Winter vacation home: electric heat, water heater, etc

[weirded]

Our vacation home has an electric water heater as well as several electric baseboard heaters. I'd like to use an ISY-99 and INSTEON components to control energy costs while the place is not occupied. The resort is powered by diesel generators, which translates into astronomically expensive electricity (48c/kWh).

 

I'm looking for some clever ideas to accomplish having warm water and a heated home by the time we arrive there, and energy savings while the house is not occupied.

 

Here are two things that I haven't found clever solutions for:

 

• 
  *How to detect/predict that the place is being occupied. Ideally, this would be predictive, so the place can start heating the water/heaters as we drive up to it
   
  * How to drive the baseboard heaters in a manner that works with the ISY-99. The obvious way is to simply turn then on/off with a 220V switch, but I'd prefer a method that allowed temperature control. Unfortunately, these things require high voltage thermostats, and I don't think there is a "ready-made" solution for those.
  

 

Any good ideas?

[LeeG]

There are various Insteon devices that can control high watts/amps 240V devices. However, before spending any time in planning a specific solution a test using actual Insteon devices in that environment must be done. Insteon devices are very particular about 60 cycle frequency because they insert the Insteon traffic just before the zero cross point. If the frequency is not very precise the Insteon signal does not get inserted in the correct location on the sine wave. Also the sine wave generated by some generators is not good enough for Insteon devices. Not from a power supply point of view but because the Insteon signal must be inserted at exactly the right spot on the sine wave. Many generators do not provide an accurate enough 60 cycle sine wave for Insteon devices to work. Others do not generate a good sine wave. You will find this discussed on the Smarthome Forum. Insteon works great on utility power, but does not work well at all on a backup generator. May be less of a problem for a generator large enough to run an entire resort but I would not invest time and any large amount of money without knowing Insteon does work reliablely.

[TJF1960]

How to detect/predict that the place is being occupied. Ideally, this would be predictive, so the place can start heating the water/heaters as we drive up to it

You didn't say but if you have internet there you will be able to remotely control any of your devices thru cell phone or computer if you do. If not then you could use motion sensors mounted where they will detect the vehicle as you drive up, however animals can/will trip the motion sensors. Smarthome does carry a couple of vehicle sensors but I do not have any experience with them. Maybe someone who does can chime in. Here are some examples:

http://www.smarthome.com/7313/Dakota-Alert-WPA-3000-Wireless-Probe-Driveway-Alert/p.aspx

http://www.smarthome.com/73150/Dakota-Alert-Wireless-Rubber-Hose-Driveway-Sensor-Transmitter-Only-WHT-3000/p.aspx

http://www.smarthome.com/70422/Enforcer-Indoor-Outdoor-Wall-Mounted-Photoelectric-Beam-Sensor-with-35-Foot-Range-E-931-S35RRQ/p.aspx

 

How to drive the baseboard heaters in a manner that works with the ISY-99. The obvious way is to simply turn then on/off with a 220V switch, but I'd prefer a method that allowed temperature control. Unfortunately, these things require high voltage thermostats, and I don't think there is a "ready-made" solution for those.

There may be an easier all in one solution but this was the first thing that came to my mind:

A 220v Insteon switch (provided the amp rating is within spec of the switch) http://www.smarthome.com/2477SA1/INSTEON-220V-240V-30-AMP-Load-Controller-Normally-Open-Relay-Dual-Band/p.aspx

or

http://www.smarthome.com/2456S3/ApplianceLinc-Relay-INSTEON-Plug-in-Appliance-Control-Module-3-pin/p.aspx

with an EZIO2x4 or EZIO6i

http://www.smarthome.com/31280/SimpleHomeNet-6-Input-INSTEON-Interface-Module-EZIO6I/p.aspx

and temp. sensors

http://www.smarthome.com/1523/Temperature-Sensing-IC-Chip/p.aspx

wired into the analog inputs of the EZIO will give you set points to turn the heaters on/off.

