Recommendations for smart wall/panel heaters

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Recommendations for smart wall/panel heaters

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#312717 12-May-2024 10:20

Hi, I need to get a medium sized panel heater for our hallway at the south end of the house. I am running Home Assistant and have temp sensors throughout, so would like to control the heater based on these external sensors, rather than any internal sensors in the heater itself.

Any recommendations for a decent heater with smart control, that can be local-only?

I found the Mill heaters at Bunnings which appear to have a HA integration which is local only - but the heaters need to be Gen 3.

https://www.bunnings.co.nz/mill-1500w-smart-wi-fi-invisible-panel-heater_p0443837

Keen to hear of any real world experiences with these or other brands.

Definitely don't want something that has a cloud service for controlling them!

1 | 2

2641 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1137

#3229201 12-May-2024 11:29

what is the current heating setup for the house?

i do realize its not answering your question, but it pays to double check that your solution is the best way to do it.

PANiCnz

999 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 161

#3229202 12-May-2024 11:43

If you've already got the sensors wouldn't a standard heater with a smart plug suffice? Just leave the heater set to max and toggle the power as required. Would open up a lot more options.

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3229203 12-May-2024 11:44

Yep, fair call. It is a high performance house, very near to passive house standards. Super insulated, triple glazed windows, air-tight with MHRV system.

We have a high wall heat pump in the large open plan living room, which we haven't turned on yet.

The house is performing very well considering we are in ChCh and it has been below zero overnight the last few days.

But the south side of the house, at the far end of the hallway, where the kids bedrooms are, is starting to cool down a bit with this sustained cold snap. Getting down to 16-17 degrees.

So we want a little heater down there to top up the heat. It won't need to do much, once the heat is there it finds it hard to escape, given the air tightness of the build.

The plan is to have to it come on for a few hours before we get up in the morning, and a few hours before bedtime at night. Just to give that end of the house a little boost.

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3229204 12-May-2024 11:48

PANiCnz: If you've already got the sensors wouldn't a standard heater with a smart plug suffice? Just leave the heater set to max and toggle the power as required. Would open up a lot more options.

Yep, that is an option, and one I have done previously, using a portable heater. But we want something wall mounted now we have established the need. And these Mill heaters look pretty decent. I have Zigbee smart plugs I can use, but an integrated smart heater would be a cleaner solution IMO. The wife would find it easier to override using the heater controls without having to worry about finding the manual button on the Zigbee plug to turn it on. And the Mill heaters sound like they have a nice PID control system (I realise that uses their internal sensors, but that is fine, I will use my external sensors to decide whether to turn the heater on/off, then it will be up to the heater to regulate the temp).

tweake

2641 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1137

#3229208 12-May-2024 12:12

SumnerBoy:

Yep, fair call. It is a high performance house, very near to passive house standards. Super insulated, triple glazed windows, air-tight with MHRV system.

We have a high wall heat pump in the large open plan living room, which we haven't turned on yet.

The house is performing very well considering we are in ChCh and it has been below zero overnight the last few days.

But the south side of the house, at the far end of the hallway, where the kids bedrooms are, is starting to cool down a bit with this sustained cold snap. Getting down to 16-17 degrees.

So we want a little heater down there to top up the heat. It won't need to do much, once the heat is there it finds it hard to escape, given the air tightness of the build.

The plan is to have to it come on for a few hours before we get up in the morning, and a few hours before bedtime at night. Just to give that end of the house a little boost.

thats right up my alley.

i would look more at how the overall heating of the house is done. if its a high performance house you should just leave the heating cooling system to do it thing, which is the most efficient way. you shouldn't really be doing hacks like giving it a boost. the simplest here is just a heater in the kids rooms, set the thermostat and leave it on. heat coming out of the rooms will heat the hallway. downside is there is no cooling. typically you would have a ducted heat pump so it does both for the whole house or at least all the bedrooms (as many like the bedrooms cooler but that fights against the rest of the house).

this is where i would go back to the plans and see what the heat load calcs says each room requires.

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3229253 12-May-2024 13:26

There is no heating/cooling system. The MHRV system brings in fresh air, and takes out stale air, and has a heat exchanger to ensure the incoming air is warmed up using the warmth from the expelled stale air.

The heat calcs were for the whole house only, so nothing on a room-by-room basis.

