Dumb heating controller…(village hall content)

Help me out, hive mind…

I help out running our local village hall.  Obviously we’re horrified by current gas bills…but the control system at the minute is pretty crude.

Users come in, and turn the thermostat up (usually to the max!). This turns the heating on. They then usually wait until they are hot, before (sometimes) turning it down again. If we’re lucky they turn the thermostat down when they leave. Obviously this isn’t a great way to go. The halls get too hot and loads of heat is wasted. The thermostat isn’t being used as temperature regulator, but simply as an on/off switch. We’re trying to figure out a better way to control the heating.

Obviously one way to do it would be to have an smart controller, with all the events put in, and then a tamper proof thermostat. But I don’t think we’d manage to get the right people to be able to us it properly.  There isn’t a consistent usage pattern so we can’t really set a weekly timer.

It felt like a good system would be to have a tamper resistant thermostat, combined with a button you push for 1/2/3 hours of heating. with perhaps an off button as well. Does such a thing exist? That would give an element of user control over on and off, hut allow the thermostat to work properly and stop the halls getting too hot.

Or perhaps there’s another solution? The boilers are old, but reliable.

Any thoughts, hive mind?

I can’t imagine how horrifying the bills must be. Certainly something tamper proof !   If you knew the schedules that’s a start.

Wifi controlled TRV’s?

You can monitor ambient temperature and settings remotely. Assuming you have wifi in the hall.

 Does such a thing exist? That would give an element of user control over on and off, hut allow the thermostat to work properly and stop the halls getting too hot.

Yes, we had one at a place i used to use, and we have similar in some of our older meeting rooms/buildings at work.

set at (say) 16 when the button isn’t pressed and 19 when it is. And a two hour timer.

I’ve also seen a bluetooth thermostat with a phone app. No idea how it would integrate with various booking calendars etc though. Never used it either, so no idea on the complexity.

I’m chair of our VH and had the same issue.

We’ve taken the view it should be warm in business hours and set it accordingly  (19° between 8 and 8) then put a cupboard surround on and locked it.

If we’re empty for a few days one of us will go turn it down but that’s a rare occasion.

Overall cost about £20 in ply, paint, padlock and hasp.

I think you can get 4g controllers based on a quick google, but I imagine they need a monthly charge.

Set up an iFTT rule that when it switches on it stays on for x hours ? Or put a smart light bulb in so that when light bulb is switched off it turns the heating off ?

Nest smart thermostat (not one I’d normally recommend!) might be ideal for your use-case. REALLY simple to operate & schedule (and control remotely) and also the physical thermostat can be locked with a code, without which it’s restricted to a temperature band (e.g. 12-19 degrees but no higher, for example).

if events are blocked out in Google Calendar you can use IFTTT to dynamically schedule the heating automatically.

if you just wanted to operate it manually with a “boost” function as you mentioned then simply schedule it to turn the heating down/off every 1 or 2 hours or whatever. Then someone physically in the hall can turn it up as desired but it will time-out after the specified interval. They could also turn it down/off when leaving, but if they forgot it would turn itself off anyway when it hit the next scheduled point.

Obviously you’d need WiFi in the hall for it to work!

Lots of thermostats let you set an upper limit for set temperature.

Something like a Honeywell T3R only shows a display and up/down (rest are under the cover), allow a max temp of (say) 21 degrees, then do a 7 day program to set back to (say) 15 degrees at 9pm or whenever hall users tend to stop.

Label above saying put the heating up when hall is in use, turn it down when you leave. If they forget it gets reset once a day anyway.

You can get fancy with the smart ones, stuff like Nest can have limited range, PIN locks, etc so you present very little to the end user but let them do the basics.

Separate thermostat set to 19 from 9 til 9, like @dangeourbrain says, but leave the old one in place (disconnected) to give people the illusion of control.

Winner of the best suggestion so far:

Separate thermostat set to 19 from 9 til 9, like @dangeourbrain says, but leave the old one in place (disconnected) to give people the illusion of control.

Good idea of a thermostat with an upper limit though, thanks @simon_g

@dangeourbrain: Sounds like you’ve concluded best option is heating on all the time during the day.  Keeps the fabric warm and means not cycling hot /cold.  But this would depend on how much the halls are used.  Ours seem to be used about half the time (including evenings)  so maybe not the most efficient as we’d be quite often heating and empty building.  How much are your halls used?

Nest could be an option, but I don’t think there’s wifi.  And I don’t think the lovely caretaker is a fan of technology, so anything too complex is out…

@mert

Yes, we had one at a place i used to use, and we have similar in some of our older meeting rooms/buildings at work.

set at (say) 16 when the button isn’t pressed and 19 when it is. And a two hour timer.

Sounds like it could be ideal – any chance you remember what brand it was or what it was called so I could look it up?

I would have thought that, by turning the heating on when the hall is opened up, by the time it’s warmed up everyone’s left!

Definitely needs remote scheduling somehow.

I, personally would firstly get a ‘smart’ thermostat that works with IFTTT, then use a google Calendar for the Hall events.  The Google Calendar event could make IFTTT send a message to the thermostat to turn the heat up an appropriate time (say 45 minutes) before the event started and then tell it when to switch off/reduce the temperature.

