WiFi controlled oil burner

One More Toy

Hope this is the right place

Is it possible to retro fit a 15 year old oil boiler with a WiFi enabled control device?

Many thanks!

Mickeroo

One More Toy wrote: »

Hope this is the right place

Is it possible to retro fit a 15 year old oil boiler with a WiFi enabled control device?

Many thanks!

Any of Nest, Hive, Tado, Climote, Drayton etc should work, some will be more suitable than others depending on set up with zones etc.

Clareman

One More Toy wrote: »

Hope this is the right place

Is it possible to retro fit a 15 year old oil boiler with a WiFi enabled control device?

Many thanks!

I signed up for Energia a few years ago and I got a free Netamo thermostat installed as a sign-up offer, I think Electric Ireland give a free Nest thermostat.

It's a fairly simple process to install, take out the old thermostat, match the wires, pair the devices all done, it's nice to get it for free as well, my boiler is about the same age as yours.

I warn you that this could bring you into the world of home automation, thanks to the "free" thermostat I now have a vacuum, lights, speakers, doorbell, hubs, fire alarms, cameras. The ****ing "free" thermostat has cost me thousands at this stage, but it's great fun

scunermac

Sorry to jump on this thread, but I'm interested in getting peoples opinions on the following:
I'm about to replace a 15+ year old failing Oil Burner, and thinking of upgrading the overall heating situation in the house.
The house has 2 rooms upstairs, and 8 downstairs.
Currently the heating and hot water is not zoned at all, but we had a plumber out recently to price doing some upgrades and he says he'll be able to zone it to upstairs, downstairs & hot water.
We also have a stove with a back burner which complements the oil burner (but is not really sufficient to push heat to all rooms).
I do not think I will go with full temperature controlled rooms/zones via Smart TRVs in each room (e.g. Tado, etc). So likely it will just be a simple 3 zone on/off system.

So what I'd like to know is if it would be a good idea to add smart heating controls at the same time, as opposed to just having a basic programmable panel like a Horstmann panel.
I've looked into the likes of Nest, Hive, etc, but these seem to be only really worth while if you have a more complex temperature controlled setup. But can these also be used in the more basic for an on/off scenario? Or would that be a waste of these devices?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Clareman

scunermac wrote: »

Sorry to jump on this thread, but I'm interested in getting peoples opinions on the following:
I'm about to replace a 15+ year old failing Oil Burner, and thinking of upgrading the overall heating situation in the house.
The house has 2 rooms upstairs, and 8 downstairs.
Currently the heating and hot water is not zoned at all, but we had a plumber out recently to price doing some upgrades and he says he'll be able to zone it to upstairs, downstairs & hot water.
We also have a stove with a back burner which complements the oil burner (but is not really sufficient to push heat to all rooms).
I do not think I will go with full temperature controlled rooms/zones via Smart TRVs in each room (e.g. Tado, etc). So likely it will just be a simple 3 zone on/off system.

So what I'd like to know is if it would be a good idea to add smart heating controls at the same time, as opposed to just having a basic programmable panel like a Horstmann panel.
I've looked into the likes of Nest, Hive, etc, but these seem to be only really worth while if you have a more complex temperature controlled setup. But can these also be used in the more basic for an on/off scenario? Or would that be a waste of these devices?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I'd imagine the Heating and Plumbing forum would be a better place to answer a lot of those questions.

My 2 cents for the "smart" heating solution is that it's worth it's weight in gold. I had an old timer setup and the timer was a pain in the arse to change and it didn't take into account when we'd be at home or not, I'd say the most used button on it was the boost button, the smart system will set the temperature and keep your house to that, you can have it hooked up to your phone to automatically turn on or off when you leave/return or you can control it when your out, for example you've been out all day and are on the way home, open the app, turn on the heat and everything is good.

Personally I've an old boiler which I've had serviced recently that's doing me the finest at the moment but as I've a daughter who has severe alergies I'm thinking of getting a Dyson Hot/Cold Air Purifier to both act as a local heater and to clean the air, depending how the first 1 goes I might look to get rid of radiators in the rooms and replace them with those but as they are €599 each I'll be waiting a while before I do that.

scunermac

Clareman wrote: »

I'd imagine the Heating and Plumbing forum would be a better place to answer a lot of those questions.

My 2 cents for the "smart" heating solution is that it's worth it's weight in gold. I had an old timer setup and the timer was a pain in the arse to change and it didn't take into account when we'd be at home or not, I'd say the most used button on it was the boost button, the smart system will set the temperature and keep your house to that, you can have it hooked up to your phone to automatically turn on or off when you leave/return or you can control it when your out, for example you've been out all day and are on the way home, open the app, turn on the heat and everything is good.

Personally I've an old boiler which I've had serviced recently that's doing me the finest at the moment but as I've a daughter who has severe alergies I'm thinking of getting a Dyson Hot/Cold Air Purifier to both act as a local heater and to clean the air, depending how the first 1 goes I might look to get rid of radiators in the rooms and replace them with those but as they are €599 each I'll be waiting a while before I do that.

Thanks a million Clareman.
A quick follow up - If we wanted to constantly keep the house at a certain temperature always, would this require us to use smart TRVs in each room, or would you just control the overall house temperature based on say the main unit which may be near your hot press for example?
Also, by trying to maintain a certain temperature in the house all the time, would that not use more oil compared to the old fashioned on/off setup where the heating only comes on a pre-defined times?

