Multi zone control from one thermostat

MTC

I have a vacation rental property that is heated with hydronic baseboards in 3 pumped zones from a Bosch tankless propane combi boiler (plus a water heater storage tank heated by the Bosch). It's currently running on 3 old school mercury thermostats through a Taco controller.  I wouldn't have a problem with this arrangement if it was my home, but it's confusing for our Airbnb guests, and I'd like to be able to remotely control the thermostats as well when nobody is there. 

What I'd like seems fairly simple, but I can't seem to find anything that works this way. I'd like one smart thermostat in the main area that sets the temperature for all 3 zones (together or separately, but from one location), with auxiliary sensors in the other 2 zones, which would independently turn on/off the pumps for those zones. I hope that made sense. I'd also like to be able to adjust it remotely from an app and see the current temperature etc. Don't need any learning features like Nest etc, as there are no routines to the use of this house - it's quite different from week to week, season to season.

Is there a relatively simple solution for this without going up to the complicated/expensive commercial options?

HomerJSmith

Why not just use 3 wifi thermostats? I like the Honeywell wifi's.

PEvans

^^ I was going to say the same thing. If you want to each zone to operate with its own temperature setting and manage it remotely, you could use Honeywell WiFi's. They would appear as individual thermostats in one "location" in the app. They will not tell each other what to do, you would have to do that.

IIRC, the Nest has some ability to control multiple thermostats in one "location." They won't set each others' temperature setpoints, but I think you can set them all to "away" or "off" with one command from the app. I had three Nests on three independent systems in my last house and that was one really nice feature.

MTC

Thanks for the replies. 3 smart thermostats works, though a little silly. But that would be fine for my purposes. The reason I am trying to do something different is that its not easy for our guests who are typically there for 2 or 3 days renting the house for vacation, to figure out the multi-zone system. We spend a lot of time explaining it to each guest. So I was hoping for a simple control that does not seem to exist:

One control/thermostat that sets the set temperature of the entire system, but then a simple sensor in each zone instead of a separate thermostat, which would tell the Taco relay to turn on that zone's pump. Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to do that, but I can't seem to find anything that does...

Jamie Hall

A sensor is just that -- it sends a signal to something else (in the case of a thermostat, to the rest of the thermostat) which then does something -- in the case of a thermostat, closes a circuit which tells the zone valve to open or the pump to run or whatever. A sensor without a control to talk to is quite useless.

MTC

Jamie Hall said:

A sensor is just that -- it sends a signal to something else (in the case of a thermostat, to the rest of the thermostat) which then does something -- in the case of a thermostat, closes a circuit which tells the zone valve to open or the pump to run or whatever. A sensor without a control to talk to is quite useless.

Sorry, holiday busyness...

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I just have a hard time understanding why nobody has created a thermostat that can control multiple zones with separate sensors, then use that feedback to control the associated pumps or duct dampers or separate forced air units... rather than having to have a separate thermostat for each zone. Seems unnecessary.

Or if there is such a device, I haven't had luck trying to locate it.

I'd also be ok with something a little more complicated than this, but at basic level I'm just looking to have a single thermostat to set a house temperature, then monitor a sensor for each additional zone and turn that zone on or off based on its sensor feedback. I also need to be able to monitor/adjust that thermostat remotely through an app. I have 3 zones, so thermostat could operate main zone normally, but also take input from 2 additional sensors, and route that on to the 3 pumps when any zone falls below the set temp.

Really seems like in 2022/2023 a product like this would exist. Very common to have 2-4 zones in a residence with hydronic heat, or even 2 forced air units for a larger home. Am I just not looking for the right thing, or has nobody created this product? Seems like an opportunity if not.

Jamie Hall

Actually there are a number of zone valve control panels which will do exactly what you want them to do -- Taco has a catalogue of them.

The question is really -- what signal are you sending from the sensor to the widget? In your case, you appear to want to send the sensor signal to a remote device which will take that signal and turn something on or off (Honeywell makes that sort of thing) where as for the Taco and other zone panels signal is converted at the source to be an on/off signal rather than an analogue (usually 0 to 10 volt) signal to be converted at the panel. In other words, a thermostat.

You wind up with exactly the same hardware, just located differently.

In any event, you are not looking for a thermostat, you are looking for a controller.

hot_rod

You mention sensors in other rooms. Are those fixed temperature sensors? If not they need to be thermostats that you can set a temperature in rooms.
tekmar and others allow you to put sensors in rooms and wire them back to the thermostats mounted by the boiler for example. But something has to know and react to the sensor temperature. The sensor just watches the rooms, it sends info to a control to make the on off decision.

I have an Ecobee with 2 remote wireless sensor. One sensor in the basement, one sensor under my kitchen sink. I set those sensors to a desired temperature, which will over ride the main, one and only, room thermostat. So if the temperature below my sink gets to 35° it kicks on the furnace. regardless of the room temperature. As a result the main room overheats to protect the under sink temperature.

You could buy a PLC control, Raspberry Pi for example, and program in all the logic you want and just sensor rooms. it would be custom programed to your needs, think building automation systems and controls.

boiler55

Did you ever figure out a way to make this happen? I have been in search of the same product and cannot seen to find it. Seems that it should be simple with a system such as ecobee, one device located in a central location, one wireless thermostat placed in each zone then the ecobee controls each of the pumps corresponding with the thermostat in its zone. 

Jamie Hall

An Ecobee, which is a thermostt, has exactly one output, which can be either on or off. There is simply no way that you can take a single on/off output and use it to separately control multiple devices.

HVACNUT

boiler55 said:

Did you ever figure out a way to make this happen? I have been in search of the same product and cannot seen to find it. Seems that it should be simple with a system such as ecobee, one device located in a central location, one wireless thermostat placed in each zone then the ecobee controls each of the pumps corresponding with the thermostat in its zone. 

It doesn't work like that. The sensor is connected to the thermostat for that zone only. It can average between the two, or just the sensor, but it can't control a separate zone. 
If all circulators were wired together to operate from just one thermostat, then yes. But I'm sure there would be overshooting and undershooting. You would need to check the amperage rating on the switching relay as well.