There are 4x bedrooms (ours + 3 kids) so I am not that keen to put heaters in every room. Although that would provide the most control.

I was thinking a 1.5-2.0kW heater in the hallway should provide enough of a boost to warm up that end of the house during these prolonged cold snaps.

Always open to suggestions from those more knowledgeable tho!!

Lenovo

Shop now for Lenovo laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

tweake

2641 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1137

#3229279 12-May-2024 14:18

SumnerBoy:

There is no heating/cooling system. The MHRV system brings in fresh air, and takes out stale air, and has a heat exchanger to ensure the incoming air is warmed up using the warmth from the expelled stale air.

The heat calcs were for the whole house only, so nothing on a room-by-room basis.

There are 4x bedrooms (ours + 3 kids) so I am not that keen to put heaters in every room. Although that would provide the most control.

I was thinking a 1.5-2.0kW heater in the hallway should provide enough of a boost to warm up that end of the house during these prolonged cold snaps.

Always open to suggestions from those more knowledgeable tho!!

heating the hallway is a half baked hack. yes i know i people do it but it sucks. the only people i've heard from who claim it works is the heater install guys. i've yet to meet a home owner who says its works. from personal experience its very hard to move the heat even through open doorways, and even with fans.

the easy fix is a heater per room. cheap and easy to do. set the thermostats and leave it. i doubt you would need much wattage.

another way is to use the ventilation system. its lacking on air flow but an inline heater will heat the air going to the bedrooms via the ventilation ducts. need a thermostat in the right place. won't get the per room accuracy. but its one heater.

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3229319 12-May-2024 16:41

tweake:

heating the hallway is a half baked hack. yes i know i people do it but it sucks. the only people i've heard from who claim it works is the heater install guys. i've yet to meet a home owner who says its works. from personal experience its very hard to move the heat even through open doorways, and even with fans.

the easy fix is a heater per room. cheap and easy to do. set the thermostats and leave it. i doubt you would need much wattage.

another way is to use the ventilation system. its lacking on air flow but an inline heater will heat the air going to the bedrooms via the ventilation ducts. need a thermostat in the right place. won't get the per room accuracy. but its one heater.

While I tend to agree for most houses, when you have a super insulated, air tight home with triple glazed windows, it doesn't take much to raise the internal temp. I mean we haven't had any heating on this winter yet, and the living room has only barely dropped below 20, when it has been below zero for the last few nights and not warmer than 12-15 during the days. That is thanks to the heat generated by 5x people living in the home, the cooking, some under tile heating in the bathrooms (on for a few hours morning/night), and solar radiation when the sun is out of course.

It is true that the MHRV system is constantly blowing fresh air into the bedrooms, and sucking out of the bathrooms/laundry/kitchen. This means there is a constant flow of air from the bedrooms out into the hallway and along to the bathrooms (not that you can feel it). But it will draw warm air from the heater away from the bedrooms. However the MHRV system has about 90% efficiency (according to specs) when transferring heat from the extracted air, into the supply air. So that warm air will in fact be warming the fresh air coming into the bedrooms.

The reality is it is not a trivial exercise to put heaters in every bedroom. There are beds/furniture where the heaters would need to go (near sockets etc). But you have definitely given me food for thought about this. I think I will keep using the portable heater in the hallway for a month or so, and see how it performs. If we are still finding the bedrooms are too cold we might have to bite the bullet.

...still interested to hear from anyone with real world experiences of the Mills heaters (from Bunnings)... :)

tweake

2641 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1137

#3229323 12-May-2024 17:04

SumnerBoy:

While I tend to agree for most houses, when you have a super insulated, air tight home with triple glazed windows, it doesn't take much to raise the internal temp. I mean we haven't had any heating on this winter yet, and the living room has only barely dropped below 20, when it has been below zero for the last few nights and not warmer than 12-15 during the days. That is thanks to the heat generated by 5x people living in the home, the cooking, some under tile heating in the bathrooms (on for a few hours morning/night), and solar radiation when the sun is out of course.

It is true that the MHRV system is constantly blowing fresh air into the bedrooms, and sucking out of the bathrooms/laundry/kitchen. This means there is a constant flow of air from the bedrooms out into the hallway and along to the bathrooms (not that you can feel it). But it will draw warm air from the heater away from the bedrooms. However the MHRV system has about 90% efficiency (according to specs) when transferring heat from the extracted air, into the supply air. So that warm air will in fact be warming the fresh air coming into the bedrooms.

