Home comfort on Ask This Old House

[Tom Stenzel]

Was watching Ask This Old House and there was a part about installing a wireless motorized registers and thermostats (installed by plugging into a duplex outlet) in each room. That way each room was heated to exactly what you set using your smartphone. It's the future of HVAC!

Price: $3000.00 for a normal house of 7 zones. They didn't mention the cost of the smartphone which I would have to get.

Meanwhile here at the palatial manse, I still haven't taken down the full screen and installed the glass in the screen door. When the main door is opened the wind blows through and completely changes to air in the living room (somewhat bigger than a handicap Sani-Hut) about 4 times.

Sound like a waste of heat? I just mentioned to SWMBO that maybe, just maybe it's time to TURN ON the furnace. It was 34 degrees outside this morning. The house was at a balmy 62. She suggested getting a sweatshirt. I did as orde-- um, as asked. I'm sure there will be a Palace Revolt soon from my daughters about the situation.

Price to operate the furnace when off: Free

Price for sweatshirt I have on right now: Free (got it from a paralympics I competed in).

It seems to me that Ask This Old House finds ways to spend the most money possible to fix a problem. And really, how much of a market can there be for something like this? Plus for me the idea that a house can be controlled from the internet seems like the product of some truly bad minds.

Being the wag I am, if I ever found a house with a system like that, I would unplug the thermostats and switch them around to different rooms. Who would want to try and figure that mess out?

How many out there would consider such a system? And no, don't invite me over. :)

-Tom

[Stan Calow]

Tom, doesn't interest me. But, as my millennial nephews like to point out, those high-tech solutions aren't marketed for old-timers - they're for the young folks who want to do everything online by smartphone.

[Frederick Skelly]

No interest in such a system whatsoever. :D

[Chris Parks]

In the middle of summer when away from home turn it on and see what the wife says, sounds like a fun idea to me.

[Charlie Velasquez]

Seems the recent DDOS attack was propagated by harvesting the thousands and thousands of smart appliances. Seems for safety sake, we should start looking at opening fewer doors to hackers rather than more. At least till security protocols catch up and exceed hacker technology...

[Curt Harms]

Seems the recent DDOS attack was propagated by harvesting the thousands and thousands of smart appliances. Seems for safety sake, we should start looking at opening fewer doors to hackers rather than more. At least till security protocols catch up and exceed hacker technology...


^^^^^^^^^^^
Like this.

One trick with IoT (Internet of Things) is building in an update mechanism without opening the door to malware. And make it small and simple enough to fit in a thermostat or light bulb. Maybe use powerline networking and one box that provides the 'brains/firewall' for the various devices? I have no idea.

[Jim Koepke]

Seems the recent DDOS attack was propagated by harvesting the thousands and thousands of smart appliances. Seems for safety sake, we should start looking at opening fewer doors to hackers rather than more. At least till security protocols catch up and exceed hacker technology...

If the smart phone/internet devices report their status, a hacker may be able to redirect where the report is sent. If this is done to thousands of devices, the eddress receiving the status reports may be jammed.


It seems to me that Ask This Old House finds ways to spend the most money possible to fix a problem. And really, how much of a market can there be for something like this? Plus for me the idea that a house can be controlled from the internet seems like the product of some truly bad minds.

If you have a large house with sections that are unused, you may want to have an easy way to deactivate the heat vents in those areas. We are in a small house. Often our spare bedroom is closed off throughout the year.

jtk

[Rich Riddle]

It will likely cost you far more to repair it than to install it......I'm barely past starting a fire in the middle of a bunch of rock in a cave.... Computers don't belong everywhere.

[paul cottingham]

Far less interested in the heating part than the cooling. I have two shunts in my skull, one tied off, one operating, both penetrating my brain; as a result, I don't regulate heat well at all. Being able to efficiently control cooling in my house this way would be worth the price of admission to me.

Its funny, when we bought our heat pump in 2005, most of our friend thought we were nuts; because it cost so much money. It paid for itself in 5 years, and now they are all installing them.

[Brian Henderson]

Zero interest. I'm not lazy. I can actually get up, unlike a lot of Millennials who seem to think that standing is evil.

