Home Automation - Using Home Automation for an energy efficient house.

I'm trying to design a home automation system with energy efficiency in mind. I was hoping to get some ideas on what I can do.

Heres what I've thought of so far.

Motion detectors in rooms to turn off lights & fans, and close vents in rooms that aren't in use.
System to turn heat at a lower setting when nobody is home.
Automatic system for window blinds
Exterior lights will be activated with motion detectors, and have photo cells to disable during the day.
Possibly a system to turn off some breakers in rooms, to prevent power drain from certain appliances like all the TV's, chargers, etc., that draw power even when off.

If you could add any other ideas, I'd appreciate it.

I probably wouldn't close vents in rooms not in use. The way to save enrgy that way, is to install duct dampers, and temperture sensors in ech room, to control the temp for the room. This way in the summer, north facing rooms won't be cold while south facing are hot, vice versa in winter, and same for upstairs & downstairs.

Motion sensors for lighting in the rooms are a good idea, whether attached to automation or not.

Blinds are a good idea.

Haven't seen anyone do the breakers. I would do switched outlets for that. Some electronics will lose programming such as channels, etc, over a long period, some won't.

Combination of schedules and interfacing to the alarm system will help with hvac control.

It's great to keep in mind energy conservation in mind if you are putting in a home automation system anyway, but to add a bunch of additional gadgets expressly for that purpose I think is a bad idea and will not work out numbers-wise.

You mentioned the standby power from TVs and chargers. I'd agree with Integrator that you probably want to go with switched outlets there. But the reason I brought this up is: Such standby devices use a couple of watts each tops. All of these automation devices you are proposing also use a non-trivial amount of power, especially when you add these small amounts up. And by the sounds of it you are planning on adding a lot of them.

The motion sensors might not save much power, unless your family chronically forgets to turn out the lights. There of course must be a delay in the motion detector, meaning the lights will remain on for say 30 seconds after someone leaves the room. If they "probably" would have turned off the lights as they left then you have just wasted that electricity. I guess I'd just be careful where I installed them. Me, I'd never forget to turn the bathroom light off as I left, but my living room could sure benefit from a motion sensor. EXCEPT for the fact that people are usually sitting when in that room, thus not triggering the motion detector, so it is out of the question. The places where motion detectors would work I really don't need them because they'd just waste power. I guess the kitchen is one exception.

The blinds are a good idea.

But definitely do the research on the power draw for all these devices you're planning on installing and add up wattage, at least so you know. Sure, it's very small, but so is the amount of wasted power they are supposed to alleviate. May turn out to be a wash. (Heating and such aside, but a $15 digital thermostat can accomplish that too.)

Power-usage-wise, what really got to me when I installed X10 stuff everywhere at my house was: Before, I had energy efficient CFL's in every socket. But X10 doesn't always play nice with CFLs, and certainly you need neutral wires in your switch boxes. None of mine have neutrals, and I'm not quite ready to rewire the whole house just yet. So I'm back to energy-hogging incandescents for a large portion of my lighting.

-core

[Edit: Oops! Didn't take note of the date since it was first on the page. Slow forum!]

Yea, not much happening on the home automation spot. Surprising, since I would think there would be more here than the alarm area, which stays pretty busy.

I worked on a project for a little while with a programmable thermostat. I wanted to build a system that would have a schedule for changing temperatures at standard times when no one was home. I also wanted to have it attached to my home network so that I could change settings on the fly from anywhere. I found a very interesting device that had a webserver and a few IO's that could be easily interfaced with a web page. I am not sure if I can mention the product here but it is a standalone device (about 2" x 3") and uses very little energy. I use the RS232 IO from that board to communicate with a micro controller. The micro controller takes temperature inputs (multiple rooms inside & outside) to determine when to turn on the system. Also by building it that way, I can add my own modes. Example: vacation mode turns the fan on for a couple hours a day to keep air from getting stale. One thing to keep in mind when using dampers on individual vents is that it is almost pointless to close more than a couple vents in a typical house. The problem is that an HVAC unit is sized to match the house (or area in a multi unit setup) and when you start to choke off the exhaust vents, you can overload the fan motor. So long story short, I just ended up with a programmable thermostat for about $300 but I can monitor temperatures, say from the office and if I leave early or have to stay late, I can modify the settings from a remote location and programming the thermostat is much easier when a full keyboard and mouse is utilized. One problem is that I have not placed any local buttons on the board, only a status screen so if I want to make any changes, I have to bust out the laptop but I can do it from any room in the house...Good Luck

Fordguy,
You can mention products here. People link to products and websites (both stores and manufacturers) all the time. As long as you're not selling it. But to comment on your use of it or ask questions about it, it's perfectly alright.

