18 • OIL
&
ENERGY
HVAC Controls
tekmar Eliminates Obstacles to Efficiency
Controls coordinate system operations and enables remote access for customers
RECENT TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES AT
tekmar Control Systems, a Watts Water
Technologies company, have expanded
the capabilities of HVAC controls. The
company’s new control lines combine
indoor and outdoor temperature feedback
and advanced communications strategies
to improve comfort, reduce energy con-
sumption, and open new possibilities for
homeowners.
Greg Leupin, Sales & Marketing
Manager for tekmar, recently told
Oil &
Energy
that tekmar has improved com-
munications among controls in a home or
building. At the same time customers can
now control their heating and cooling with
a home automation system or remotely via
the Internet.
COORDINATED CONTROL
Many new tekmar controls include the
company’s tekmarNet
®
technology, which
enables boiler controls and thermostats
to communicate with each other for
coordinated control of the home comfort
systems. A tekmar House Control serves as
the central brain, receiving data from the
other controls over a wired network and
coordinating their operations.
By coordinating the activities of every
control in the home, the House Control
improves efficiency between heating and
cooling equipment and prevents the sys-
tems from working against each other, says
Leupin.
“This industry is very segregated. We are
in hydronic heating, but the home requires
heating and cooling. Who is integrating
these systems? We’ve seen systems where
the air conditioning professional does the
cooling, the heating professional does the
heat, and they put two thermostats on the
wall next to each other,” he said. “You could
have a real problem with both systems firing
at once, and whose fault is that? Having a
central brain is very important.”
REALIZING EFFICIENCY
A lot of high-efficiency boilers in the
field operate inefficiently due to ineffective
controls strategies, Leupin says. tekmar
controls can help the systems achieve the
efficiency they are designed for by using a
combination of indoor and outdoor data to
reduce the boiler water temperature.
An outdoor sensor delivers data
about the weather, while tekmar’s Indoor
Temperature Feedback allows the Outdoor
Temperature Reset logic to consider the
internal heat gains and losses of each zone.
The systems work together to continually
fine-tune the water temperature delivered
by the heating system.
tekmarNet
®
can also coordinate all of a
home’s heating and cooling zones through
Zone Synchronization. This function
prevents short cycling of the equipment by
preventing small load zones from calling
for heat independently. tekmarNet
®
also
uses the Zone Post Purge function to reduce
boiler standby losses.
tekmar House Controls are available in
a variety of models, with some designed for
hydronics and others for heat pumps. The
controls use network communication to
coordinate the operations of all system com-
ponents, from a single zone of baseboard
with an on/off boiler, to multiple radiant
floor zones with a modulating/condensing
boiler. A House Control can also manage
domestic hot water and zone valves, and
some versions also manage multiple fan
coils, hot tubs, mixed radiant floor heating
zones, and mixing valves.
SIMPLICITY FOR CUSTOMERS
While the control technology contained
in a tekmarNet
®
system can be complex,
tekmar strives for simplicity in its customer
interfaces. “The key is not to overwhelm the
end user with system water temperatures and
information they do not understand,” Leupin
said. Homeowners adjust the temperature, set
the programmability, and set the humidity,
while contractors can use the remote access
to draw on the more detailed data.
Contractors have many up-sell options,
depending on what customers are looking
for. For remote access to control the heating
and cooling from anywhere in the world,
there is the tN4 Gateway 483, which allows
the homeowner to access tekmarNet
®
compatible controls remotely using a web
browser.
Customers who want to control their
heating and cooling through a standardized
home automation system will be interested
in the tN4 Gateway 482, which allows a
home automation system to control the
radiant floor heating system. The 482 is
compatible with automation systems from
AMX, Crestron, Control4, Elan Home
Systems, Savant, and Vantage.
PROVEN SAVINGS
tekmar’s controls have delivered excel-
lent results in the Northeast in recent years,
according to Leupin. The company has
tracked performance at eight oil-heated
Connecticut homes that use tekmar con-
trols and has seen annual savings ranging
from 20 to 50 percent.
There is a lot of interest in remote access
among homeowners, Leupin says, and
contractors can help themselves by under-
standing the technology and the customer
options. Contractors who want to learn more
about tekmar controls can send an e-mail to
