I’m in the process of setting up my water floor heating system and need some advice on integrating it with Home Assistant. The system will be split across 8 zones, 4 on the ground floor and 4 on the 1st floor. Here’s what I have in mind:
Ground floor: The groups can be connected into a single group to manage temperature centrally as the Kitchen, Livingroom and guest toilet can have the same temperatures.
1st floor: Each group needs to function independently, as rooms like the bathroom and sleeping rooms will require different temperatures.
Controlled via HA via Wall Tablet: Samsung Galaxy A9+ with wall mount on every floor.
I’ve come across some interesting discussions like [this thread] that looks a lot as the same installation as the one in this video, which gave me some good insights. However, I’ve also seen a simpler approach using 230V actuators connected to a Shelly Pro 4PM, which seems like a much easier installation, which was also advised on the Shelly website here. As I’m pretty unknown if it comes to heating systems, I’m unsure if I need an extra temperature sensor that needs to be mounted on the pipe to measure how warm the water in general is (If seen that in the video above that is linked above).
I’m looking for advise/recommendations on the best options, performance being my main concern rather than cost. My goal is to ensure reliable performance and flexibility in controlling each zone’s temperature.
If anyone has experience with similar setups or can suggest the best way to integrate everything, I’d really appreciate your advice!
I’m not so much an expert, but do have some experience. Choosing the right actuator is key. I picked 24V actuators because there were already 10 of them installed and only had to buy 2 more. If you don’t have actuators yet, it’s up to you. The 230V are ‘easy’ because of the Shelly, but Shellys are pretty expensive if you would need more actuators. Every floor pipe needs an actuator. So if in your case all 8 zones are one pipe, you need 8 actuators. In my case, the living is one zone, but has 6 pipes, thus needing 6 actuators for one zone.
Buying and installing an ESP relay module is a bit more complex compared to shellys, but is far less expensive. ESP relay boards are in all different voltages available, but again, it’s up to you.
You don’t NEED temp sensors mounted to pipes, it’s just an extra, a safeguard on which you can turn on and off the pump. I do have these sensors, but I don’t use them for the pump.
What I have done is easier, 1 have 12 relays, when a single get’s switched on, the pump gets turned on. If all relays are off, the pumps turn off after 5 minutes, if longer than 8 hours off, it turns on for 1 hour and turns off again.
Hi Martijn, thanks for your reply and sharing your experience with me. I know a ESP Relay would be the cheaper way, but my concern is that it’s not well covered (its just a board with no case) and I think electrician will not like that . Or do you know where to get good covers for that?
In general, I think I can manage the ESP installation tho.
What I have done is easier, 1 have 12 relays, when a single get’s switched on, the pump gets turned on. If all relays are off, the pumps turn off after 5 minutes, if longer than 8 hours off, it turns on for 1 hour and turns off again.
What kind of tool did you install there to get that sensor/controller?
Could you maybe share your config with me so I can consider this installation next to my Shelly installation?
Hi Martijn, thanks again for the info. Im really considering your installation as its way cheaper then going for a Shelly installation. Would you maybe mind sharing your ESP config and some pictures of your installation?
I still have mine on a temp beer crate. It’s running now for two weeks like this, and I think it is stable so hopefully I have some time to hook it up to the wall, after sorting the wires for a bit. But for now:
I don’t think that’ll work. There are 230V boards too, they surely do work with 230V actuators, but I don’t think the 230V will work because they need a much higher load than the 24V board provides.
As mentioned, I choose 24V because I already had a couple of them because of the previous owner of this house. If you start new and have to replace you are free to decide your own. I’d however would decide 24V because it’s less dangerous when there is an error.