ST Enabled floor heating thermostat solution?

The market for it is there. I have several floor installer friends that put in an electric floor heating system every week for someone. Bathrooms, kitchen, entryway you name it.

I have sinope with 2 in floor thermostats and 10 baseboard thermostats and it’s working great with the community DTH. It’s definitely not cost effective in your case for sure. Sorry about the Heatit post. I didn’t know they dont make 110v in floor Thermostat. Kind of strange since most in-floor makers do make both voltage.

You should look at apps that use remote temperature sensors to control your floor heater.

Here’s an example of one of the apps we wrote up on popular request to remotely manage homes using heaters, fans, humidifiers etc (those without thermostats). You could use the heater switches to turn on/off your floor heater. As you said you would need to purchase a temperature sensor which can be paired with ST and use that in the app to detect the floor temperature.

How about any ST compatable Stat, 24vac power supply and 24vac relay to handle the current of the heat. Like this handles 12amps at 125vac

The app sounds perfect, but any recommendation for a sensor ? :smiley:

Monoprice is a good motion/temperature sensor combination at a reasonable price:

You can also check ZooZ products, very reasonable. Just note that the more features you have in a single device the lower the battery life.

Here is one designed for electric floor heaters which could be a one stop solution.

http://z-wavealliance.org/heatit-z-wave-thermostat-first-z-wave-thermostat-electric-floor-heating/

@celblazer That is exactly what i originally wanted to do, but after reading stuff online i scared myself. How would the aforementioned be connected together ? Going to try and figure out a diagram for the connections on my own in the meantime :smiley:

@RBoy the temp sensor you suggested would not work in my case as i need something to pickup the temp from the tiles (preferably using the tiled in sensors that i already have in place). so i would technically need a sensor to touch the tiles and tell ST their temp then ST would trigger an on/off switch based on previously set points.

The heatit tstat would be exactly what i need, but in the 110v version which they don’t have :frowning:

So couple of things:

  1. You can put the temperature sensor on the floor, it isn’t perfect but may do the job (it’s essentially a hack)
  2. We’re working with manufacturers on some new devices that will be launched within the next few quarters from which will meet your need to contact temperature sensors/thin strip sensors but can’t give more details due to a NDA. Just keep a watch on the market.
  3. For the heatit tstat, just buy a 220 to 110 converter from Amazon or local hardware store, pretty cheap.

@celblazer the sensor comes to bite me in the rear end. did a bit of research found this Aube Technologies RC840T-120 which is power and relay all in one. however i cant think of ST Tstat that would take the input from my preinstalled floor sensors.

@RBoy without trying to sound very picky about this whole setup here it goes:

  1. an ambient temp sensor would have a very skewed reading for the floor temp, also due to code regulation the heating wire is not anywhere near water features or the wall which means id have a big white sensor in front of the toilet or somewhere in plain sight
  2. OMG OMG ill sign the NDA as long as you tell me. promise i wount tell anyone (to be read in Stewie’s voice from Family Guy)
  3. the size of one of those converters alone would make the install prohibitive not to mention to possible code violation. all those factors aside means i would somehow have to turn my current 110v wire coming from the elec panel into a 220v, then plug in the heatit TSTAT, attach a converter to the output load leads of the converter to my heating wire in the floor. all while trying to fit a square box into a rectangle :sunglasses:

You could overheat your floor heater wire by not using the in-floor temp sensor. You could have max power going to the heater wire while the external sensor is at room ambient temp. ST to control temp is not recommended due to stability so I would definitely avoid this unless you are comfortable. What I would do is leave your old Tstat in place and wire the ST sensor in series.

Heatit is whats needed. Just need a manufacturer to make a version that is for the US. I know my Schulter floor system thermostat has GFCI built in along with other safety features.

1 Like

That may have been me as I had a heated floor installed back in the fall using a Schluter thermostat and a GE switch.

Just be aware the GE switch is rated at 600W.

@Navat604 i agree about overheating and dont wish to do that. however i currently dont have any thermostat as my previous one broke. can you think of a solution where i would use a dumb tstat and something to communicate to ST ?

@TN_Oldman i agree with you! HeatIt is exactly what i need but in the 110v version for the US.

@JaneL yes that was your post i saw but i wanted more functionality then just on/off…

@Navat604 yes that GE switch would pose an issue seeing that my system uses 815W

Any of you guys know of an arduino type project i could implent to transmit my floor temp to ST ? I could then use ST to turn on a smart switch that is rated for my 800W setup…

1 Like

Use a dumb Tstat for GFCI and overtemp protection and wire this z-wave smart thermostat in series for controlling.
http://www.stelpro.com/en-CA/4000-w-ki-thermostat-smart-home-z-wave

Actually if you buy a electronic converter it is a small box and can handle up to 1500w. I bought one locally for 30 bucks and it works great. It’s portable so you can stick it under the floor or in a wall. Not sure about code violations, don’t know much about it but don’t see why it would be a code violation. It has a safety trip switch built into it for overload scenarios.

@Navat604 i did some digging into a setup like what you are suggesting. a dumb tstat non progamable would take my floor sensor temp but i am not sure how to pass that information the stelpro. without the sensor info going to a brain there wouldnt be much of a need past the single programming.

@RBoy i emailed HeatIt in regards to a 110v US version and they said at this point it is not on their horizon at all. He said he would think about it and get back to me in a couple months. He stated the reason he does not want to build one is because the US code requires an RCD built in and there is no room on the current board for it. RCD - residual current discharge sounds like the system built-in to our GFCI outlets. i am not sure id want something without GFCI in a bathroom. I frequently have water on the tiles due to our shower not having a door (by design). But i did find the little controllers you spoke about and they would do the job nicely.

1 Like

I wonder if you can plug it the system into a GFCI outlet?

The dumb thermostat is just for protection and when it comes to in floor electric heating. You do need overheat (not overload) and GFCI protection. This is to prevent damage to your heater wires. Not sure if you know but most in floor electric heating is for supplement heat and not for whole room heat like liquid radiant heater. So if this is the only heater you are using for heating that area. I highly recommend you have that protection.
The Stelpro will be using ambient temp for controlling you heater so there is no communication between the two.

1 Like