Gas Fireplace Control

[jkmcfadden]

I have a house full of Insteon and Z-Wave devices using the eISY.  I recently turned my attention to my gas fireplace.  Currently I was using a wall mounted batter-operated, millivolt timer.  It had buttons for off and 30, 60 or 120 minutes.  But no ability to activate remotely.  And I was constantly having to re-activate on longer, colder days.

So I researched my options and purchased the Zooz Z-Wave Long Range MultiRelay ZEN16 for the fireplace control and the Zooz Z-Wave Plus S2 Double Switch ZEN30 for the wall switch access.

https://www.amazon.com/MultiRelay-ZEN16-Sprinklers-Fireplace-Repeater/dp/B0846DZJD8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/ZEN30-Control-Repeater-Required-SmartThings/dp/B0846CJTRN/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Initially I connected the upper rocker dimmer switch to the light above the fireplace and used the lower button to activate the fireplace relay on an 8 hour timer.  But then I realized if I flipped that around, I could use the status lights of the dimmer as an indicator of the timer count down.

Here is what I did:

1) Set the dimmer switch paddle to immediate 100% ON using the parameter settings listed in the user guide.

2) I created the following programs in my eISY.

 

Fireplace On 

Fireplace Off

Fireplace Timer

Now, when the Upper switch is tuned on, the relay will be activated to turn on the fireplace and a timer program will start.  Every ten minutes it wakes up and sends a dim command to the wall switch which reduces the dimmer status by 2%.  And over the course of 8 hours the dimmer status lights will reduce.  And at a glance, I can tell how much longer the fireplace will run.

Of course, at any time, I can turn the fireplace OFF or hit "ON" to start the 8 hour timer over again.

Additionally, I wrote a set of monitoring programs just in case of some type of timer failure.  Using the parameter settings, I set the relay to automatically turn off after 12 hours.  And my monitor program will watch for this and resync the switch back to off if this happens.

Fireplace Resync

Fireplace Query

 

 

Hope this helps anyone in a similar situation!

Edited November 10 by jkmcfadden