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Showing results for tags 'zone valve controllers'.
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We have a multizone water based system is an UFH system. The only heating which is not UFH are two towel rails, one in each of two adjacent bathrooms. Our plumber has set up a separate zone for just these two towel heaters with its own zone valve. Today the electrician asked me how I want to activate that valve. Each towel heater has its own thermostatic valve anyway, but this zone valve will stop us sending hot water down the pipes to those two bathrooms during the majority of the time we are not using them. He made two suggestions: As we are already having Phillips Hue to control a couple of lights, we could just get a phillips hue smart plug and plug the zone valve into that. I think the fact we are going to have a Phillips Hue system already is a red herring because I think the smart plug works independently from that system, and just relies on a bluetooth connection to your phone and the free Hue app. We should then be able to programme the plug to a routine through the app - I assume this is possible? Buy a wireless zone controller that enables us to programme it. Another requirement is that we need to be able to control this from the first floor, whereas the zone valve is on the ground floor (albeit more or less directly under one of the two adjacent bathrooms, so not particularly far away; maybe 4m from one towel heater and 7m from the other. But it would be nice to be able to be within range of a wirelessly controlled controller anywhere in the house and I'm not sure bluetooth (which is the way the Phillips Hue works) will have enough range. Option 1 seems simple and easy, but is that how a zone valve really works: when it gets power it opens and when it doesn't get power it closes? Option 2 seems overkill. The cheapest smart controllers I can find are about £70 and that is because they all have thermostats at the heart of them. We don't need a thermostat, just a controller.