As far as dampers, can you close them 50%? I agree with you on the sizing of systems, but you could use room sensors and dampers to even out the temperature. For instance it's always colder on the bedroom end of my house in the summer, because that end is covered well by trees, and the south side of the other end in the sun is vaulted ceiling. Plus, that end has the kitchen. Our house is only 2000 sq ft, so only on HVAC. Hard to keep the temp even.

The network device is call SitePlayer server. http://www.sipteplayer.com - make sure that you check out the "Siteplayer server" because it is a small link on the lower right corner of their page. I purchased the developement kit because it brought out all of the connections and made the interfacing much easier.

Now THAT is slick!!! Too bad $300 is a little much for me to spend on a thermostat right now, but I'm definitely adding it to my list.

FordGuy, if you get tired of dragging out the laptop maybe just pick up a cheap used PocketPC with onboard 802.11b wireless.

-core

The wifey has one but the web programming that I did has some trouble on it. There is a lot of Java (to give a dynamic appearance) and for some reason, the PDA has trouble with it. I probably should design a simple page just for that purpose, another good idea that shouldn't take too long to implement.

Also, I forgot to mention that if you bought the barebones parts and only what you needed it could probably be brought down to $100-$150. I tend to buy more than I need so I don't have to wait on a resistor or diode or some other 2 cent part to come in the mail...

And if you cut out the status screen (or make it smaller) that could cut cost signifigantly. I used a 40x4 character display, backlit of corse.

Yeah the pocket version of IE has _no_ Java support. JavaScript, yes. But not Java.

Yep a barebones page would be a good idea. And hey while you're at it why not make a WAP-friendly one too so you can just use your cell phone to turn on the heat from the car or restaraunt? Heheh. That's only if you have a cheap phone like I do without a regular browser.

Add X10 devices to your lights if you don't have them already, slap a Firecracker device on your serial port and you'll have one helluva system in the palm of your hand.

-core

I've got CFL's in almost every light socket (~50) and you said that the X10 gave you trouble with those. Does the CFL cause interfearance with the X10 signaling. I am not too familiar with X10 outside of messing around with it several years ago. I've got 4 relays attached to my control system and not doing anyting. I could use those for lights but they require their own control wiring and a re-design of the manual switch. I would need a momentary push button attached to the controller and then the controller would turn the light on or off. Either way, it would requre some additional programming and running some more wire. I might hook it up at some point.

Save those relays for something "fun" and custom... you certainly don't want to be going through all that work for just lights when X10 does it fine without any addl work.

Very cheap CFLs can cause interference but I haven't had a big problem with that. Really the only problem with CFLs and X10 is you must buy more expensive switches which have a neutral connection at the switch box. (Normal inexpensive X10 switches trickle power through the filament of an incandescent bulb -- CFLs don't have filaments so they prevent the switch from operating.)

If you have neutral wires in any of your switch junction boxes then it's definitely worth it. Even if you don't, maybe you have some fun things plugged into 110V receptacles that you'd like to control.

That firecracker device is only around $14 if I remember correctly. It doesn't "eat up" your serial port because it's passthrough. No wiring necessary; it uses RF just like an X10 remote control. I love the thing! Even toyed with speech recognition software on my PC to control the lighting.

I have motion sensors in areas to turn off lights...

I also have ds10a - door window sensors when tripped turn on a light.. when closed turn off the light...

I went to my crawl space and noticed that the light was on for 2-3 weeks... so this was a 10 minute fix...

ws467 x10 light switch
ds10a door sensor

homeseer event for open and close

viola done..

also CFL in my house have not hindered x10 performance.
I have mostly cfl in the house.. still have areas to do... but my electric bill has dropped a good ammount.. but xmas is here so there that goes!!!!!

wanna see some of the stuff I have done on the automation part?
check it out here

http://techha.com/community/telefragger/index.html