Wow!

No.

Those custom requirements hark back to a previous life - PLC / DCS programming of control loops, ladder logic and sequential functions for industrial facilities - paper mills, power stations, refineries, etc with central control rooms. Those systems ran easiliy into six figures.

What you describe likely could go into a low end PLC, but working out all the sensors and actuators would be quite a project.

I have no idea if there are commercial building automation vendors (Johnson controls, carrier, Trane) with products that could be custom configured.

....Climate Automation Systems: ENV
Just came by us in a search- WEB and computor based we can control everything we want, add the pool, monitor KW usage etc....and monitor the weather service and adjust buffer temps based on weather to come.

Waiting for the presentation.

Keep Ya'll posted.
J

A friend of mine is a Mechanical Engineer and Electrical and Computer engineer on the side.
He installed a system in my house to micromanage every radiator in the house.

I am planning to have him do something similar for a DIY GSHP -
it will include solar thermal collectors.

A prior project was wiring up a hotel so every light in the building
could be managed from the front desk.


He is looking for the next interesting project.

Oh thanks for reminding me, the ENV will coordinate with solar as well....
pachai,
if your friend wants a look he can contact us.
H/O is elec engineer turned software designer and we entertained the notion of developing our own control.
Pricing on the ENV however looks favorable.
j

Joe, a few comments to hopefully help:

1.) In a residential setting, make sure that all HVAC control is implemented via tstats.  You want to make sure various safety features are always in place (i.e., not being able to run heat and cooling simultaneously, having a time delay in place to prevent short cycling of compressors, making sure blower fans runs for x amount of time after gas burners shut down, etc.).  I strongly advocate *not* going in and doing direct control of various HVAC components in a residential setting - the liability if something goes wrong could be significant enough to bankrupt your firm and possibly you personally.

2.) Here in Dallas a new company has moved in that offers internet connected tstats.  This in of itself is not new.  What is interesting is this company monitors existing weather conditions (temp, RH, wind direction/speed, solar luminance, etc.) and forecasts, and along with current room temperatures, accordingly adjusts the tstat(s), many times per day.  They contend they will save you more money that what you spend for the service.

3.) I mentioned the tstat offering above also because it's the same kind of company as the ENV company is.  They're both fundamentally s/w development companies looking for unique ways to earn revenue.  Where the companies differ is the tstat company supplies the h/w (tstats purchased OEM); for the ENV company you supply all h/w (they just do the s/w programming), including computer, communication boxes, control relays, A/D converters, etc.

4.) The ENV company is taking advantage of 'communicating tstats' - tstats with RS485 ports that allow you to get lots of information (current temp, temp SP, RH, unit mode, fan mode, reversing valve status, etc.) and allow you to remote operate the tstats as if you were actually at the tstat.  Crestron is another company that offers system control capabilities based on these tstats (expensive for residential settings).

5.) 'Communicating tstats' typically have a proprietary RS485 communication port.  Thus, you would probably be locked in to whatever tstats the ENV 'talks' to.

6.) There are a number of companies these days with flashy advertising material on the Web, that contend they do things like what the ENV company advertises.  Obviously be careful - a lot of these companies don't actually have product, waiting to be paid for a job to then develop whatever's needed.  My guess is this caution is something you're well familiar with, but, nonetheless, thought I'd mention it.

Best regards,

Bill

Bill, thanks for the feed back.
We have a ton of research yet to do and certainly ultimate decision will be by H/O who is a techno guy.
I did find ENV system due to news release of their partnership with Rehau on this control system, which at least indicates a nod from one of the big boys.
H/O's still hoping to use tekmar controls because he already has some. While they don't have what we want, they can "build something"......that makes me no less uneasy.
j

There are a thousand different ways to meet your control objectives.Honeywell, JohnsonControls,etc. have means to achieve this . Is this a commercial building or a custom home.Building automation system which use BacNet could be interfaced with other controls. Sophisticated controls can get very expensive and can often outway the the cost of the system being installed.There is nothing mentioned here that could not be done with different mfgs. controls series together, but is all of this really necessary would be my first question.

AC wizard,
Most is necessary.
None of us care to purchase commercial/industrial controls for our resi customers.
Application is a large rei home with 12 different radiant zones with both air and slab sensors as well as 5 different forced air zones with for cooling and or heating.
5, 5 ton WTW geos heat or chill ~360 gals of water in buffer tanks.
Original installer had no plan to make system cool effectively.
Tekmar control maintained heated water in buffers but was not reversible (had no cooling control).
Installers fix was to slave a 5 ton to each of the 5 ton hydronic air handlers and tell H/O to pull y signal from tekmar from each unit in summer.
Obvious problems include: No buffer tank temp control (nothing but safety controls to shut off heat pumps if water too cold), in efficient (cooling load lower than heating only 15 tons but 25 could be activated), asking customer to open heat pumps and change wiring from season to season adjacent to 230 volts, nothing to interupt chilled water from circulating in radiant loops (in muggy MI).......mold risk, etc, etc.
The first day on site we discovered some units cooling and some heating (not an efficient use of 25 tons of geo)!
Customer desires internet control (preferably in control 4 format as the rest of his house).
Customer does not desire a 6 figure price tag.

Currently we have system (via isolating relays and other zone controls) corrected to allow one switch to change from heating to cooling (depot 3 way light switch). Two other switches can be thrown to interupt radiant zone controls. We added a cooling aquastat and only activate 3 5 tons in 3 stages for cooling.
Running down all the different control circuits and installing hardware for this to happen took scores of man hours and while it could be permenant it is not a great fix in my mind.
It was however the easiest way to get the customer cooling by our first hot day here.

I've itemized our wish list, do you have a specific control in mind (that's less than 5 figures)?
j

http://welserver.com/WEL0424/

Joe, we have done a similar system last year (see above link), 35 tons open loop geo with 6 heatpumps, 3 zones forced air, 34 zones for radiant.

Tekmark 268 9 stage boiler control lets the heatpumps come on in stages for heating. Warm weather shut down kicks in at 55 degrees outside temp. If one of the forced air thermostats get activated in either heating or cooling, a zone valve isolates the circuit from the buffer tank and designates one 5 ton HP to one 5 ton air handler foreither additional heating or A/C, depending on what it calls for.
Works like a charm....Yours sounds similar. PM me and I can dig out our design plans for the controls, if that helps you.

Why 360 gal buffer tanks? With that big of a system, they have a lot of volume in the lines. Thus you do not need a thermal reservoir, but you just need it to protect the heatpumps from the changing flowrates of the radiant system.

Joe,Do you have any drawings or pictures that you could post.Is the heating all via the floor and the cooling via the air handlers.

Thanks Doc,
I'm definately interested in your layout.
RE 360 gal buffer tanks: I didn't design system, I'm trying to work with what exists.
I'm bidding on another project by the same builder and have the opportunity to design it better.
Joe