Energy Kinetics - adding up to 4 smart thermostats

Greening

In June, we installed the Energy Kinetics System 2000 EK1 (Display Manager, Riello oil burner, 4 zone baseboard, plate heater exchanger, 40 gallon ss tank). New system is quiet, uses very little oil, and keeps basement much cooler, reducing our summer AC use; fresh air intake should improve everything once finalized.
We are wondering how many "smart thermostats" we can use without installing another transformer/relay (EK comes with a 24VAC/50Va transformer). We want to add 2 Ecobee3-Lite thermostats now, and maybe 2 more in the future for a total of 4 (each Ecobee draws under 3.5Va each).
Our guess for power draw includes:
- 30 Va - Schneider zone actuators AG12A030 (4 x 7.5Va)
- <7 Va - Ecobee3-Lite thermostats (2 x under 3.5Va)
- ~0 Va - Honeywell old thermostats (2 x 0)
- ?? Va - EK Display Manager
- ?? Va - Other controls/monitors for burner, circulator, DualGard, etc.
Our tech (and family friend) will finalize the EK install but we would like to front-run the question. There is a similar thread here but it does not really answer our question:
https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/181245/using-ek1-boiler-transformer-for-c-wire-sketchy-or-ok
EK has smart thermostat wiring options here (including how to add another transformer/SPDT relay):
https://energykinetics.com/wp-content/documents/display-manager/nest-power-sharing-wiring.pdf
Ecobee technical data sheet here
https://support.ecobee.com/s/articles/ecobee3-lite-Technical-Specifications

JoeHNJ

Thank you for your post and comments on your quietness and system efficiency, @Greening , and for your link to our wiring instructions.
You should have no problem with the (2) Ecobee smart thermostats as you describe. We would go farther and say that in general, a Display Energy Manager will work well with up to (4) smart thermostats and a single 50 VA transformer, but NEST and others keep changing the spec so we don’t know what else may be out there if someone reads this post in the future.
It’s also important to note that smart thermostats are not always “pre-charged up” on install. Some may take up to an hour to charge before they wink back to life.

Greening

Joe - Thank you very much for the clear and prompt response. This really is a nice system.

kitugreat

Hello. I have the same system, but with 3 zones and wired thermostats (LUXPRO) installed. One of the rooms always gets cold in the winter because the thermostat that is controlling temperature for this room is in the kitchen. It is about 9 degrees colder than in the kitchen. What can be done to resolve this issue without running wires to this room and installing thermostat in there? Appreciate any input. Thanks

Greening

I think you should start a new topic. One easy option is to run a thermostat with a remote temp sensor.

kitugreat

OK. I'll post a new one. Thanks