[Brian Elfert]

The ability to regulate room temperatures by room sounds like a great idea to me. Nearly every two story house has problems with regulating HVAC on the second floor unless the heat is zoned. Zoning can't typically be added after the fact and can cost a lot of money up front. My previous house was zoned and I wanted to zone this house, but no room for extra duct work. You should be able to use an inexpensive tablet instead of a smartphone to control this.

I turn on the heat in the fall as soon as the inside temperatures drop much below 70 and generally run the A/C from June 1st or so until into September. Even with my HVAC habits my natural gas and electric is only about $1,300 a year.

[Tom Stenzel]

Far less interested in the heating part than the cooling. I have two shunts in my skull, one tied off, one operating, both penetrating my brain; as a result, I don't regulate heat well at all. Being able to efficiently control cooling in my house this way would be worth the price of admission to me.

Its funny, when we bought our heat pump in 2005, most of our friend thought we were nuts; because it cost so much money. It paid for itself in 5 years, and now they are all installing them.

Hi Paul,

Sorry to hear about your health problems. It's one thing to add a bunch of stuff to your house just because it can be done. It's another if you have a medical need for it.

In your case I would make sure that any HVAC system you conjure up can't be controlled through the internet. Maybe monitored so if you leave you don't return to an intolerable environment.

Take care.

-Tom

[paul cottingham]

Hi Paul,

Sorry to hear about your health problems. It's one thing to add a bunch of stuff to your house just because it can be done. It's another if you have a medical need for it.

In your case I would make sure that any HVAC system you conjure up can't be controlled through the internet. Maybe monitored so if you leave you don't return to an intolerable environment.

Take care.

-Tom

Thank you for the kind sentiment, Tom. I was a network engineer and owned and operated a network installation and servicing company (and a technical trainer) for 20 years, so if I ever installed such a system, I would be sure to tie it down properly. Hell, I even hard wired my whole house, cause I hate wireless so much; and you can't get on my wireless network without me authorizing the MAC address of your device on my network. Not foolproof, but as close as I can make it. I wouldn't even have wireless, but my daughter needs it for an iPad for school, which I also use for web browsing.

I would add such a system to make it easier to zone my upstairs and downstairs. Beats the hell out of tearing out ceilings and redoing ductwork.

;-)

[Matt Meiser]

I actually have this system installed in my house but currently deactivated. The installer was a little less-than competent and screwed up the setup so I ended up putting my thermostat back in and am waiting for them to come back out to finish but scheduling conflicts have delayed things. I'm participating in a pilot sponsored by my natural gas company which paid for the equipment and install in exchange for me allowing them to review the data and periodically come out to check on its operation. This is a small startup company from what I can tell, I suspect cost will come down if they can scale up.

I have a 2-story house with huge windows on the SSW and NNW faces so we have a big problem with heat gain in the afternoon in the summer. The upstairs can be over 80 while the basement is 68 while the thermostat is set for 74. 68 is an improvement since I sealed up the super-leaky basement trunk. I bought a thermostat that allowed me to schedule the fan and circulating the air in the afternoons made a big difference but still not great. Its impractical to zone our house as every register is a home-run off a basement trunk, even the 2nd floor. We'd have needed something like 13 6" dampers and the control would be difficult. There's no good place for a second floor thermostat as a hall mounted one is essentially the same space where the first floor one is today due to a 2-story foyer.

The system has a few rough edges but overall looks good. They use an Emerson Sensi thermostat, a proprietary "hub" and a small radio in each vent. The app is the user interface. The hub controls things day-to-day. The hub communicates to the thermostat via the cloud and essentially turns it into a dumb switch. Frankly I'm not crazy about that aspect--I would like to see them use a thermostat with a local API and communicate directly over wifi. In the event of an outage the thermostat can still control the system conventionally. I believe (this was poorly explained by the installer) that you set the temp to a safe fail temp--say 60 degrees in heat and 80 in AC and it will automatically kick in there. I talked to one of the developers for a while on the phone and I think they are going to add a couple features to fit some use cases I have. One big one is using the fan to circulate air to get warm or cool air and circulate it to rooms that art too cold or too warm instead of running the heat or AC.

One thing they didn't point out on the show is that you can build scenes like many home automation systems. A scene sets a temperature for a room, but can also mark a room as unoccupied allowing the system to not consider reaching setpoint in that room. For example at night we can mark all rooms as unoccupied except our bedrooms. The system will run the furnace or AC to get our rooms to temp, but if the downstairs is off by 5 degrees, it won't care. If they implement the fan feature it seems like that gets even better.

