Different Heating and HVAC systems

You may have more than one system installed in the same room.  A typical example is an HVAC system that can both heat and cool, and a separate supplementary radiant heating system.  These two separate systems present three potential problems.  

Firstly it is possible for the customer to set different set points on both systems.  So you can have a situation where the HVAC system is trying to cool down to a level whilst the heating system is trying to heat the area to a higher level.

Secondly in normal operation the systems may not operate correctly together.  Imagine the room is currently at 20°C/68°F and currently neither system is on.  If the customer now selects a desired temperature of 24°C/75°F then both systems will turn on – the HVAC system in heat mode.  The HVAC system will almost certainly bring the room up to the desired temperature quite quickly.  At which point both system will stop heating.  The likely problem is that the radiant or under-floor heating system may not have got up to temperature.  This will cause the situation where the HVAC system is doing all the work and the customer may complain that the radiant under-floor heating system is not working properly.

Thirdly if you have different systems they will be measuring the temperature in the room in different places.  This will almost certainly mean that the two thermostats are reporting slightly different values.  In turn this can make the above two problems worse especially if you are running in auto mode and the cooling and heating set points are too close together.

Combining Different Areas

There are also situations where you may have individual heating controls in different rooms but you want to present the customer with another global interface where the temperature can be set across all of these rooms - a master thermostat.  This can be particularly useful in light commercial applications where you may want to be able to give staff individual control in the areas during working hours but be able to set the whole building to a consistent temperature outside of working hours.

This driver can be used to combine thermostats in any combination you require.

Works with ANY thermostat

This driver can be used to combine and control any thermostat within the Control4 system.  Any thermostat that appears on the Control4 interface as a thermostat can be combined.  This includes the official Control4 thermostat, thermostat drivers from Extra Vegetables such as the Heatmiser, Coolmaster and Z-Wave thermostats and thermostat drivers from other third parties.

System Requirements

This driver requires Control4 OS 2.x.  For more than three rooms an HC800 should be used as the master controller.

Controlling multiple HVAC systems in the same room, e.g. Heatmiser & Coolmaster

Controlling HVAC systems throughout a building - mini BMS