Network controlled heating...

[Danp]

Anyone have something like this in place? Head of Operations has asked me to look into a way of remote controlling our central heating systems in all of our external buildings. All of our buildings are connected on the same network.

[plexer]

You want to retro fit an hvac control system to your boilers or just network aware thermostats?

 

Ben

[Danp]

Boiler controllers

[Willott]

We have a Delta Controls system in. Seems fairly good, but support hasn't been the best and there are some aspects of our 40yr old system which struggle with it

[sdc]

Trend system here. Full control of all thermostats, valves, switches etc via the Trend 963 software. An EINC connects the whole system to the network via a single IP address.

[Danp]

We have a Delta Controls system in. Seems fairly good, but support hasn't been the best and there are some aspects of our 40yr old system which struggle with it

 

Does not sound good, we have some older stuff here too.

 

Trend system here. Full control of all thermostats, valves, switches etc via the Trend 963 software. An EINC connects the whole system to the network via a single IP address.

 

I like the sound of this, I will give them a shout.

[Willott]

To qualify my previous post - the usefulness and impact of a boiler control system will depend on your current heating/boiler setup - we're an old building, and only have control of the pumps for the main block, a second block and the hot water system (and control over the boilers firing) - we loose out on local control (or more localised control) as there are no valves/pumps to control anywhere else. The best function and cost savings/energy efficiency are gained where you can locally control rooms or an area using thermostats and valves - something we cannot do - as you can reduce the amount of heating required area by area, reducing the unneccessary flow of heat to areas which are already warm and reducing the requirement for boilers firing. For example, we have 3 sensors in our main block - one's currently at 21.6 the other two at 18.8, so the heating is being called (we heat rooms to 19), if we had local control of valves, we could have switched off flow to the entirety of our upstairs.

 

Also, some of our sensors and valves in the boiler house are at end of life - sensors returning open paths, valves not closing when told to by the control system, boilers firing of their own accord - so be very firm in ensuring that all sensors and valves are checked for operation when the system is put in.

[Danp]

Thank you for that, we too have an older system in our main building but this is due for some upgrades soon hence looking into a controlled system now.

[teklogic]

we are running a Privia BMS system, it works really well. Email / Text notification for boilers / HWS & AHU. Takes an average temp of zones and opens the valves correctly on the VT circuits

[CyberNerd]

They installed one at the beginning of the year.

Serial connection to the boiler. XP only - no updates or Win7 support.

I was not amused and made the company put in their own PC to maintain.

[kearton]

Our Site Manager uses some software called BMS which I think is from Schneider?

[Danp]

Looking at this again, apparently its all controlled via relays and therefore could be done via some Raspberry Pi's and software. Nice little project for me...