[James Gunning]

Had to replace our HVAC unit two years ago. Bought a Lennox that came with an internet controllable Wi-Fi thermostat (single zone) It was included with the unit we bought so I don't know what it would have cost by itself. (far less than $3000) It's handy, mostly to turn the temp up to something above arctic level after my hot-flashing wife dials it down. Other than that, being able to control it from my phone has been handy a few times. I probably wouldn't have bought it as an upgrade.

[Van Huskey]

The key to these systems is not the connectivity (that is just a small added bonus for some) it is the cost savings, convenience and near perfectly "balanced" system they offer. I have had versions of is in my last three homes with as many as 11 zones and as few as 7 only the current one is internet enabled. The only house it was added to I saw a decrease in heating of 15% and a decrease in cooling cost of near 30% and the rooms both up and down stairs stayed exactly where we wanted them. Europe has long been more "zoned" than we are in the US but they mainly do it with ductless systems. If you want all the rooms at similar temps and only have a one story house the savings may not be huge. One thing I like is my bathroom is set to get warmer just before I get up and go in to take a shower and our bedroom cools down right before we retire.

[Alan Rutherford]

I've been lurking on HVAC forums (fora?) hoping to learn something before our system gives up. The most important thing I've learned: right-sizing and installation are nearly everything. Also rare. You need the right amount of air moving through registers and returns and balanced pressures. Systems with variable-speed fans, 2-stage heat pumps and 2 zones are a serious challenge. Only on TV could 7 zones possibly work. Maybe it could if the heat source is circulating hot water or it's a super-sophisticated mini-split in every room but it's certainly not on my wish list.

We have a Nest wi-fi thermostat because it was given to us by the local power cooperative. I never found out why. It was a great conversation piece for about a week until the novelty wore off. Since then I don't let it on the internet except to program, which is easier that way. I've never had a reason for it and several reasons not to, the biggest being that I don't want Google (who owns Nest) or anyone with the ability to electronically snoop to know whether I'm home or not.

[Matt Meiser]

They are using pressure sensors at each vent and each room sensor to they stay within acceptable limits. What its doing is more akin to adjusting dampers to balance airflow than absolute control of the temperature in every room. The system will maintain enough airflow to prevent abnormally high pressure and the corresponding lack of airflow. Its not just a simple matter of running the HVAC and opening and closing registers to keep one room at 60 while another is 80.

[Brad Adams]

I run an HVAC business. That is the dumbest system you could ever install. You CANT run a system with only one room calling for heat or cooling. Most old duct systems are not sized properly to begin with. Alan pretty much summed it up. You can't push 1200 cfm through one boot that will maybe supply 110 cfm. That system is an ecm motor killer and compressor killer.

[Mel Fulks]

There are so many houses with only one return. We had one added upstairs in our cape cod and I can't imagine heating and cooling being any more even.

[Ken Combs]

I run an HVAC business. That is the dumbest system you could ever install. You CANT run a system with only one room calling for heat or cooling. Most old duct systems are not sized properly to begin with. Alan pretty much summed it up. You can't push 1200 cfm through one boot that will maybe supply 110 cfm. That system is an ecm motor killer and compressor killer.

I like the concept, but it needs to have a way to control motor speed/air handler output as well as variable compressor to eliminate that risk. I installed a mini-split in my addition that does all that but for just one room. They use a DC variable speed compressor and fan. works great.

But it would cost a lot more than just replacing the registers to get any real improvement.

[Matt Meiser]

It wouldn't run the system to heat or cool one room. Read about it...https://www.ecoventsystems.com/smart

[Ken Combs]

It wouldn't run the system to heat or cool one room. Read about it...https://www.ecoventsystems.com/smart

You're correct as the evovent doesn't control the system at all, except for run times or small temp changes. It changes the airflow distribution, but not the total airflow or heating/cooling BTU rate so is limited in what it can accomplish.

[Matt Meiser]

Incorrect.



How does Ecovent work with my thermostat?
Ecovent supports the award-winning, highly rated Sensi™ Wi-Fi Thermostat. We make small adjustments to your thermostat's target temperature, in order to get your heat or air conditioning to run for a slightly longer or shorter time, based on the temperature in every room of your home.