These may also be questions better placed in the Heating & Plumbing board, so feel free to tell me to take a hike if you wish

Clareman

scunermac wrote: »

Thanks a million Clareman.
A quick follow up - If we wanted to constantly keep the house at a certain temperature always, would this require us to use smart TRVs in each room, or would you just control the overall house temperature based on say the main unit which may be near your hot press for example?
Also, by trying to maintain a certain temperature in the house all the time, would that not use more oil compared to the old fashioned on/off setup where the heating only comes on a pre-defined times?

These may also be questions better placed in the Heating & Plumbing board, so feel free to tell me to take a hike if you wish

The way I've it setup is that I've no zones or seperate water on my boiler, it's either on or off, I've the thermostat left in my bedroom as it seems to have the most average temperature, once the temperature drops below a certain setting (18 degrees) the boiler turns on, once the thermostat hits that the boiler turns off, this keeps going. I think if you had a zonal setup that you'd have a thermostat in each zone which would turn on the heat in that area if it dropped below a certain temp.

I find it uses less oil, in the past in the winter I'd have the heat to come on in the morning for an hour or so, then in the evening for an hour or so and at night for an hour or so, at the weekend it might have been on for an extra couple of hours during the day, that was the heat just coming on for ~4.5 hours week days and ~7 hours on weekends, that's ~36.5 hours a week regardless of the actual temperature, whether there was anyone at home or not or someone using the boost button. Now I can just set the temp that I want the house to be at and it goes ahead, if I know we'll be at home for certain days I can just change the scheule via the app or website. Personally I think we're using far less oil but I've never tracked it properly.

Clareman

Sorry, meant to add that I was really considering investing on smart rad controllers to control the heat in individual rooms but I don't need it at the moment, my boiler is fairly old and has seen a lot of use so it'll probably need replacing in the near future anyway so I'll look into it more when I have to.

scunermac

Clareman wrote: »

The way I've it setup is that I've no zones or seperate water on my boiler, it's either on or off, I've the thermostat left in my bedroom as it seems to have the most average temperature, once the temperature drops below a certain setting (18 degrees) the boiler turns on, once the thermostat hits that the boiler turns off, this keeps going. I think if you had a zonal setup that you'd have a thermostat in each zone which would turn on the heat in that area if it dropped below a certain temp.

I find it uses less oil, in the past in the winter I'd have the heat to come on in the morning for an hour or so, then in the evening for an hour or so and at night for an hour or so, at the weekend it might have been on for an extra couple of hours during the day, that was the heat just coming on for ~4.5 hours week days and ~7 hours on weekends, that's ~36.5 hours a week regardless of the actual temperature, whether there was anyone at home or not or someone using the boost button. Now I can just set the temp that I want the house to be at and it goes ahead, if I know we'll be at home for certain days I can just change the scheule via the app or website. Personally I think we're using far less oil but I've never tracked it properly.

Brilliant information, thanks Clareman. It's great to hear from someone who actually has experience with this kind of setup. It's also great to hear that it does seem like it is saving you oil (and money). I suppose the theory is that it's more efficient to maintain a certain temperature constantly, than to have to turn off and on all the time. Very interesting.

Clareman

scunermac wrote: »

Brilliant information, thanks Clareman. It's great to hear from someone who actually has experience with this kind of setup. It's also great to hear that it does seem like it is saving you oil (and money). I suppose the theory is that it's more efficient to maintain a certain temperature constantly, than to have to turn off and on all the time. Very interesting.

No bother, my house is probably the worst house in Ireland for heat, Mrs. Clareman LOVES her heat, she'd have the heat on 24/7 if she could, she used to turn on the heat before we went out "so the house would be warm when we got home", it wouldn't have been unusual for the heat to have been left on constant when we went to work for the day. We came to a compromise years ago where she can have the heat on as often as she wants once she pays for it (I won't mention that we've a joint bank account).

wexfordman2

Clareman wrote: »

No bother, my house is probably the worst house in Ireland for heat, Mrs. Clareman LOVES her heat, she'd have the heat on 24/7 if she could, she used to turn on the heat before we went out "so the house would be warm when we got home", it wouldn't have been unusual for the heat to have been left on constant when we went to work for the day. We came to a compromise years ago where she can have the heat on as often as she wants once she pays for it (I won't mention that we've a joint bank account).

Definitely smart controls are the way to go, nest worked great for me.

Reading your setup though, you have an oil burner AND a solid fuel/stove back boiler as well?

You need to investigate this a bit further, as once you zone, basically what happens is that a zone opens and the oik burner turns on directing heat to that zone. The problem is that the back boiler if it is on, also needs a zone to be open so that it's hot water can be directed to that zone. However, opening that zone valve automatically triggers the oil burner as well, so you can't not have your oil on and an open zone at the same time.

Your wiring of your zones will have to be different in some way, so that you can open a zone valve when the back burner is on, without triggering the oil burner.

It's possible, but you need to seocificaly run this scenario by your plumber

Clareman

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Definitely smart controls are the way to go, nest worked great for me.

Reading your setup though, you have an oil burner AND a solid fuel/stove back boiler as well?

You need to investigate this a bit further, as once you zone, basically what happens is that a zone opens and the oik burner turns on directing heat to that zone. The problem is that the back boiler if it is on, also needs a zone to be open so that it's hot water can be directed to that zone. However, opening that zone valve automatically triggers the oil burner as well, so you can't not have your oil on and an open zone at the same time.

Your wiring of your zones will have to be different in some way, so that you can open a zone valve when the back burner is on, without triggering the oil burner.

It's possible, but you need to seocificaly run this scenario by your plumber

I think you maybe quoting me by mistake, I have a stove in the house as well but I don't have a back boiler, the stove is great for keeping the house warm during the winter but I don't think I need it, I definitely don't want it.