Not to hijack but.. Last week I bought a house with two furnaces/AC units and two thermostats. Haven't moved in yet and its killing me that I don't have any visibility into how the mechanicals are running. Would I just buy two nest thermostats or two ecobee thermostats? Will they work together somehow or will they fight each other to optimize power usage?
On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 8:49 AM David Coudron <[email protected]> wrote: > Most all of the smart thermostats can be powered from the HVAC equipment. > They just use the 24V from the control board of the equipment or the zone > controller board. If your equipment doesn’t have the ability to provide > power on one of the wires to the thermostat, you can get the equivalent of > a POE injector for it (I think most all systems are 24V AC). > > > > Regards, > > > > David Coudron > > *From:* AF <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of * Chuck McCown > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 26, 2019 8:42 AM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Building automation > > > > How are they powered? > > Sent from my iPhone > > > > On Nov 26, 2019, at 5:12 AM, David Coudron <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > We have been running Ecobee for over four years at our place. We have a > fairly complicated setup due to a Geo Thermal heating system, forced air > and in floor heat, and two zones in the house. We also have a third, > independent fan coil HVAC unit in the garage that heats and cools the > garage. What we have found over the years is that the thermostats are > very easy to set up as mentioned earlier in this thread. However, the > real challenge is the wiring compatibility between your HVAC control > equipment and the thermostat. Commercial may be different, but I think > it is basically the same as residential and if each thermostat controls a > unique piece of HVAC, things are likely going to be pretty simple. > However, if each thermostat controls a zone on a shared piece of HVAC, or > two or three thermostats control a single HVAC, you need to make sure you > know what thermostat wiring your zone controller equipment is looking > for. Also, the zone controller can control things like heat stages if you > have more than one stage (Geo is very well know for this, but other heat > pump HVAC equipment also have more than one stage) or whether you want the > thermostat to control stages. Most smart thermostats like Ecobee and Nest > are fully capable of controlling stages. Once you know that you have the > correct wiring compatibility (for example we eventually switched our zone > controller because it wanted the old mechanical thermostat with separate O > and B wiring configuration), configuring the Ecobee is pretty simple. You > will want to set a master thermostat so that you don’t have one thermo in > heat mode and one in cooling mode, they will just fight each other. This > is quite straight forward when using most zone controllers, you simply hook > the one you want to be the master mode thermo to the correct connectors on > the zone controller. If each thermo is controlling unique and separate > HVAC equipment, this would have to be done through the Ecobee or Nest > account, (IE configured in the thermo itself). > > > > No matter what, take pictures of how things are hooked up before starting, > and don’t throw anything away until well after you are convinced it is > working well. In fact, I would recommend going through a heating and > cooling season before getting rid of anything depending on where you are > at. Also, most HVAC professionals will know one or two automation > platforms, but won’t want to get involved with ones they aren’t familiar > with. They can waste way too much time figuring out the nuances of some > small problems. Assume that if you start this project, you will be on your > own, but I wouldn’t let that steer you away from trying. Simple things > like a volt meter to test which wire is energized on heat and cool calls > from the thermo go a long way into figuring out how things are working. > > > > Once you deal with the wiring, it works very well and you can get a some > great reporting from the thermostat for things like how long did the thermo > call for heat before the call was satisfied, how long did it run in each > stage, how long did it run compared to outside temps, etc. > > > > Let me know if you want more specifics, I ended up getting much deeper in > the weeds than I expected on this when putting in the Geo Thermal, but glad > that I spent the time as it works really well. > > > > Regards, > > > > David Coudron > > > > > > *From:* AF <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Jason McKemie > *Sent:* Monday, November 25, 2019 11:41 PM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Building automation > > > > The basic setup with nest is just logging the devices into your account. > Most of the automation is done automatically, obviously there is > configuration you can change, but it isn't necessary for operation. > > > > On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 11:12 PM CBB - Jay Fuller < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > Learn more...i guess lol > > > > Sent from my smartphone > > > > ----- Reply message ----- > From: "Jason McKemie" <[email protected]> > To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <[email protected]> > Subject: [AFMUG] Building automation > Date: Mon, Nov 25, 2019 10:08 PM > > > What are you wanting to do? It's dead simple with nest. > > On Monday, November 25, 2019, CBB - Jay Fuller <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > Any good YouTube videos to get started on home automation with nest? > > > > Sent from my smartphone > > > > ----- Reply message ----- > From: "Darin Steffl" <[email protected]> > To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <[email protected]> > Subject: [AFMUG] Building automation > Date: Mon, Nov 25, 2019 8:32 PM > > > > I'm a Nest fan but haven't used ecobee. Google owns nest and ecobee would > be the one to be acquired between these two. > > > > Also, $5600 seems very high for 11 thermostats. Are there more parts to it > that I'm missing? > > > > On Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 7:56 PM Nate Burke <[email protected]> wrote: > > One of the young whippersnappers at an organization I work with is all > gung-ho on replacing all 11 thermostats in the building (Boiler with > multiple zones, and multiple RTU's) with ecobee thermostats that can be > remotely controlled and scheduled. Total price for everything is > running about $5600 (parts only) He's worked with ecobee before, so he > really likes it. > > Has anyone worked with ecobee before? Are there similar systems to > compare it to? The Goal is to allow the office to control/schedule the > thermostats based on room usage. We found one room that was set to 90 > over the weekend last week. I'm concerned that ecobee would be bought, > merged into someone else, and you suddenly have nice wall mounted > thermostats that can't be remotely managed anymore because the cloud > went away. > > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > -- Carl Peterson *PORT NETWORKS* 401 E Pratt St, Ste 2553 Baltimore, MD 21202 (410) 637-3707
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