DIY Project To Zone My House | General DIY Plumbing Forum | Page 6 | Plumbers Forums

Welcome to the forum. Although you can post in any forum, the USA forum is here in case of local regs or laws

DIY Project To Zone My House

Post thread
Post reply

Discuss DIY Project To Zone My House in the General DIY Plumbing Forum area at Plumbers Forums

R

Richard at Home

Good evening and a happy new year to you all

I welcome any comments and feedback to my project I am looking at starting in 2013

now I know all this sort of thing can be done with many of the costly out of the box solutions that probably cost more than the boiler itself

What I am looking at doing is to create a heating system that has at least 3 Zones

I believe I could do this with some changes to the main Pipe work and 3 motorised zone valves and an additional time clock


Reason for project

During the day one member of my family is at home and requires heating to be on for 4 rads in part of the house.

Currently I am heating all the house all day when only part of the house needs to be heated

My daughter-in-law is also at home some times when not at Uni and may need her front room heating.

Now my logic is to have the secondary time clock switching the water flow between parts of the house during the day and in the evenings opening all valves to heat the complete house

Now I know this could also be done with the new wireless digital TVRs but this expense would be significant


I will add to this post as the project develops

If you have any questions or would like to bounce ideas or comments please reply and this may become an interesting post.


Thank you for your time

Best regards

Richard
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
the zones will open and close throughout the day on a pre programmed time clock

If i choose at 5PM the number 3 radiator is to be hot this zone valve will open at 5 and if the boiler is on it will heat

If the house is warm and no heat is on the valve will open but will not have any affect because the boiler is not fired up
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It is illegal in the Uk for any person who is not competent and registered with a competent persons scheme to install any new cables.

However the pipes will work. but I wouldnt use plastic in your attic, especially as a diyer
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Richard at Home said:
I am not touching the main boiler or output pipes they are 10m away from where I will be working all that is in and working.

All I am going to do is adding extra pip work so I end up with 2 or 3 circuits controlled by the valves.

To me this is not a large job

2 days in the loft to input main 22mm pipe work
Click to expand...

No one has said you dont have the skills to do pipework ,I can lay bricks but if i dont take the advice given to me to install a lintal its just a pile of bricks the next day that someone has to clean up
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jase158 said:
The confusion for me is how are these 3 zone valves going to open and close
the programmer (in my head anyway) is connected to the 3 port valve, thermostats i.e.
so how does the zone valves open up?
could be done with a thermostat? or even a fused spur! or even an immersion heater timeclock!! but the Op has overlooked this and is not even thinking it is neccessary.
please OP tell us all how you will be opening these up!!
obviously everyonw is saying it would be better if the boiler was interlocked with each zone valve so it doesnt fire up unless the zone valves are open.
And in the interest of safety, what are you going to do if the programmer is calling for heat and the thermostat is calling for heat, but there is no zone valves open? you will have boiler firing, pump pushing but nowhere for the water to go!!
Click to expand...

in answer to your question about the heating but no valves open

There will always be a core circuit of 5 radiators that will be on the main circuit ( Not zoned ) so when the boiler comes on it will always be heating at least 5 of the 19 radiators

There will also be a bypass valve to cope with the TRV valves as they close

Hope this helps answer your question

Regards
Richard
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
and think about it properly,

if you zone the other rooms, your family member will be cold, he will turn the thermostat up and turn time clock on by boiler to fire boiler up, then open his programmer, the whole house is now being heated.

so you MUST zone all radiators so that the person who is home will turn on the programmer and the zone he wants to open when he is cold.

but the best option is to leave the area that the person is going to be in unzoned, then he can just turn the boiler on as usual when he wants heat, then have the rest of the house on timer, so it is warm in morning and when you get home from work!!

the way I see it is that you are assuming that you will know the times when he is warm and cold!! but you really need to set the house so he can adjust freely when he wants aswell as having the timers.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Richard at Home said:
Why would you not reccomend plastic in my loft ? Just out of interest.
Click to expand...

when I first started out as a plumber, I used plastic. When testing there would be several leaks from not fitting correctly, pipes not cleaned properly and forgetting inserts, 3-4 leaks in an attic would cause a lot of damage.
they also leak several months later as they may seem right but they aint and they can be eaten by mice
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'll say it one last time. (Others have all said it). Then I'll leave you to do what you want.

