I’ve got warm air heating in my house, it’s old but it works well and it cheap to run compared to modern heating systems, so I’m not looking to replace it. But it’s quite dumb in the fact you have to manually turn it on and off, or leave it to the thermostat but that means leaving the heating on 24/7 which I don’t want to do. It did have a timer system but that’s long since stopped working. So I want advice on making it smart.
I’ll add some photos below, but basically it has a knob to control it on or off, the knob has 3 settings but the middle one if for the timer that no longer works.
I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on making it smart?
I was looking and found this place for the manual.
They might have spare parts to replace the timer. This coupled with a smart thermostat MAY provide the solution you are looking for. You will need to register with the website to download the manual.
I might replace the timer but would a smart thermo on its own sort it out?
Any suggestions on smart thermomstats?
It could, but I couldn’t download the manual to see how it was wired. I don’t know if you need the unit on and idling to get the thermostat to kick it on.
Thanks, the photos are most welcome.
Dumb question: Are the two alkaline AA cells fresh? Did they replace rechargeable ones?
I’d guess, without doing further research, that the timer driver motor or gears are worn out from age or overuse, and it is a fairly generic timer unit, both in size and specification. The output of the timer is probably a set of normally open or closed contacts, and should be able to be replaced, both from electrical and logical aspects with HomeAssistant compatible solutions.
Carefully removing the unit and disconnecting it and saturating the timer with electrical switch cleaner spray can often eke a few more months or years out of these old timers if the mechanical side has not worn out.
You may be able to integrate a thermostat here as well or deploy a number of them in other rooms. Do you have any air dampers/valves that control the flow of warm air to various zones or rooms as well?
I’ll check further when I get home in a few days. Your requirements are quite common, and a trustworthy HVAC technician will sometimes recommend updating just the controls rather than unnecessarily replacing everything else that is running well. These systems usually run reliably for decades. A small outlay may save you much grief and still provide you with a working scenario and efficient modern controls that could save you ongoing energy costs.
They’re about a year old, and no, they replaced non-rechargeable ones.
After some research, I think my best bet is to remove the thermostat completely, and replace it with a Shelly and a momentary switch for manual control. I already have various temp sensors throughout the house connected to HA. And then bypass the timer completely.
I couldn’t either, you need a trade account