The thermostat could be hidden away so visitors couldn’t mess with it manually.

So, as a test, I’ve just created an IFTTT applet using Google Calendar and my Warmup underfloor heating controller:

45 minutes before a calendar event starts it will set the temperature to whatever I choose – and when the event finishes it sets the temperature back down.

Perfect!!

How much are your halls used?

A quick look at the gawd awful calendar suggests about 6hrs a day average. Today is a solid 7, tomorrow is 9-1100 16-1700 and 19-2100

No point at all turning the heating down between those.

I have had a few moans since we did it, I offered to supply blankets, or to turn it up in advance and surcharge the booking, they haven’t complained since.

I’ll be honest what I *really* want but has been vetoed by the oldsters on the committee is to hook it up so it turns off when the doors or windows are opened. Apparently expecting people to close the door is a bit much and not acceptable.

You want something like a ProStat 4. It runs at a background temperature until the user presses the button. It then stays on at a higher temp for X hours and then reverts.

New Industrial Thermostats

I have not used this particular one, but we put a similar one in my M-I-Ls AirBNB property which was having the oil heating left on every  week!

A quick look at the gawd awful calendar suggests about 6hrs a day average. Today is a solid 7, tomorrow is 9-1100 16-1700 and 19-2100

No point at all turning the heating down between those.

obviously it’s all relative, depends how much the building costs to heat, how quick it cools down, vs cost/hassle of implementing a new system…

I don’t see how you can say there’s “no point” turning the heating down when the buildings not used for a 5-hour block though (11am – 4pm) or that it wouldn’t save you money if on average the building is used for 6hrs per day but the heating is always on 12hrs…

obviously there’s the environmental aspect of using less gas rather than just the pure financial aspect to consider too. Clearly the current system “works” in that it’s simple and seems to be the least hassle for those having to manage it, doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a better solution though that leverages new tech…

As far as i can remember they were Schneider Electric, most of the stuff in our older buildings is made by them, lights, heating etc

God knows if they still make it.

I have similar to this on the immersion heater.

I presume it could be wired in to the heating to provide a temp boost.

Sounds. Like you need some sort of pir switch with over run. People in the building heat comes on, stays on then when unactivated for say 10 mins goes off.

Plus TRVs or tamper proof stat. The amount of people who absolutely believe that the room will heat up faster with a stat set to 32c is dazzling.

Problem is you are not using any residual heat, idrzlly it wants turning off 20 min before you leave. But unless you could set some sort of rotary countdown clicker timer with say  1 to 5 hours on it i dpnt know how to achieve that.

A rotary dial would be good but i can guarantee at 8.46 some dullard will think o, its got abit chilly and wind it on for 4 hours despite knowing  the bridge club ends at 9pm

Problem is you are not using any residual heat, idrzlly it wants turning off 20 min before you leave. But unless you could set some sort of rotary countdown clicker timer with say  1 to 5 hours on it i dpnt know how to achieve that.

My solution does that plus more!!

Sharkbait + Nest is the answer.

You just need to convince everyone (or some poor lackey) to enter the bookings into the calendar – which is where it will probably fall down.

Yeah, any WiFi IFTTT compatible thermostat would do…. I see Amazon do one for about about £50.

You’d hope that the hall bookings are on a calendar already

Agreed,  just drop the temp by 2c say 40 mins before last order’s. Then switch off completely roughly 20mims before home time.

Save abit of energy and could be altered in seconds.

Needs an online calendar, plus wifi but not alot else

I looked at the manuals for our thermostats and timer switches and discovered that you could add an external button that switched it on for 2 hours regardless of the timing.  So I put the timers and thermostats in a locked box with a clear cover and put a press button switch on the outside.  If there is a scheduled event then that is put into the timer and there is no problem,  for everything else people just press the button at the side and they get two hours at the temp that is preprogrammed

If there is a scheduled event then that is put into the timer

And that’s the thing….. Who’s going to go to the hall to manually change the timer?

Maybe once, but not workable with multiple events each week.

And a boost button doesn’t get around the fact that the hall will take time to heat up.

Much better to have the heating automatically come on a set time before the event (and go off a bit before the end also).

A nice touch with IFTTT is that you can set key words within a calendar event title or description that will trigger the heating rather than just the beginning and end of every event.

Am I right in saying that generally village hall use is almost always pre-booked?

People don’t just turn up?

My wife told me that one of the halls she uses has just had a heating upgrade since new year.

It’s had a wood stove fitted in the fire place so now you don’t need to bring as much wood.

Sharkbait/Nest would be my choice too.  You can remote program it.  I think you could put Nest Protects in the main space and then if the heating is ‘on’ but everyone leaves (or the booking is a no show) it should abort and switch off (acting as a PIR) (test this before buying but I’m sure ours used to turn off if we didn’t walk past the stat for ages – over-ridden now as it knows when a family is home via smartphone location.

Yep – I had an older Nest, and the PIR part worked really well – stationed in the hall it knew when I was out (ie I hadn’t walked past it recently) and would turn the heating off. This would probably work really well in a VH.

Otherwise any sort of internet-connected system with the cheapest uplink possible at least lets you see what’s going on. I have a Hive now as my Nest heatlink broke and couldn’t be replaced.