UFH room stat upgrades

[chris wills]

Hello everyone,

I have some Eminetti analogue room stats at home, zoned in 5 places downstairs for UFH.
Is it possible to upgrade them as I would like to enter various temperature controls for the day without just switching off the flow from the heat pump into the manifold. In other word keep the slab luke warm when I'm not there.
Any recommendations?

[linesrg]

Chris,

I assume the heat pump doesn't have a Holiday or Vacation mode?

Regards

Richard

[Countrypaul]

If they are just normal thermostats with 4 wires (excluding earth) then you should be able to put a digital thermostat in place without any great hassle. The 4 wires are normally Live and Neutral for powering the thermostat and  a switch Live and Neutral for activating the valve/wiring centre. The live supply is sometimes jumped to provide the Live for the switched supply. You can also put in wireless thermostats that replace the existing unit with a base and wirelessly connect to a digital room stat that can be placed almost anywhere you want, fixed to the wall, left on a coffee table, put on a shelf etc.

The digital thermostats I have got (not yet fully installed) are wireless and the room stat part allows setting up of a 7 day period so that it could be say 18C at night and most of the day rising to say 21C from 18:00 until 22:00, or 18C overnight and  20C for 07:00 to 09:00 then back to 18C for the day and1C for the evening.

I believe that if all the thermostats on our system switch off, then the wiring centre switched off the pump. Our UFH runs from a thermal store rather than directly off a HP.

Do you have a model number for your existing thermostats (or a picture) that would allow the wiring scheme to be looked up?

[chris wills]

The control panel does indeed have a holiday mode, but I don't want it going off all together and the slab cooling down too much, I want to try and keep it warm so as not to have to heat it up from scratch again

[chris wills]

Paul, I will get some pictures on this topic ASAP

[chris wills]

Here's an image of the room stats we have

[Countrypaul]

I had a look on the Emetti website and whilst that particular thermostat does not appear to be listed others are.

I am NOT an electrician, so if you need to be sure get a qualified person to examine and exchange them.

It looks to me as though the thermostats you have will be 240V, judging by the installation instructions for the current models. If this is the case, then it should be a fairly straightforward job to convert them to use digital ones, either local or remote. Emetti do seem to have both in their current range assuming you prefer to stick with the same supplier.

The simplest solution would probably for you to give them a call, tell them what you have and what you want and ask them to recommend which thermostat you would need to use to replace your existing ones.

[linesrg]

The control panel does indeed have a holiday mode, but I don't want it going off all together and the slab cooling down too much, I want to try and keep it warm so as not to have to heat it up from scratch again

Chris,

I am operating the heat pump at my place fairly frequently in Vacation (horrible American phrase) Mode and there is no evidence of mass cooling going on. The biggest saver I see is that the hot water tank (integral to the heat pump) cools right down. The default setting with CTC is the same as the Night Temperature Reduction feature which amounts to only -2^oC on normal temperatures.

It is the possibly the simplest option for you?

Regards

Richard

[titan]

Do you  really need five different temperature zones on the same level, assuming they are different temperatures  could you just replace the hotter rooms thermostats with programmable ones and set back the temperatures and times as required. I replaced all my thermostats with these  https://www.screwfix.com/p/danfoss-tp5000si-2-5-day- ( cheaper elsewhere). But having spent one winter playing with the various options I now just leave my system on all winter no setback, fairly pointless as it takes hours to raise or lower the temperature one degree The energy consumption for the year experimenting was the worst for the five years it has been running. There was a thread on the green building forum came to the same conclusion.

[rogeriko]

There is no point installing setback thermostats on underfloor heating. I work for an installation company and we have only had grief over zones and times. I have on many occasions ripped out those 100 pound digital thermostats and replaced them with your ones. You have 2 wire thermostats so you cant put digital ones anyway,they need 4 wires. You already have the best thermostat for underfloor heating. If you go away for a long time just turn them all down a little. If you set the temperature down overnight the floor/house will be cold by morning and will not heat up again till the afternoon, also the heat pump will run continuously to try and heat up several hundred tons of concrete that you just allowed to cool down. If you want to save money turn the thermostat down and leave it like that.