DIY Project To Zone My House

[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

 

[Dannyparty92]

Urmmm Robert was going to be the name for the robot :blush5:.

 

[Destroyer2813]

Then how you gonna connect all that pipe to rads without fittings 3x honeywell 2 ports 180 ish as well, then a call to someone to sort it out when you hash it up

 

[SimonG]

Note to other users thinking of doing something similar.

This is not the way to do it, please employ the services of a decent (preferably recommended) plumber/heating engineer.

IMHO

 

[vern]

Great another sparky-joiner on the forums......good luck when the 438 throws a certain fault related to flow, directly related to what you are going to try to do!

 

[Dannyparty92]

Remember your going to need to use copper for the first 3 meters from the boiler for your heating pipe work.

 

[Richard at Home]

I totally agree with the comment above

No offence taken

 

[Dannypipe]

You agree that you are going to have to fit an S-plan plus, or you agree that the robot should be called Robert?

 

[Destroyer2813]

You agree that you are going to have to fit an S-plan plus, or you agree that the robot should be called Robert?

Probably Robert

 

[Richard at Home]

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

 

[Millsy 82]

If you are trying to save money why dont you do it properley 1st time not a botched diy job (it might work as you want but im not so sure). If you have seperate zones with seperate programmable room stats it would be more cost effective in the long run. Plus circumstances might change in the future so you may have to alter it accordingley and to do it right will not cost alot extra to what you are suggesting.

I understand what you are trying to achieve but it will be incorrect (as has been said before) and if installed correctly then different zones could be kept at different temperatures saving you money in the long run.

 

[dancinplumba]

Probably Robert

whos robert then ?

 

[Dannypipe]

Well, I genuinely wish you the best of British and would be most grateful if you give us some feedback. Photos are always nice too!

Keep asking questions on here. We're a friendly bunch, even if we don't agree with your ideas!

 

[Richard at Home]

Great another sparky-joiner on the forums......good luck when the 438 throws a certain fault related to flow, directly related to what you are going to try to do!

I have seen most of the 438 Error codes when the boiler was commissioned

It now works like a dream and has done so for 3 years

The only thing that broke was the silly plastic control knobs for hot water and heating fell off the front of the boiler ( Rubbish Design )

Valiant engineer said this was a common fault on this unit.

Supplied a fix kit.

 

[Richard at Home]

Thanks and I do understand why you dont agree with my ideas.

I will supply pictures and i am looking forward to see how well it does or does not work

I am going to draw up a Quick Layout that should show what i will be implementing

I will post it in 10 mins

 

[secret squirrel]

I have sat here and read most of the pages of this saga, I don't understand why people are still commenting on it,

The OP is going to do this no matter what advice he's given, will not listen to what he's being advised. That is unless it agrees with what he wants.

There is a wealth of experience on here and every time someone with a huge amount of experience says something the OP comes back again, blustering about how good he is.

Just give up, let him get on with it, come back or not, why bother? move on to the next post.

As a customer he'd be your worst nightmare and who'd want to work for him anyway, he's better off flying solo!

 

[lame plumber]

night night said zebidee boingggggg (the old way of ending childrens hour)

 

[SimonG]

Could really do with this thread deleting to stop somebody else trying to copy.

 

[jase158]

so let me get this straight in my head and I will draw a lil diagram,

you are going to have 3 zone valves coming off the exisisting central heating valve,
these will control
1 = 4 rads
1= 2 rads
1= 13 rads?
what is going to control these valves?
How will you move them from shut to open and visa versa?
what happens when the person in the house wants more heat?
what happens when the person in the house wants less heat?

sorry if this is already covered but I want to understand without weeding through hundreds of posts

 

[jase158]

so your talking something like this?

 

[tooltarticus]

The hot water would be unaffected as it is on the y Plan currently. MY zone project will just switch the zone valves on and off throughout the day regardless of what the boiler is doing

This will hopefully reduce the complexity of control system requirements

Hope you follow what i am saying

no, I dont. if your hot water is on a y plan, then thats going to have to change as your talking about making your system a multi zone s plan. so you will need an additional zone for hot water.

 

[jase158]

Thanks and I do understand why you dont agree with my ideas.

I will supply pictures and i am looking forward to see how well it does or does not work

I am going to draw up a Quick Layout that should show what i will be implementing

I will post it in 10 mins

that was 38 minutes ago!!

 

[leethegasman]

We have no plan to control any aspects of the Boiler

This is done with the Valiant time clock and VR65 Control Unit

Thanks

Not going to get to involved with this one richard but VR65 is just a wiring center i can see what you are trying to do and when i put a new system in my home i wonted to zone it and did and have 5 zones, have had this system for years and works very well.
you asked for help and there are a lot of lads and poss girls on here that tried to give you the correct way to do it but you did not seam to take any advise which i dont understand what ever you decide to do will poss work in some way in the end but if you put your method of controls in my home i know i would not be happy with the way it would work , every one knows why and have been trying to tell you.

 

[jase158]

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!!

 

[Richard at Home]

Yes Jase this is the layout i am working to

Thanks

 

[tooltarticus]

I have seen both in action

At least when a ameture does a bad job you can justify it

When you see a profetional make a mess it is embarrising

um....