Installing new thermostats

derek_bou

We bought a second home last year which came with 10 thermostats for the electric baseboard heat.  All the thermostats are over 30 years old & we need to replace them.

We are interested in wifi-enabled thermostats so that we can control the temp from afar...but my question is: 

Do we need all 10 to be wifi enabled?  Could we get 3 or so that span the house and have wifi capability (our main concern is pipes freezing in the winter) and the other seven would be standard (i.e. cheaper)? 

Thanks for any advice.

Jamie Hall

Chances are

that those old thermostats are 120 or even 240 volt, and that each controls one section or area of baseboard directly.



You undoubtedly could get a wifi enabled thermostat or thermostats, and use them to drive relays to drive the baseboard sections.  Be an interesting wiring job.



If you do get wifi enabled thermostats, be sure that your security on them is really tight.  Not only is there the possibility of some enterprising soul adjusting your thermostats for you -- more to the point, if they have a readout of temperature available, the same enterprising soul is likely to add two (it's cold in there) and two (thermostats are set low) and come up with four (Nobody's Home!!!) and drive up with a U-Haul and clean you out.

SWEI

Wireless line voltage stats

https://customer.honeywell.com/en-US/Pages/Product.aspx?cat=HonECC%20Catalog&pid=YTL9160AR1000/U&category=EConnect&catpath=1.2.12.4.19 is the US version of the one Aube sells in Canada.  Looks like they pieced that together, which you could do relatively easily using some EnOcean gadgets.