggers in your system.

ok that makes sense (I think)
what I want is a thermostat that I can program on the thermostat (eg mon-fri at 7am heat the house to 71 and at 8pm let it drop to 63)
but I want to be able to override that with the PC if I am away or coming home early (from the internet switch teh heating on so it is warm when I get in the home)

I want to remotely switch light on/off
I would like to see remotely what lights are on/off


I am still looking for a shopping list for my first project (and stuff isnt really cheap so I am a bit nervous that I buy stuff and then in 3 months have to replace is to fit my needs)
are there good DIY books on this topic or good website I can use to read up on this some more.