Home automation

[Mike2545]

Home Automation controlling the HVAC system​
The intention for building this system was to compliment the retrofit of the heating system for my uniquely built home. The home is a three level house built in 1936. It was originally built with forced air heat without central air. The central staircase design meant there is 18’ between the floor of the lower level and the ceiling of the upper level. Keeping uniform temperatures was difficult to say the least.


The next step taken was to change from forced air to a hot water boiler system. Radiators were installed in all the rooms with valves at the boiler to create zones. Each room had its own thermostat. That is 5 zones in a 1400 sq ft home! Now the house is uniformly warm and comfortable on all 3 levels. At first I used a few different programmable thermostats with some mercury switch/bi-metal thermostats controlling the heating needs.

Now is where the Home Automation System was needed. I kicked around a few ideas, should I use MS Visual Basic for a GUI? I thought better of it and decided to go with the NetBurner PINK70

Using PicBasic Pro I set out to tackle this project. I had to learn HTML to work with the PINK70. My HTML code worked but was not pretty and needed cleaned up..

Basically it operates like 5 individual 'set back' thermostats. aka programmable thermostat.
With 'Wake', 'Leave' ,'Return', and 'Sleep' times and temperature settings for Monday through Friday, then Saturday and Sunday have 'wake' & 'Sleep'. I went so far as to have a switch on the nightstand next to my alarm "Sleep alarm Switch" to switch between Work Day and Non-Work day settings. "On" = Work day; "Off" = non work day.
Just using the left most switch at this point...3 more for expansion
Then the cases. I searched around and found these: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Ham ... ljxRv/myc=