Hey there! Which ways are there to manage boilers by z-wave? I need two different solutions - first boiler uses electricity and second one is on gas. But there is no obvious way to manage thermostats, they are built in.
I googled and found thermostats, but again, no idea how to install them.
How do you manage boilers? Is Russia so old with technologies and nobody uses boilers…? 
Electric boiler you may simply use zwave or wifi relay/switch.
Gas boiler you may be able to use zwave valve but usually this is for water line. Not sure if OK for gas and since bad gas connection has explosive potential I would check this carefully
Ok, speaking about electric one. I can not see temperature in boiler, right? I just can turn on and off from plug, no advanced settings?
So, I have to turn on the boiler, then turn off relay or plug and then I can turn on the plug to turn on the boiler?
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You may add your own temp sensor and connect using raspberry pi or zwave sensor that support temp sensor.
I would need to know details of how boilers normally function yo provide details of how to control. I can only assume simple on/off of electricity is enough to control this.
Since you have (2) boiler both needing some on/off control and monitoring, maybe a raspberry pi or Arduino may be better and cheaper. You may
use actuator for gas and relay for electric controlled by RasPi. You can connect the temperature sensor from pi to boiler. You may also add some gas leak or other sensor as needed.
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How would you connect a temperature sensor to the boiler or water tank?
This is specific to equipment.
Dril hole and install inside
OR
Place sensor inline
Or
Some sort of small holding tank used to sample temp
OR
Can you replace and existing sensor
OR
Use camera to read existing visual sensor
Sorry but don’t know enough about your stuff to give specific recommend
So this is what I have an immersion heater and I have 2 immersion heaters installed in my tank. At the moment I am measuring the temperature of the heater and accordingly turning the water on and off.
But this is not good as the temperature of the heater changes instantly if there is any breeze near the tank even though it’s insulated etc.
I have a thread of my system called immersion heater. Check out the photos maybe it will make more sense.
Thanks.
Thank you all, I got the ways to read the temperature.
Question with relay on electric one. Do you install relay just on heater, or it is like turning boiler on and off from plug?
I am not sure, but as I saw, there is no way to get to wires, only by it taking apart
Usually moder boilers has MCU inside. They are responsible for putting power to heating element depending on temperature inside the tank. So it could be simple relay or simistor. If you getting temperature independently than you could use smart plug. Just set Max temp on your boiler.
I would like to use boiler’s MCU with temperature sensor, but I do not think that taking it apart is good idea as I am not really confident in what I am doing.
So I am going to try z-wave relay on main power cable to see what I will get.
Thank you
You have to check do the MCU keep temperature settings after power off. If yes you are good to go. Just set boiler temp a little bit higher than your target temp. And when you reach your target temp just power off boiler.
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Here is an example of boiler automation using Sonoff Pow with ESPHome(Russian language!):
It calculates the electricity consumed by the boiler and performs 2 automations:
1) “Night tariff” mode - if it is on, then the boiler is automatically powered up in the evening (if the boiler was turned off before), with the onset of the night tariff and it is turned off in the morning (if the boiler is turned on at that time) after it ends.
2) Boiler auto-off mode - if it is on, after the end of the boiler heating the power is turned off. It can be re-enabled either from the Home assistant or by pressing a button on the Sonoff POW. After pressing this button, if the boiler does not consume electricity for more than 5 minutes. (hot water, no heating required) - it will be disconnected from the network again.
