Help with zones

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  • rugbyscottie
    • Mar 2024

    Help with zones

    Hello everyone.

    I'm a newbie who's looking for some help with setting up zones. I know this should be fairly simple but for some reason I cannot get it to work!

    Here goes -

    In my house I have a combi boiler which was controlled with a Honeywell CM927 combined wireless programmer / thermostat, which was connected to a BDR91.

    I have replaced the CM927 with the evohome controller and I've had this working perfectly for the last few weeks on simply a one zone system for the whole house, i.e if the controller wants heat the whole house is heated. (The controller is located in the Hall and as my radiators are still all manual TRV's I would adjust these as and when needed dependning on time of day/ room occupancy etc). For the purposes of the evohome controller this 'zone' was called House.

    I have now purchased my first wireless TRV (HR80) and I have tried to install this as a new 'zone' i.e bedroom 1 (which I thought would give me two 'zones' on the controller - 'house' and 'bedroom 1'. My logic here runs that if the house needs heat (according to the evohome controller in the hall) then the boiler fires up and all radiators will get heated depending on the TRV setting, but as 'bedroom 1' doesn't need heat until 10pm then this 'zone' will remain off, and at 10pm if the room needs heat then the boiler will fire and heat the room (granted until I have wireless TRV's on all rads then the whole house will be heated also, but the manual TRV's will be switched off when heading to bed).

    However when I try to add 'bedroom 1' as a new zone it somehow replaces my zone called 'house' and I end up with only 1 'zone' which is 'bedroom 1'. I have tried various things with the 'configuring a zone with multiple rooms' settings as per page 38 in the installation guide, but with no joy.

    If you have managed to understand my rabble hopefully you can also explain how I can set up the system so that until I have wireless TRV's on all my radiators I can control the system in this two zone (house / bedroom) arrangement please?

    Also can my old CM927 be added to the system as an additional standalone thermostat?

    Many thanks.
  • sminkypinky155
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Jun 2015
    • 26

    #2
    I think it's possible you may be using the wrong page of the instructions. Have you looked at page 22?

    The instructions you are using enables the system to have multiple rooms in one zone, eg all the bedrooms together with separate trvs but all set to the same temperature parameters.

    What you are trying to achieve is in effect two separate zones, the bedroom controlled by the HR80 and the rest of the houses temperature controlled by the controller. I think page 22 is where you should be looking if you haven't already done so.

    Not too sure about the CM927 question, pretty certain someone will come along soon and help you out with that one.

    Comment

    • electronicsuk
      Automated Home Sr Member
      • Sep 2015
      • 55

      #3
      I'm not sure what you want is achievable with evohome. If you want to use wireless TRVs (HR80s or HR92s) then you need them fitted to every radiator. If I've understood your current setup correctly, all that will happen is that the entire house will be heated when the bedroom HR80 calls for heat, otherwise the entire house will be off. The evo controller doesn't support the idea of controlling 'unzoned' radiators where some have TRVs fitted and some don't, even though I agree that it would be a good idea, and a good way for someone to get into the zoned heating market on a budget.

      Comment

      • DBMandrake
        Automated Home Legend
        • Sep 2014
        • 2361

        #4
        Originally posted by rugbyscottie View Post
        Hello everyone.
        However when I try to add 'bedroom 1' as a new zone it somehow replaces my zone called 'house' and I end up with only 1 'zone' which is 'bedroom 1'. I have tried various things with the 'configuring a zone with multiple rooms' settings as per page 38 in the installation guide, but with no joy.
        I had the same issue as you - I'm starting with one HR92UK in the Living room and the Evotouch in the hallway on an uncontrolled radiator.

        I had assumed it would be possible to configure the zone without a radiator controller to still control the boiler relay in addition to the zone with the HR92UK but this doesn't seem to be the case!

        I did find a workaround that seems to work though, as I described here:



        Basically, clear all the bindings on the BRD91 (hold down the button for 15+ seconds until it flashes quickly) then bind it as the boiler relay, then create a zone for your hallway radiator which is in the same room as the Evotouch, and choose the actuator type as "Zone Valve" and then proceed to bind that to the same BDR91 without clearing the first binding. This effectively binds both functions to the same relay. Choose the internal temperature sensor of the Evotouch for this zone.

        Configure the zone with the HR92UK as normal as a radiator controller.

        I'm not sure if there are any drawbacks to binding this way, (see my questions in the linked thread) but it seems to work quite well for me.

        Of course if the room with the HR92UK calls for heat, the hallway radiator will come on too, but there is no way to avoid that if it doesn't have a controller of it's own. In my case this is not a big problem because the living room heats up much quicker than the hallway. I program the schedule for the hallway with the rest of the house (with manual TRV's) in mind as well.
        Last edited by DBMandrake; 6 December 2015, 02:40 AM.

        Comment

        • rugbyscottie

          #5
          Originally posted by DBMandrake View Post
          I had the same issue as you - I'm starting with one HR92UK in the Living room and the Evotouch in the hallway on an uncontrolled radiator.

          I had assumed it would be possible to configure the zone without a radiator controller to still control the boiler relay in addition to the zone with the HR92UK but this doesn't seem to be the case!

          I did find a workaround that seems to work though, as I described here:



          Basically, clear all the bindings on the BRD91 (hold down the button for 15+ seconds until it flashes quickly) then bind it as the boiler relay, then create a zone for your hallway radiator which is in the same room as the Evotouch, and choose the actuator type as "Zone Valve" and then proceed to bind that to the same BDR91 without clearing the first binding. This effectively binds both functions to the same relay. Choose the internal temperature sensor of the Evotouch for this zone.

          Configure the zone with the HR92UK as normal as a radiator controller.

          I'm not sure if there are any drawbacks to binding this way, (see my questions in the linked thread) but it seems to work quite well for me.

          Of course if the room with the HR92UK calls for heat, the hallway radiator will come on too, but there is no way to avoid that if it doesn't have a controller of it's own. In my case this is not a big problem because the living room heats up much quicker than the hallway. I program the schedule for the hallway with the rest of the house (with manual TRV's) in mind as well.

          Thanks for the info. I had tried setting up the boiler as a zone valve and though this seemed to work to some degree I wasn't convinced this was the correct way to set the system up. I'v bought some more HR92's so that the i can control the upstairs bedrooms as separate zones and keep the downstairs as one zone controlled by the Evohome controller situated in the hall. But to do this I think I will need to set the boiler as a zone valve again and see how I get on.

          Comment

          • DBMandrake
            Automated Home Legend
            • Sep 2014
            • 2361

            #6
            Just an addendum to this.

            I ran the system this way for 4 days with no problems at all. However after doing a full reset and rebuild to try to solve another problem I started getting comms errors to the zone valve actuator 3 hours after booting the evotouch, despite the fact that both zones were still able to call for heat correctly.

            I tried maybe 5 or 6 different ways of configuring and binding the system over the next few days and could not solve the comms fault coming up after 3 hours. As it did work flawlessly for 4 days the first time it seems either the binding order is critical to fool the system into working this way, or resetting the controller does not completely erase previous bindings despite what the user interface implies. (I suspect the latter)

            I eventually gave up and ordered another HR92UK for the room ahead of schedule - no comms errors since then.

            Comment

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