It’s been dawning on me recently that I need to automate the HVAC system in my town house.
As things stand now I have a typical 1 zone HVAC system with the thermostat in the living room on the first floor and have to control heating and cooling by manually opening and closing vents as the seasons change.
I’m running into a problem where I either need to turn off the heating and cooling and open all the windows or keep all the windows closed and run the heating and cooling.
I need to figure out how to setup a 2-zone (upstairs and downstairs) or 3-zone (each bedroom upstairs and the entire downstairs) HVAC system that will let me open and close windows at my leisure and still allow the other sections of the house to remain at a comfortable temperature.
I’ve gone ahead and ordered 1 of these ceiling registers from AutomatedOutlet to play with but I’m trying to figure out the best way to control a whole system of registers.
My first issue is getting temperature sensors into each zone. I can’t really run wires from both the upstairs and downstairs to a single place. I can get both the upstairs zones to one place upstairs and the downstairs already has a thermostat. I looked for wireless temp sensors at AO and SmartHome but didn’t see anything. Wireless would be ideal (I think) but I’m open to suggestions.
The second issue is how to control all this. I’m currently running an old standalone version of Housebot (1.61 to be precise) to automate my outside lights and a few indoor lights, nothing fancy. If I can continue to use Housebot, that’d be great but if not I’d like to stick to a computer based system and not a stand-alone controller. My beef with the stand alone controllers is that, while they are very nice, they have a lot of features I don’t think I need (security stuff specifically) and don’t particularly want to pay for.
And finally, I know that I’m going to need to replace the thermostat I currently have in my living room with one that can be controlled remotely. I’m just not sure which one. Again a wireless solution would be ideal for interacting with the thermostat but I’m not sure that something like that is available.
Ultimately this is the biggest home automation project I’ve decided to tackle and I’d like some pointers on where to begin.
If there’s anyone else here who has succeeded in making a retrofit multizone HVAC system on a multi-story building I’d like to hear how you did it and what you might have done differently. And of course, if there’s anyone who made the attempt and failed, I’d like to hear your stories as well.
Phew, this turned out to be a lot longer than I’d anticipated. Thanks for taking the time to read this guys and I look forward to your replies.
As things stand now I have a typical 1 zone HVAC system with the thermostat in the living room on the first floor and have to control heating and cooling by manually opening and closing vents as the seasons change.
I’m running into a problem where I either need to turn off the heating and cooling and open all the windows or keep all the windows closed and run the heating and cooling.
I need to figure out how to setup a 2-zone (upstairs and downstairs) or 3-zone (each bedroom upstairs and the entire downstairs) HVAC system that will let me open and close windows at my leisure and still allow the other sections of the house to remain at a comfortable temperature.
I’ve gone ahead and ordered 1 of these ceiling registers from AutomatedOutlet to play with but I’m trying to figure out the best way to control a whole system of registers.
My first issue is getting temperature sensors into each zone. I can’t really run wires from both the upstairs and downstairs to a single place. I can get both the upstairs zones to one place upstairs and the downstairs already has a thermostat. I looked for wireless temp sensors at AO and SmartHome but didn’t see anything. Wireless would be ideal (I think) but I’m open to suggestions.
The second issue is how to control all this. I’m currently running an old standalone version of Housebot (1.61 to be precise) to automate my outside lights and a few indoor lights, nothing fancy. If I can continue to use Housebot, that’d be great but if not I’d like to stick to a computer based system and not a stand-alone controller. My beef with the stand alone controllers is that, while they are very nice, they have a lot of features I don’t think I need (security stuff specifically) and don’t particularly want to pay for.
And finally, I know that I’m going to need to replace the thermostat I currently have in my living room with one that can be controlled remotely. I’m just not sure which one. Again a wireless solution would be ideal for interacting with the thermostat but I’m not sure that something like that is available.
Ultimately this is the biggest home automation project I’ve decided to tackle and I’d like some pointers on where to begin.
If there’s anyone else here who has succeeded in making a retrofit multizone HVAC system on a multi-story building I’d like to hear how you did it and what you might have done differently. And of course, if there’s anyone who made the attempt and failed, I’d like to hear your stories as well.
Phew, this turned out to be a lot longer than I’d anticipated. Thanks for taking the time to read this guys and I look forward to your replies.