Automater Air Vents that work with ISY

[ulrick65]

Anyone ever used any automated air vents that will work with ISY somehow?

I am looking to do a poor man's zoning of my forced air heat/cooling system.  I have a relatively small house (1700 square feet) but a full finished basement...so want to be able to direct the air and heat a little better without spending a boatload of money on zoning.

Something like this:  https://flair.co/products/vent

It may not be that much cheaper then actually zoning, I have just started looking  into it.  I can do either task myself...but my background is Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and Maintenance.  I can fix about anything electrical or mechanical...but two things I really suck at are dealing with sheetmetal and wood....I am just not handy that way so I was hoping to stay away from cutting into my main duct system.

Thoughts?

 

 

Edit:  I have read enough in the last hour to come to the conclusion that these things are too much money in order to do it right.  I already knew you had to control CFM of airflow at all times and many of these systems don't.  Not to mention they seem to be pretty darn expensive. If anyone has experience with them would be good to share, but I think I will just go ahead and zone my system my self.  Any HVAC guys out there that can give me any pointers on air balance dampers or how to integrate the controls into my automation system (ISY) I would love to hear from you.

Thanks.

[Bumbershoot]

It sounds like you may have decided against these, but there are two nodeservers of the ISY that can manage Flair vents: one Polyglot nodeserver, and NodeLink.  I don't use these, so I can't say anything about them other than to make you aware that there are options.

There may be others (other than the nodeserver authors) who have experience on this forum, so maybe some information will turn up.  I'm sure that with a full deployment of these things and some clever programming of the ISY you could do some interesting things, but I have no idea if the ROI or comfort benefits warrant the expense/effort.

Good luck!

[tophvacsystem]

I personally didn't use automated air vents. You can also use heat recovery ventilator (Air ex-changer). It's safe and didn't required much efforts to install. There are different types of air ex-changer are available in market but I suggest to use Fantech AEV 1000.  Fantech AEV 1000 air ex-changer provides proper ventilation in the home or places like garage, your workshop etc,. Benefit of Air ex-changer is that, it's a best buy for summer and winter both the season. It helps you to warm up place in cold as well as dehumidifying the air in summer. You can easily install air ex-changer by yourself or you can also ask professional to install air ex-changer.

[Mustang65]

16 hours ago, ulrick65 said:

Anyone ever used any automated air vents that will work with ISY somehow?

I am looking to do a poor man's zoning of my forced air heat/cooling system.  I have a relatively small house (1700 square feet) but a full finished basement...so want to be able to direct the air and heat a little better without spending a boatload of money on zoning.........

 ........I have read enough in the last hour to come to the conclusion that these things are too much money in order to do it right.  I already knew you had to control CFM of airflow at all times and many of these systems don't.  Not to mention they seem to be pretty darn expensive. If anyone has experience with them would be good to share, but I think I will just go ahead and zone my system my self.  Any HVAC guys out there that can give me any pointers on air balance dampers or how to integrate the controls into my automation system (ISY) I would love to hear from you.

Thanks.

Not sure of the metal ducts you have... round, square or rectangular. I am taking the duct damper approach. The method that I am using is rather easy. First, I have upper wall and lower wall air returns (currently opened and closed manually according to the season) and I am also dividing the house into 2 zones, East (normally cooler) and West. The house uses 12" flexible insulated round ducts in the attic (my second home) for supply and returns, so installing the dampers is easy for me.

Upper and lower Return air supplies.

I am ordering (1) 12" Normally open damper and (1) Normally closed damper. The normally open damper will be on the "Upper" air return duct and will be active when the AC is running and the "Lower" air return vent's damper will be a Normally closed model. When the HVAC heat is activated, the dampers will reverse their operating positions. During the summer the warmer air at the ceiling will be open to the HVAC return air duct and in the winter the lower air duct will be returning the colder floor level air.  Currently, the ecobee Smart (commercial, no longer made) thermostat that I have in my home office will control them as I can have up to 4 zones with it, but will eventually be moving the control over to the ISY. The (2) 10" East and West ducts will be Normally Open and will be controlled by ISY and some DS18B20 temperature sensors.

These dampers operate off of a transformer which will make it easy to wire it into a Insteon or Z-Wave module or outlet for attic use. I will use the Amazon purchase as it is easier and maybe a little cheaper when you add shipping to the non Amazon purchases.

Some will question if the upper and lower air return vents actually work better. After a few years of manually opening and closing the return ducts (install a 24"x24" painted cardboard), I can actually say "YES" the benefits are 2 fold. First, the thermostat is at 54" above the UN-insulated slab floor, so the temperature monitoring is up high and the couch/recliners are at about 18" off the floor and it is always colder at that level (per the wife). What I have found is that in the winter and using the floor level return vents the warmer air moves downward because the colder air is the air being recirculated and reheated, not the warmer ceiling air. Secondly, the run time of the Heat-Pump is less based on the ecobee data.

Just another option to consider.

[ulrick65]

Thanks for the replies.

@Bumbershoot thanks for pointing those out, but I have decided against this route.

After a closer look at the system I have found that I have manual dampers on each of the take offs from the main trunk line.  I am going to look to see if I can buy just the motor to drive these....not much of a stub sticking out to work with, but perhaps there is something out there made for it.  I think doing it that way will be my best bet, similar to what you are going @Mustang65 except all of my vents are in the floor and the cold air returns are in the wall at floor level as well (they simply "blocked" into the joists and studs with sheet metal like many houses are. 

I basically have one truck running the length of the center of the basement and then take offs from there going to the various vents (look like 6 and 8" but I didn't measure them.

The other thing I need to do is measure pressure in the trunk line and put in a bypass...as reducing air flow by closing off certain vents/take offs really screws up the balance of the system. 

I am thinking with some CAO sensors and @Jimbo Polyglot node, I should be able to make something work out pretty well.  Just need a pressure sensor that I can get into ISY as well so I can control the bypass properly.

Appreciate all the input.  Any other thoughts and ideas I am all ears!

Thanks.

[TAllen]

Hi,

 Were you ever able to find a way to get a HVAC barometric pressure reading into your ISY?  I'm looking to do something similar for filter changes (negative pressure before the blower)

[larryllix]

59 minutes ago, TAllen said:

Hi,

 Were you ever able to find a way to get a HVAC barometric pressure reading into your ISY?  I'm looking to do something similar for filter changes (negative pressure before the blower)

@TAllenYou didn't include any text or person you were posting to in order to alert them. Type '@' and then their name, select the box below like I did yours at the beginning of this paragraph.

[asbril]

15 minutes ago, larryllix said:

@TAllenYou didn't include any text or person you were posting to in order to alert them. Type '@' and then their name, select the box below like I did yours at the beginning of this paragraph.

@larryllix thanks for showing this trick

[ulrick65]

2 hours ago, TAllen said:

Hi,

 Were you ever able to find a way to get a HVAC barometric pressure reading into your ISY?  I'm looking to do something similar for filter changes (negative pressure before the blower)

No, I didn't.  Had some health issues and haven't been back to it yet.  If you find something, please post here and I will do the same.

Thanks.