The reality is it is not a trivial exercise to put heaters in every bedroom. There are beds/furniture where the heaters would need to go (near sockets etc). But you have definitely given me food for thought about this. I think I will keep using the portable heater in the hallway for a month or so, and see how it performs. If we are still finding the bedrooms are too cold we might have to bite the bullet.

a high performance house doesn't need much heating/cooling but what little you do need, needs to be moved to the right place. hence its much better to heat in the rooms themselves if possible, or have ducted to the rooms.

mhrv efficiency will depend highly on how its ducted and fan speed. if its ducted outside of the insulated space then not great. hopefully its all inside. also higher flow the less efficient. easy thing to test with a thermometer.

you could try simply increasing lounge temp, as your on the cool side. if enough heat circulates and picked up by the mhrv it might be enough.

you mention kitchen mhrv exhaust, your running a recirc range hood?

eonsim

403 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 192

Trusted

#3229325 12-May-2024 17:12

Any basic wall mounted heater, then get an electrician to wire it in with a Shelly plus 1PM inline to control it. If it's less than 1kW the 16A shelly's should be fine for that load and it'll give you a nice system controlled by Home-Assistant with no smartplugs hanging off the socket. If it's a more powerful heater look at something else to control it.

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3229425 12-May-2024 22:14

tweake:

a high performance house doesn't need much heating/cooling but what little you do need, needs to be moved to the right place. hence its much better to heat in the rooms themselves if possible, or have ducted to the rooms.

mhrv efficiency will depend highly on how its ducted and fan speed. if its ducted outside of the insulated space then not great. hopefully its all inside. also higher flow the less efficient. easy thing to test with a thermometer.

you could try simply increasing lounge temp, as your on the cool side. if enough heat circulates and picked up by the mhrv it might be enough.

you mention kitchen mhrv exhaust, your running a recirc range hood?

Yeah all the MHRV ducting is inside the thermal envelope. And yep, we have a recirc range hood (actually a sucker on the induction hobs, which vents thru a carbon filter back into the kitchen).

Running the heat pump in the living room a bit to try and get that circulating the heat is definitely worth a try - hadn't considered that.

At the risk of derailing this thread... do you live in a passive house yourself?

New World

Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3229426 12-May-2024 22:17

eonsim:

Any basic wall mounted heater, then get an electrician to wire it in with a Shelly plus 1PM inline to control it. If it's less than 1kW the 16A shelly's should be fine for that load and it'll give you a nice system controlled by Home-Assistant with no smartplugs hanging off the socket. If it's a more powerful heater look at something else to control it.

Can just use a contactor inline with the Shelly if the heater it too beefy. But by the time I buy the Shelly, and pay for a sparky to install it, I think I would end up spending the same or more than the smart Mills heater. And I do like the look of the PID temp controller they claim to have built in.

tweake

2641 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1137

#3229857 13-May-2024 16:45

SumnerBoy:

At the risk of derailing this thread... do you live in a passive house yourself?

no, i'm simply a home performance fanboy. big fan of the tech and having decent homes (and people actually owning their own home). not actually a fan of passive house, more a fan of high performance ie build to my standards not someone else's. eg passive house air tightness standard is really low for auckland, something i disagree with.

long term plan, funding permitted, is to upgrade this house to be as close to high performance as i can get.

SumnerBoy

2079 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 306

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3230028 13-May-2024 22:06

tweake:

no, i'm simply a home performance fanboy. big fan of the tech and having decent homes (and people actually owning their own home). not actually a fan of passive house, more a fan of high performance ie build to my standards not someone else's. eg passive house air tightness standard is really low for auckland, something i disagree with.

long term plan, funding permitted, is to upgrade this house to be as close to high performance as i can get.

I hear you re. Passive House certification. I was never interested in getting anything signed off, I just wanted a high performance, super efficient, healthy and comfortable home. When we decided to build I was very excited and so far I have been very happy. I am by no means an expert but have learnt a lot over the last few years, designing, specing and building this place.

Good luck with your plans!

tweake

2641 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1137

#3230133 14-May-2024 10:30

highly recommend this utube channel if your not already subscribed to it, https://www.youtube.com/@HomePerformance. a good video out today on the research thats been done recently.

1 | 2