Get rid of the three port valve. Fit 2 port valves, all with their own stat, and preferably with their own timer too. This includes the hot water cylinder....which you can still use the existing cylinder stat, you will just need alter the wiring.

Don't come off a three port valve with a bank of two ports. It's just crap plumbing. It will have anyone who works on the system in the future scratching their heads, and rubbing their chin, whilst sighing.

If a jobs worth doing, it's worth doing properly. Isn't that true?

There is a bloke on here "Gray0689", who reguarly fits systems on a manifold, with actuators. Each room has it's own stat. Great, but only if it's done from scratch by a proffessional.

I will now remain silent, and let you do what you wish....and I wish you well.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
What is the point of going to all the effort of forming separate zones without giving each zone thermostat interlock? It would be little more effort to make it an s plan plus system, which is tried and tested for one thing! I don't mean to be rude, but do you genuinely think you have put more time and effort into system design and testing than Honeywell for example?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
the thing I think he is trying to do is to just change a few bits of pipe and not the whole system, he is trying to do it on the cheap and do half a job.
what he is talking about is a massive job, usually done by ripping a whole system out and putting a whole new system in (unless you are lucky and can see all pipework and all rads are seperate, not teed off each other)

I have to be honest though and can not see it working at the moment, with a bit of work and careful thought, then yes it will work, but the OP is thinking the wrong way round.

But the best option is quite clearly to get the right kit and start from scratch
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Upvote 0 Downvote
blah.jpg.....
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jase158 said:
the thing I think he is trying to do is to just change a few bits of pipe and not the whole system, he is trying to do it on the cheap and do half a job.
what he is talking about is a massive job, usually done by ripping a whole system out and putting a whole new system in (unless you are lucky and can see all pipework and all rads are seperate, not teed off each other)

I have to be honest though and can not see it working at the moment, with a bit of work and careful thought, then yes it will work, but the OP is thinking the wrong way round.

But the best option is quite clearly to get the right kit and start from scratch
Click to expand...


Thanks for the feedback and yes i am talking about half a job.

I am not removing any radiators or the pipe work in the walls

Just the way the rads are connected together in the loft.

I am lucky all the rads are individual pipe back to the main 22mm runs so no to hard to do

So it is not a big job from my point of view just a layout change of the main 22mm runs.

To be honest the old pipe work up the loft ( That was nothing to do with me ) is a mess and even if i cut it all out and Re pipe it all to exactly the same layout it will be 100% improvement

Remember this was heating system that had a water tank that was Horizontal due to the low roof height and was 20+ years old with an old floor standing boiler in the kitchen.

Thanks everyone for your comments

Regards

Richard
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
New posts

Similar plumbing topics

Tilers Forums
  • Question
DIY Tiling; Advice for DIY Tilers
DIY Tiling; Advice for DIY Tilers DIY Tiling...
Replies
0
Views
161
Tilers Forums
Tilers Forums
M
  • Question
How to design a domestic plumbing and heating system
I don't know if you are aware of the "Society...
Replies
8
Views
1K
Basher
B
M
  • Question
Radiator Not Heating Up
Well done for sorting it. Waggling the trv pin...
Replies
7
Views
1K
Ben-gee
B
S
  • Question
Unidentified noise in party wall
Ok thank you Chuck, yes it does a bit 😆 That's...
Replies
6
Views
584
shrewmouse
S
Old house
  • Question
WHAT CAN I DO WITH THESE PIPES IN LOFT - Survey says DIY standard?!
There's worse work than somewhere or other...
Replies
5
Views
1K
Ric2013
R
Back
Top