Heating and hot water

Advanced Control Features

All smartkontrols systems contain advanced control features, originally developed for use in large, commercial buildings, and now available in the home. These include:

Optimum Start; our controls automatically “learn” how quickly each room heats up, and starts the heating at just the right time to ensure comfortable conditions for the prescribed operating times. This feature automatically adapts as the weather changes, saving considerable amounts of energy.

Weather Compensation; for “wet” systems, more stable control and better comfort is achieved by varying the heating water flow temperature as outside conditions change; the warmer the weather, the cooler the water temperature.

For these reasons, our systems are always fitted with an outside temperature sensor

Fabric Protection; When a particular zone, or the house itself, is not in use, then it will be held at a lower temperature setting to protect the building fabric (and its contents) against damage caused by condensation. For sensitive artworks, wood panelling, etc, we can also incorporate Relative Humidity (Rh)-based fabric protection into a smartkontrols system – an approach originally developed by us for National Trust properties.

Heating systems in houses generally split into 3 different categories; “wet” radiator or radiant panel heating, underfloor heating, or blown air heating:

Radiators

The conventional method of controlling radiator systems is to use a timeclock and motorised Zone Valve to control the timed operation of each area in the house, with mechanical thermostatic valves (TRVs) on each radiator to control the temperature of each room. This approach has the benefit of being familiar and widely understood by generations of tradesmen, but suffers from fundamental disadvantages;

- Using timeclocks and zone valves mean that each zone must be separately plumbed back to the boiler, which adds complication, cost, and takes up invaluable space for multiple pipe runs.
- TRV’s are very crude regulators of the room temperature. They are mounted in the worst possible place for the job that they are designed to do – right next to the heat emitter - and they can be noisy if the system is not properly designed.

In contrast, the smartkontrols solution uses discrete temperature sensors (called Thimble Sensors - see user interface section) which can be sited away from the radiators to properly measure the room temperature. These are connected to a Zone Controller, (which can be wall mounted, or alternative variants can be hidden from view). The Zone Controller manages both temperature and time control for the room (each room is now effectively a separate zone).

All of the Zone Controllers are connected to our low-voltage communications network; also sitting on this network cable are our unique Intelligent Actuators. These are smart, motorised valves which either mount on the radiators or are concealed, on the pipe which feeds the radiator. These intelligent actuators will open and close under the command of their associated Zone Controller. This ensures:

- More accurate temperature regulation.
- Simpler plumbing. Zoning occurs at each radiator. The Intelligent Actuator performs time and temperature control functions in one package with no need for separate zone valves.
- Each room can be controlled individually for timed operation and temperature, from the wall (using a Zone Controller or Touch-screen panel), or from a PC.
- The associated pumps and boilers are controlled by other smartkontrols modules, and run only when needed.

For Electric Radiant Panel Heaters, the Intelligent Actuator is simply replaced by a smartModule switching a noiseless Solid-State switching device. This effectively modulates the power to the heater.