[Matt Meiser]

Our system is up and running as of this morning despite the incompetence of the installer. So far it seems good. I was briefly concerned about the fact I saw it running at least the fan with every vent I checked closed but it was explained to me over the phone that is part of a static pressure test on startup. After that it seems to be working well though it seems to have a little more hysteresis than a normal thermostat. I'm sure we'll be tweaking room temps for a couple weeks.

[Matt Meiser]

We've had the system running for 2 months now. Overall I'm pleased with it as our house does seem more comfortable. Its been a ridiculously warm January but December was bitter cold. Comparing average temperatures, days, and gas usage we are down a percent or two. I've been using the wall heater in the garage more but we've been using the fireplace less so its hard to definitely say anything. It may be difficult to compare summer as we are considering getting window film applied on the south and west facing sides of the house that dramatically reduces UV and infrared without affecting visible light too much.

We had an issue with our dehumidifier because their local contractor programmed the thermostat wrong. One of many issues I had with the installer and I've told our gas utility who is sponsoring the pilot that company will not be allowed in my home again. Like anything, the local installer can ruin the experience with an otherwise great product so I wouldn't hold that against them. I've made my displeasure there very clear.

It ate the first set of batteries pretty rapidly, a kind of expensive proposition considering we have 13 vents taking 4 AA batteries each. We'll see if the second set lasts longer. Long term I'd invest in rechargeable batteries but I'm not spending that just yet. A minor annoyance is that you have to open the app to get notification that the vent has lost communication. I probably only open the app to do a manual override once a week at the most. It appears that the vents open fully when the batteries are getting low to protect the system.

We had one issue, which has not repeated, where the system kept bumping up the thermostat setpoint until the house was way overheated. If that's anything but a fluke I'll take the system out right then.

Ecovent got bought out by another company and the support suffered as a result. I had sent a request about the issue above and never got a response until a few weeks ago when one of the founders contacted me. He was supposed to set up a time to discuss the issues I've seen but that hasn't happened. Honestly I have been to busy to follow up much too and I'm not integrating two companies so I'll give him a pass.

I sent them off a list of features I'd like to see added. One of those, the ability to schedule different heating vs cooling setpoints I consider a must-have coming up in 2-3 months here in Michigan. If that doesn't get implemented it may end up being the end of the experiment for us. Right now to switch between a schedule of summer temps and winter temps we'd have to rebuild the schedule. That could happen a few times mid to late spring and early to mid fall here. The other requests are around improved fan control for balancing temperatures and improving the notifications.

Right now I wouldn't spend $3K on the system, but it show's promise.

[roger wiegand]

We have the motorized dampers, but just run by regular thermostats (and not in every room). It seemed to be a less expensive alternative to a fully zoned system with multiple furnaces and AC compressors. The damper systems have been used in commercial settings forever, and so far, seem robust.

[Steve Peterson]

We have the motorized dampers, but just run by regular thermostats (and not in every room). It seemed to be a less expensive alternative to a fully zoned system with multiple furnaces and AC compressors. The damper systems have been used in commercial settings forever, and so far, seem robust.

We had a system with a single furnace and 4 thermostats in our old house. Each zone needs a thermostat to control the temperature. I can see how a cell phone would be able to control it also, but don't think it would be necessary.

It was nice to be able to set different temperatures in different areas of the house. The downside is that the furnace could be just finishing in one zone and then another zone starts up, so the furnace seems to run more often. An AC repair guy told us that it could eventually burn out the furnace motor because it was sized to feed air to the entire house, but often was only blowing air to 1/4 of the house.

Steve

[William Adams]

The thing is, this system won't run with only one damper open and all the others closed --- it would instead partially open all the dampers in the other rooms which are able to absorb the added heat, fully open the damper in the coldest room, then run until it can shut the system down adjusting dampers on the fly --- ideally it would never let the temperature get so out of whack.

[Ken Combs]

Incorrect.
I assume this was directed to me. And it is not incorrect. Their statement is that they change the target temp to run more or less. That has nothing to due with BTU delivery rate, just time.

I was referring to the functionality of later systems that can modify compressor and/or fan speeds based on total BTU needs. If that was included in the Ecovent repertoire, it would be truly good. But, one would have to already have a heat pump or a/c with that function, and be able to be externally controlled.

