First of all, this is my first message on this forum and I am a beginner when it comes to HA and smart houses in general. So please forgive me if my question are not well shaped.
I live in Europe, my house if heated by a gaz boiler (Saulnier Duval isosplit) that heats steel radiators. I have seen sold by Tadoo, a full system where you have connected thermostatic valves on the radiators, a central hub and a connector on the boiler. What I love about it is that it is very flexible. If only one room needs to be heated, the thermostatic valves detects it, and sends the signal to the boiler so it starts. What I don’t like is the proprietary protocols and expensive prices.
I was wondering if you all know if that kind of setup is achievable with other less expensive brands (Moes maybe ?) and if that can be integrated into HA.
I wish to have a system that can be controlled and automated in HA but that also can work without it. Just in case.
Hello!
I have the same question.
I was seeing that maybe a relay with dry contact in order to switch on/off the boiler and some thermostatic valves on the radiators could be the best choice, having everything controlled by HA.
For sure, you need to setup a rule that switches on the boiler when at least a valve is open and that switches off the boiler when all valves are closed.
But let’s wait for other replies by more expert people.
What lacks in my idea is being able to control everything without HA and the lack of a display in order to quickly setup temperatures and perform manual actions.
OK, I can speak out of my experience.
To integrate heating in ha you will have to find a way how to integrate your heating source, boiler or furnace, into ha. This is the hardest part. Everything else is more or less easy.
Integrating heating source means that you have fully ota control over it, you can turn it on, off, set room temperature, hot water temperature, tweak settings etc.
I’m using pcb with esphome that was made for the furnace type that I have.
Furnace has its own automation program to turn heating on or off that can be only set manually on the furnace.
I use automations to increase temperature of hot water when I need it, to turn trvs on or off depending on furnace mode, summer or winter and some other stuff. It is not possible to turn heating on or off with trvs because this furnace is using outdoor temperature sensor for switching between summer and winter, heating, mode.
Smart trvs are great for zone heating especially if they are used in combination with rooms temperature sensors using better thermostat integration. Zone heating is possible without any smart home devices if you have a room thermostat in each room and water pump for each room. This is obviously very expensive solution and people usually don’t have it. Advantage of it that you will have better thermal distribution over the house because not all parts of the house have the same temperature nor need the same temperature. Heating is more efficient managed but don’t expect miracles in heating bills. For me biggest saving is on hot water preparation as I have 200 l water tank that is reheated if hot water is 5 degrees beneath desired value. I also managed to fine tune my furnace ota as I have this option.
Your setup probably will be different because it is mostly determined by the heating source someone have and its integration in home assistant.