I have a vaillant heating system with following components:
flexotherm heatpump (geo thermal)
allstore exclusive 1000L buffer tank for heating and hot water
auroflow exclusive solar heating
aguaflow exclusive
3 zones UFH
I have ordered myself a ebusd adapter and like it very much.
So far I am reading out the sensors and controlling some automations to do the following items:
Control the heat mode (day, night temperature) based on presence detection and standard timeschedule
Enable the contact to load the buffer when there is sufficient electricity produced
Enable the energy contact when another big electricity user is running or the total consumption passes a threshold (limit electricity peak, e.g. when cooking, washing)
Currently I am struggling with the loading of my buffer and am wondering if someone has achieved a control that might help me improving.
When the loading contact is closed it will 1st load the hot water circuit. I also found out this is possible with an ebusd value
When the contact is closed, the hot water is loaded, it will only continue loading the heating buffer with the offset if one of the zones is actually requesting heat
I was wondering if someone has found out if it is possible to load the heating buffer without the zones requesting heat?
I have almost the same setup as you (flexotherm exclusive, allstore exclusive 500 L, auroflow and aguaflow).
I am not 100 % certain that I understand what you mean by 3 underfloor heating zones, is it controlled by the Vaillant unit or is it a separate UFH system?
Do you have a fixed temperature you would like to maintain at all times?
I am also very interested in how you were able to load all of the sensors into HA, I am having serious trouble getting more than the basic values…
The 3 zones are controlled by the vaillant unit
I do not keep a fixed temperature, I shift it based on rules 0.5 degree up to 21 degrees or to 20.5 degrees (vaillant day, night temperature)
To get all the controls in vaillant I use the ebusd docker and enable the hassio mqtt as interface I bought an ebusd interface I use the ethernet adapter
I am sorry to wander off outside the Home Assistamt topic, but as I work as an engineer with focus on water-based heating systems, I simply can’t help myself
To load the heating buffer when the system is not requesting heat, my tip wold be to increase the buffer tank offset temperature.
BUT: This may not be a good idea if you want to use your heat pump as efficient as possible. If you are planning to shift the buffer tank loading to periods where the electricity price is lower, this might be a good idea, but increasing the temperature will hurt the COP of the heat pump. For every degree you increase the temperature lift of the heat pump, you decrease the COP by approximately 2-3 %.
If you aim to increase your system’s effiency, I would make sure that the heating curve is optimized, and the temperature is kept as low as possible.
I have used the Esera ebus USB adapter, but from what I understand, most people are having trouble with this. I have registered for a ebusd adapter, and hope this will work better
I hope my answer has not been ompletely off target, if there is anything I can assit you with, I’d be delighted!
This is indeed the difficult balance to be made, unfortunatly increasing the offset temperature is not that easy due to some limited control values in ebus
Automations are made to change the z1OpMode to day/night based on
Family is home
Preconfigured run times (morning, evening)
The quickVeto topic is used to override the temperature (max. 8 hours) it is the same when you turn the knob of your Vaillant thermostat. This is used together with the SfMode topic
If you want to override the temperature with veto automatisation you need to use:
temperature_command_topic: "heating/z1/quickVeto"
The standard topics to set the nigth/day temperature are not on the topic of ActualRoomTempDesired
I tried experimenting with these topics as followed, but did not like the outcome
I had the exact same problem and the way we fixed (with Vaillant) was to install another “ghost” zone with an additional VR70 connected to the VR71 (3 zones). The contact is then a simple trigger for the 4th zone which is generating heat demand and has a different target temperature than the “normal” 3 zones.
So in normal operations, the 3 zones will work with their heat curves and target temps, loading the buffer normally. When I set the “contact” to on, the 4th zone is activated and defines a target temperature at 70 degrees to accumulate as much heat as possible in the buffer. I am then using this contact when the electricity hourly price is at the minimum or I have an excess of solar production.
My only problem so far is that the 4th zone in the VR70 is not showing up in Ebusd and I guess I will need to extend the configuration files by reverse engineering some Vaillant proprietary messages.
I’m late for the party…I just saw yout topic here.
Have you found out how to load the buffer?
I have also 1000L buffer tank but with geotherm VWL and fireplace with water jacket connected to buffer, on roof I have photovoltaic 11kW production setup.
I use ebusd for almost 3 years now.
