We use a Quadrafire Santa Fe pellet stove fireplace insert in my wife's home office, which is part of the the finished, walk-out basement of our home. The stove can be turned on or off via a thermostat, which is just completing or breaking a circuit on the stove. The stove also has a manual switch that allows it to burn at a Hi-Med-Lo setting (just a simple DPDT with off in the middle - that tells the control board which of those three settings to run in based on the position of that manual switch.
I wanted to have automated and wireless control over starting that insert in the morning, which of course any thermostat could do. I also wanted to avoid ugly thermostat wires, which I could have also done with a simple wireless thermostat. But I also wanted to be able to have control over those Hi-Med-Lo settings, as doing that manually meant someone was constantly having to fiddle with that switch to keep the room within a comfortable range. A bit of searching on one of the pellet stove forums (Hearth.com) uncovered a great post by a gentleman that goes by TwoBraids there, who had done exactly this using relays and a Nest thermostat (so a big shout out to TwoBraids, whom I do not know and have never communicated with). Using information he had posted, I rewired the stove to allow me to manually bypass the mode switch on the stove if I wished to do so, sending control to an Insteon four-relay device (cannot remember what they call it - EZ something), which I mounted at the back of the stove.
I then installed a new Nest in the office (we also use one to control our main heat pump for the house) and told that new Nest it was controlling a gas furnace with 3-stage heat. I then connected the output for each of those three heating stages on the Nest to three relays (RIBs)' mounted in the Elk can and connected each of those to a separate zone on the Elk. So when the Nest calls for heat via each of those three stages, it violates a zone in the Elk.
The Elk is connected to my ISY device, so when the Nest calls for any of the three stages and opens the related zone, the ISY sees that. I then used the ISY's programs to tell ISY to open the appropriate combination of relays on the EZ relay device connected to the stove (including turning it on/off and setting the mode), and voila - automated pellet stove insert, but with all onboard safety devices left intact (High temp limits, Proof of fire switches, etc.). All I really did was make the same thermostat connection that the stove is designed to accept, and automate that manual switch, which was so annoying to use in controlling the temperature of the room via stove output.
Now, all of that could be done without Homeseer, and frankly I had reached the point in my system where Homeseer was essentially unnecessary and used for nothing more than reading a few temp/humidity devices as a convenience. But the one problem with the setup described above was that once the pellet stove reached target temp on the Nest, it would just turn off, as that was what it was designed to do even with its regular, hard wired thermostat. What I really wanted it to do was to go into the Lo mode and just "idle", keeping the office within a degree or two of the target temp, avoiding a drop below the target temp in most cases, and also saving the stove from cycling on and off, which chews through ignitors. But I also wanted to have the stove able to go into Med Or Hi mode if the Nest called for additional heat. So, I set up an output in the Elk that could be turned on by Homeseer when the stove was at or near target temp (70 - 72). I then updated my programs in the ISY to enter Lo mode on the stove when that output was turned on, but to allow it to go to a higher mode if the Nest called for stage 2 or 3 heat, or to turn off the stove if the room temp exceeded 72, which can happen on days when it's not so cold outside.
The result is complete control of the pellet stove through the Nest (which my non-techie wife can easily control), and a more even temperature in that office area, with less cycling of the stove on and off. It is working perfectly, and if I want to revert back to manual control of the stove, I just flick a toggle switch I installed that returns mode control to the manual switch on the stove.
Sorry for the long write-up but I thought some might find this mildly interesting after I wrote most of the info above in response to someone's Nest - related question in another thread. I also thought it somewhat amusing that I needed to use three automation devices - an Elk, an ISY, and Homeseer - in addition to the Nest - to automate a simple pellet stove! One could like do much of this with just a single Raspberry Pi or Arduino as an alternative, but I used what I already had.
I wanted to have automated and wireless control over starting that insert in the morning, which of course any thermostat could do. I also wanted to avoid ugly thermostat wires, which I could have also done with a simple wireless thermostat. But I also wanted to be able to have control over those Hi-Med-Lo settings, as doing that manually meant someone was constantly having to fiddle with that switch to keep the room within a comfortable range. A bit of searching on one of the pellet stove forums (Hearth.com) uncovered a great post by a gentleman that goes by TwoBraids there, who had done exactly this using relays and a Nest thermostat (so a big shout out to TwoBraids, whom I do not know and have never communicated with). Using information he had posted, I rewired the stove to allow me to manually bypass the mode switch on the stove if I wished to do so, sending control to an Insteon four-relay device (cannot remember what they call it - EZ something), which I mounted at the back of the stove.
I then installed a new Nest in the office (we also use one to control our main heat pump for the house) and told that new Nest it was controlling a gas furnace with 3-stage heat. I then connected the output for each of those three heating stages on the Nest to three relays (RIBs)' mounted in the Elk can and connected each of those to a separate zone on the Elk. So when the Nest calls for heat via each of those three stages, it violates a zone in the Elk.
The Elk is connected to my ISY device, so when the Nest calls for any of the three stages and opens the related zone, the ISY sees that. I then used the ISY's programs to tell ISY to open the appropriate combination of relays on the EZ relay device connected to the stove (including turning it on/off and setting the mode), and voila - automated pellet stove insert, but with all onboard safety devices left intact (High temp limits, Proof of fire switches, etc.). All I really did was make the same thermostat connection that the stove is designed to accept, and automate that manual switch, which was so annoying to use in controlling the temperature of the room via stove output.
Now, all of that could be done without Homeseer, and frankly I had reached the point in my system where Homeseer was essentially unnecessary and used for nothing more than reading a few temp/humidity devices as a convenience. But the one problem with the setup described above was that once the pellet stove reached target temp on the Nest, it would just turn off, as that was what it was designed to do even with its regular, hard wired thermostat. What I really wanted it to do was to go into the Lo mode and just "idle", keeping the office within a degree or two of the target temp, avoiding a drop below the target temp in most cases, and also saving the stove from cycling on and off, which chews through ignitors. But I also wanted to have the stove able to go into Med Or Hi mode if the Nest called for additional heat. So, I set up an output in the Elk that could be turned on by Homeseer when the stove was at or near target temp (70 - 72). I then updated my programs in the ISY to enter Lo mode on the stove when that output was turned on, but to allow it to go to a higher mode if the Nest called for stage 2 or 3 heat, or to turn off the stove if the room temp exceeded 72, which can happen on days when it's not so cold outside.
The result is complete control of the pellet stove through the Nest (which my non-techie wife can easily control), and a more even temperature in that office area, with less cycling of the stove on and off. It is working perfectly, and if I want to revert back to manual control of the stove, I just flick a toggle switch I installed that returns mode control to the manual switch on the stove.
Sorry for the long write-up but I thought some might find this mildly interesting after I wrote most of the info above in response to someone's Nest - related question in another thread. I also thought it somewhat amusing that I needed to use three automation devices - an Elk, an ISY, and Homeseer - in addition to the Nest - to automate a simple pellet stove! One could like do much of this with just a single Raspberry Pi or Arduino as an alternative, but I used what I already had.