I have 5 heating zone to control and domestic hot water in total i have 6 zone heating system, Four zone are on first floor with wired thermostat treated as single zone, ground floor zone with Nest wireless thermostat and domestic hot water with wired thermostat. I have 3 relays (1 for each zone) for upstairs and downstairs with electric zone valve, so when the thermostat close then zone valve power up and open zone and send 220 to zone contractor (multicontactor) that close a non power circuit insulted that triggers the boiler, I have done this circuit when my old 3 zone pcb burned out.
Buy PiHome DIY Kit from eBay or you can send email to [email protected] for custom solution without any extra cost. You can download PiHome IMG file with PiHome per-installed and Raspbian Buster Lite
My PiHome Installation
To take full advantage of PiHome and its ability of controll multi zone heating system i went one step further to add manifold for upstairs to divide each room as separate zone so re-plumbing was done (see image below). After re-plumbing I have a manifold and actuators with 4 zone for bedrooms in one location and for downstairs and hot water 2 zone valves close to the manifold. Under floor heating manifold now controlled by PiHome as you can see on top right side my PiHome wireless zone controller.
PiHome – Bogdan’s User Story – Under floor heating Manifold
PiHome web interface configuring all zone and zone controller with wireless temperature sensor.
My PiHome Web Interface with all Zone
My PiHome Heating Schedule for my Zone
Zone Controller ID: 101
Master Bed 101-1-91
Sma’s Bed 101-2-91
Miru’s Bed 101-3-91
Guest Bed 101-4-91
Controller ID: 102
Hot Water 102-2-91
Boiler 102-4-91
Temperature Sensors
Sma’s Bed 22-0-91
Miru’s Bed 23-0-91
Guest Bed 24-0-91
Hot Water 30-0-91
Old Setup
My Old setup can be seen in below images and how it was controlled from wired and wireless thermostats.
PiHome – Bogdan’s User Story 3 Relay
PiHome – Bogdan’s User Story 3 Relay
My old system was controlled by a basic timed zones controller throughout the basic thermostats.
My old basic timed zones controller
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8 comments
Hi I have ‘two underfloor heating zones” which i assume equate to manifolds. And there will be a third zone (feeds already connected) that will come online early in 2021.
Currently they are all controlled via a wired thermostat in each room. Some rooms have more than one circuit but only one thermostat. Thermostats are wired back to the manifold. one on ground floor and one on first floor.
BEfore they were controlled via a timer on the oil boiler. the new boiler doesn’t have this functionality i.e it is just on.
I would prefer to use wired thermostats (as they are already installed and are more reliable than wifi)
Can i do what you have done?
Can this be run from just one Pi and two relays?
Paul
Hi Paul,
Yes this can be done, but you didnt say if all manifolds are in same location or they are in different location? where boiler is located? if all are in same one location you can have one raspberry pi and connect relay to GPIO and control each zone and boiler that way. but if you have each manifold in different location and boiler in different location then you need raspberry pi for each location if you want to stay wired. you need raspberry pi per location and control each via gpio from that pi and have only one pi hosting database for PiHome and others PiHome web application only and all raspberry pi running PiHome application pointing to that one pi as its database. but having these many raspberry pi bring you back to square one where you have to depend on home wifi to have connection for all your raspberry pi.
hope this make seance.
Thanks for that. Yes they are all in different locations: Boiler in one room. Ground floor manifold, first floor manifold and later this year another manifold. So i will need 4 Pis and from what you are saying it looks like it would be cheaper to get wireless temperature sensors too.
Need to cost this out.
6* Sensors for ground floor + 1 Pi
5 * sensors for first floor + 1 Pi
2 * sensors for later in the year plus 1 Pi.
Plus 1 Pi for the Boiler.
Hi Paul,
very important question, does your boiler have room thermostat connection to start/stop it. or you have to supply 220/110v to it?
Sorry for the delay! you would have to supply 240 (220) to it.
its still ok, boiler zone controller can supply 220v, relay does not inject anything its just act as switch, if you have room thermostat connection to boiler you connect both wires to zone controller and if boiler required 220v then you can connect 220v live in and take out that feed and connect to your boiler. can you give your boiler make and model?
Hi,
I’m Matteo from Italy.
Looking for a cabled solution to manage my heating system I found your website and you very interesting project.
I’m working on a new underfloor heating system which will be divided in 7 zones with a single manifold. In the manifold there will be a solenoid valve (220 V) for each zone. The heat generator will be a daikin altherma 3 heat pump. I would like to put a temperature probe in each zones and use a system connected to the ethernet. I don’t want wi-fi connection.
Do you think that with your system it is possible to implement this solution?
Thank you
Matteo
Hi Matteo,
You can implement wired PiHome solution to control your solenoid valve for each zone, but you have to use wireless temperature sensors for each zone at this stage we do not have wired temperature sensor ready. Temperature sensors I m offering runs on RF wirelesses network and totally independent from your home wifi. You will have one wifi gateway that will connect to your home wifi network and all sensors connects back to gateway over RF.