Heating & Cooling automations that save you money
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2023
- Save money and energy by smartening up your heating and cooling. I use a combination of smart appliances, presence detection and scheduling to keep my house at a comfortable temperature year round, without wasting energy.
❤️ Found this video useful and want to support the channel? I'd love a donation at paypal.me/homeautomationguy
I’m building a new smart home from the ground up and I’m implementing a lot of the same stuff, nice to see you had the same ideas. One thing we do that helps is to automatically open the exterior blinds to let in or block the sun depending on interior temperature.
Hi, cool video, i did not know about the scene snapshot! i will definitly apply that to my hass setup! A tip: heatpumps(ac's) dont like starting and stopping of their compressors, the more start and stops the more power the system uses and reduces livespan of the unit. My local daiking installer said to use the modulating capacity of the units when automating. Instead of turning the AC off try increasing the temperature step by step so the unit kicks in to a lower modulation. I meassured my Daiking units to go as low as 40Watts. I turn them off after 25 minutes with a open window detected by increase target temperature 1C every 5 minutes. Often the door/window is closed before that time is up. I still saved energy but avoided a compressor restart including the resulting power spike and hardwork that the unit has to do on startup.
Great video. It would be great have a walkthrough of how you created the energy dashboard and linked to Octopus.
Really good ideas for further integration of HVAC into HA. Couple of points though, those Daikin splits are most likely reversable so can be used for space heating as well as cooling, these generally run at 300-400% efficiency in heating mode so may work out cheaper for space heating than running the underfloor heating and depending on the quantity of units you have across the house you can quite likely use them to reduce the heating season for the boiler. Somebody else also made a comment about zoning heating and using more energy, this is true but depends on the type of gas boiler you have (condensing vs non condesning), if you have a condensing boiler it would be worth monitoring the flow and return temperatures because you need a certain differential between the two to get the most efficiency out of it, this could be quite easily monitored within HA and automations configured to ensure that the loading on the system is correct to ensure condensing. If your boiler is not a condensing boiler then feel free to zone away. Lastly given that you apparently have space for outdoor units, have underfloor heating and your house is well insulated it would be well worth looking into replacing the boiler with a heatpump, in terms of running costs it should be pretty similar to gas (assuming it is sized and fitted correctly) but you can also load shift with them so can take advantage of variable electricity tarrifs to minimise cost (such as running the heatpump for hot water over night on cheap rate electricity)
Good video. For the maintenance pump run you could check the weather forecast and delay for a hot day. Controlling AC by a door requires caution as it could lead to many more on/off cycles than normal. There is short cycle protection built in to the AC, but its minimal.
Heating is the most useful automation
Why don't you use the daikirin split ac to heat up those rooms for the time you are using those like the kitchen cause the air heating is far more efficient and faster especially for all those presence based situations?
Thank you for showing your setup and the automations.
Whenever I start working, I connect my laptop to external monitors at home. (I live alone so others would need to adjust this part accordingly) Whenever the number of monitors changes on my laptop from 1 to 2, I turn off my bedroom heater, and turn on the office one. Same thing in the evening when I disconnect.
Thanks!
Thanks for the tip on running the heating system periodically! I’ve set it using a calendar automation so I can see when things are due to happen. I’d not thought of using Home Assistant as a Facilities Management system before!
Great video!
I did not know you were an Aussie! Great video, thanks!
HVAC engineer here. Depending on your DAIKIN fancoil models, they also may have a heat function. One criticism of radiant floor systems is that they are slow to warm up and they perform best over long cold periods. Contrast that to heat pumps which warm up quickly and work better during shoulder heating periods. If your fan coils support heating, there is an opportunity to configure your controls to select which heating option is preferred. You can use the heat pumps as a supplemental heat source in case the room temperature falls too low. Additionally, you can set a lockout of the radiant system if the outdoor temperature is too high, letting the fan coils bridge a small temperature gap even when it’s relatively warm outside.
Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the tip on running the pumps I will steal that one. BTW I found the HACS Heatmiser integration more reliable than the Homekit one. I also have a couple of DateTime helpers for when we go away and schedule taking the heating out of standby, based on our expected return less 6 hours, so the house has time to warm up and I don't have to remember to do it.
Interesting to see others with house modes like guest and holiday. I am using standard radiators so I can re-heat the home very quickly. I have automations to set a sleeping and morning temperature for the heating based on the time of my morning alarm on my phone.
Great advices. Greetings from Argentina
I’m now considering combining the thermostat for AC (essentially for cooling) and TRV (for heat only) - what do you think I should do to accomplish that? Do you use separate thermostat? Thanks and good content
Great video. You mention in the video that you didn't do too much research on what you'd need - but I was wondering if you can share your tips on where you'd normally search?