[Matt Meiser]

You said Ecovent didn't control the system. Semantics I suppose because they control the thermostat which controls the system. But indirectly they control the system.

[Matt Meiser]

Some updates after about 5 more months:
- Seems like since they got acquired and it seems like a good chunk of their already small team is gone. They haven't been forthcoming about what is going on either.
- There's been no updates to the app to fix some usability issues and I've found more.
- Ours eats batteries. Looks like we are going to get maybe 4 months per set of batteries (54 AA's for our house) which is unacceptable and not even remotely close to the 3-5 years advertised. They are sending me a box of batteries and are looking into tuning the system to get the advertised battery life. Sounds like it is making way more adjustments than it should and I'm not the only one seeing this.
- It does do a much better job keeping the upstairs of our house cool but we haven't seen our first electric bill with significant AC runtime. It looks they are dumping a lot of cooled air in the basement in the afternoon to keep backpressure down while feeding the upstairs vents but not the first floor to keep it from getting too cold. I was getting livable results by running the fan in circulate mode from late afternoon into the evening, mixing the naturally cool air from the basement with the warm upstairs air. Theirs I have to run the fan full on plus I think it runs the AC more. If our usage is way up this could be a deal breaker.
- I found yet another mistake the installer made where the vents and sensors in two rooms were swapped. The naturally coolest bedroom and warmest so that was pretty messed up.

At this point I have mixed thoughts. I still think it has promise but I'm glad I didn't pay for the system because I'm not convinced its viable long term and I wonder about the stability of the company. We've definitely seen some improved comfort. Gas usage we maybe had a slight savings over the first winter but its hard to say for sure. Like I said, we haven't gotten our first electric bill of the AC season.


Also, that ATOH episode that started this whole thread? That system was installed in the founder's own house. https://blog.ecoventsystems.com/2016/11/on-location-with-ask-this-old-house/

[Harry Hagan]

Matt,

Thanks for sharing your Ecovent experience. I’ll be replacing my HVAC system sometime later this year and had contacted Ecovent because I’m maintaining a large single-occupant house and thought a zoned system would be ideal for my situation. I hope Ecovent gets the bugs worked out and the gas company finds you a competent installer. Please keep us updated on your experience.

If anyone has an informed opinion about HVAC manufactures that produce a quality product, honor their warranties, and properly train their installers; your input would be appreciated.

[Matt Meiser]

If anyone has an informed opinion about HVAC manufactures that produce a quality product, honor their warranties, and properly train their installers; your input would be appreciated.

From everything I've read, among the major brands (and their lesser-known siblings) quality is pretty similar and a lot of the parts are commodity items. Finding a good contractor is the important part. I've learned, at least in our town, that's not necessarily the place "everyone" uses because they've been around "forever." Here that means they are good at old technology, but will steer you away from newer technology, and screw it up if you insist.

Ecovent is advertising self-installs now. Looks like maybe they've gone to more flat-rate pricing too. Frankly, its way to expensive if I'm reading it right.

To be fair, some of my complaints are because I'm cheap on usage. I'll wear a sweatshirt and use more blankets in the winter and wear shorts and a tshirt around the house and sweat a little in the summer to save money. I'd rather spending it on something fun. Like other bills.

[Harry Hagan]

Finding a good contractor is the important part. .


That's the key. Finding someone competent and honest. Years ago I had a "Go to guy" in another town but he's pushing up daises these days.

[Matt Meiser]

Couple more months in and I simply can't recommend Ecovent. The architecture's reliance on the Internet is inexcusable, the battery life is terrible, and they haven't made meaningful improvements to the app since my system was installed. In fact, if I have another major problem, I'm ripping it out and going back to my $180 Honeywell thermostat.

[Matt Meiser]

One last update on this. The system lost control of the thermostat again tonight. At least it got stuck with a setpoint of 67 degrees instead of something crazy. I removed all the hardware and reinstalled our nice Honeywell wifi thermostat and standard vents. I also contacted our utility company and told them to make arrangements to pick the stuff up.

[Frank Pratt]

Thanks for sharing this experience with us. I love TOH, but they seem to increasingly promote ridiculous & unproven products. It's gonna come back & bite em if they keep this up.

[William Adams]

At least now it's more straight-forward since they're doing such things in their "Future House" segment and it's a bit more obviously experimental / promotional.