 

Tim

[weirded]

There are various Insteon devices that can control high watts/amps 240V devices. However, before spending any time in planning a specific solution a test using actual Insteon devices in that environment must be done. Insteon devices are very particular about 60 cycle frequency because they insert the Insteon traffic just before the zero cross point. If the frequency is not very precise the Insteon signal does not get inserted in the correct location on the sine wave. Also the sine wave generated by some generators is not good enough for Insteon devices. Not from a power supply point of view but because the Insteon signal must be inserted at exactly the right spot on the sine wave. Many generators do not provide an accurate enough 60 cycle sine wave for Insteon devices to work. Others do not generate a good sine wave. You will find this discussed on the Smarthome Forum. Insteon works great on utility power, but does not work well at all on a backup generator. May be less of a problem for a generator large enough to run an entire resort but I would not invest time and any large amount of money without knowing Insteon does work reliablely.

 

Ohh... Excellent point, I had not thought of that... I'll be sure to take some of my INSTEON stuff up there to try it out.

 

As you said, it may not be an issue. The place in question is Kirkwood, CA, which is essentially a small town. The scale of the diesel generators is fairly big, and I would imagine they must be doing some power conditioning in order to run an entire town off it -- but it won't hurt to check.

[weirded]

You didn't say but if you have internet there you will be able to remotely control any of your devices thru cell phone or computer if you do.

 

There will be internet, yes, so that's probably the easiest thing to do...

 

 

There may be an easier all in one solution but this was the first thing that came to my mind:

A 220v Insteon switch (provided the amp rating is within spec of the switch) http://www.smarthome.com/2477SA1/INSTEON-220V-240V-30-AMP-Load-Controller-Normally-Open-Relay-Dual-Band/p.aspx

or

http://www.smarthome.com/2456S3/ApplianceLinc-Relay-INSTEON-Plug-in-Appliance-Control-Module-3-pin/p.aspx

with an EZIO2x4 or EZIO6i

http://www.smarthome.com/31280/SimpleHomeNet-6-Input-INSTEON-Interface-Module-EZIO6I/p.aspx

and temp. sensors

http://www.smarthome.com/1523/Temperature-Sensing-IC-Chip/p.aspx

wired into the analog inputs of the EZIO will give you set points to turn the heaters on/off.

 

I had looked at that, as well - I was hoping somebody had a more elegant/robust solution that didn't require me to cobble it all together.

 

I was also thinking of using one of the Venstar thermostats -- at least I get a temperature readout in degrees without further tuning. I could probably write a program that turns the heaters on below a given temperature and back off above a given temperature.

 

Can a program be written with thresholds relative to a setting on the thermostat? For example, if the thermostat is set to 72 degrees, turn on the heater at 70 and off at 73, but when it's set to 60, turn it on at 58 and off at 61.

 

Though the easiest/cheapest solution may simply be to use a non-INSTEON high voltage thermostat and use INSTEON to simply turn on/off the power to the heater...

[apostolakisl]

I would not use Insteon for this. I find the reliability to be too low. If there was a failure to shut off your heat or whatever it could cost a lot at those kind of electricity prices. Maybe the newer dual mode Insteon stuff that uses RF as well as power line code would be reliable enough.

 

I use my Elk M1G for stuff like this. Soon (I hope) Elk will be fully integrated with ISY so you can use that programming interface.

 

A simple and cheap hardwired relay will work on your water tank and there are a number of thermostats that will communicate with Elk.

 

You will need a trigger for your system to know that you are about to show up. What that trigger is, only you can determine since only you know when you are going to be there. You can have Elk or ISY send you email or text notification of turning your vacation house on/off or other conditions as you see fit.

[Sub-Routine]

Hello weirded,

 

Yes, a program can check the setpoint and the current temperature with the Venstar thermostat.

 

The thermostat also sends commands when it is calling for heat, cool, or nothing which may be more what you want.

 

Rand

 

 

Can a program be written with thresholds relative to a setting on the thermostat? For example, if the thermostat is set to 72 degrees, turn on the heater at 70 and off at 73, but when it's set to 60, turn it on at 58 and off at 61.

 

Though the easiest/cheapest solution may simply be to use a non-INSTEON high voltage thermostat and use INSTEON to simply turn on/off the power to the heater...

[weirded]

The thermostat also sends commands when it is calling for heat, cool, or nothing which may be more what you want.

 

Oh... That's very cool. That basically means i can use that thermostat + the ISY-99 to drive anything that generates heat. Very cool. That may be the route I'll chose (at least for the primary/big heater in the living room). Having 4x of the thermostats would be getting a bit too expensive