I work a 4-on 4-off shift pattern, with the result that our occupancy routine doesn't sync with a 7-day week. At the moment my heating is programmed for a fairly generic 7-day week, but I have to manually reprogramme it some days avoid heating an empty house.

Pretty much every programmer I've seen assumes a regular 7-day routine, whereas my family's routine is more like an 8-week cycle. Apart from the obvious option of making my own, does anybody know of an off-the-shelf controller that would suit?

A 5+2 day programmable thermostat would give you 6 days to play with - if you're clever with the programming you could fit your 4 days into the 6 and pad either end of the sequence with the correct information to give a repeating 4 day pattern.

Something like this: 1F85-0422 Emerson Blueâ„¢ 4" Programmable Thermostat which is half way down the page here: http://www.emersonclimate.com/en-US/products/thermostats/Pages/programmable_universal_thermostats.aspx

The installation/programming guide is here: http://www.emersonclimate.com/Documents/White-Rodgers/instruction_sheets/0037-6954_EN.pdf

Paul in Montreal.

Tebis TX from Hagers home automation range may be something of use. All switching done through the consumer unit I believe.

Posted By: crusoeA 24 hour chrono/prog rm stat would seem to be called for. No point more than 24-hour capability as your patterns clearly don't fit the norm, whatever that may be.

I do have a pattern, it's just on an 56-day cycle. I already have a programmable thermostat.

Have a program for days when you are in the property, (auto mode) and simply flick it to manual 'low' - your choice of set-back temp - when you are not there.

keep it simples...'czccch'

That's pretty much what I do currently, the difficulty happens on days where (for instance) I leave the house early then my wife leaves it later, on a day where we would otherwise be heating. I can't dial it down manually before I leave because she'll freeze and die, so I have to alter the programme for that day, then remember to alter it back to what it should be afterwards. That's perfectly doable but frankly is a bit of a pain.

And no, I don't trust her to set it to manual before she leaves. She would have the house like a sauna 24/7/365 if she could get away with it.

I guess the next best thing would be a thermostat I could control remotely with an Android phone.

My programmable thermostat has a 'Temporary Veto' function which happens to be the first extra function with one press of the Function button. This is then adjusted* with a few clicks up/down on a rotary switch and operates till the next set heating period. Could this help in the situation you describe - leaving the house a while before your Wife?
It seems you have a quick response (?low thermal mass house) if your wife freezes if you set OFF/fallback as you leave. A quick veto of, say, 18oc, or whatever suits, could be a reasonable compromise if your fallback temperature is considerably less.

* but is then set at that level whenever F is pressed once, until altered again.

What you need is a simple home automation system to control the heating. It would work on occupancy. When you are at home it would have heating on and when away off. It could tell if you are at home through a couple of wireless PIR sensors or a last-one-out button at the door. You could control it from your phone if you wanted it to pre-heat etc.
Would cost a tad more than a thermostat but they claim to reduce energy usage.

As paul in M said you could program a 5 + 2 normal programmer to manage a 4 day shift. OK so what about 2 programmers one for each 4 day pattern and manually switch between the two at the beginning of each 4 day shift.

The heatmiser network thermostats work using a RS485 serial connection, and the protocol is publicly available. You could either use the serial connection to effectively outsource the schedule to an external device, or just quickly re-program the schedule once a week on a rotating pattern.

HTH,

Jim

Last time I looked the box needed to connect the heatmiser stats together was quite expensive.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: davidfreeborough</cite>A number of the Honeywell controllers have a "day off" button. You hit this button to tell the controller that tomorrow is a day off & it runs Sunday's programme instead of the one scheduled. The downside of this scheme would be that when at work on a Sunday it would run the "day off" programme unless you manually adjusted it. However, this is probably not an issue if your wife is always at home on a Sunday.

David<div class="Attachments" id="Attachments_133574"><ul><li class="Attachment pdf"><a href="http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/forum114/?PostBackAction=Download&AttachmentID=2597">Honeywell-CM67-User-Guide.pdf</a></li></ul></div></blockquote>



Newer Honeywells - eg CMT927 or 907 - as well as the day orf button they have both a holiday (ie we're not here - default to 5 degrees or 16 degrees) and a party button which you can press to add extra hours to the day program.
With the 'day off' and the 'holiday', you could get something that'd work on a very basic level.
The home automation market probably does something that'd do what you want - operating a relay in conjunction with a roomstat - but might need a text or phonecall daily. avforums website may be of use with that - if I'm allowed to mention other sites?
Or there's always the old fashioned butler. Polished shoes and ironed newspapers are a bonus there too.

Like P-in-M and P-in-H said:
have two simple 24h programmers, wired in parallel, one set for the 4-days-on cycle and the other for the 4-days off cycle. And a rocker switch to choose which one's output gets fed to the boiler, flick this switch over once every 4 days.
(or use the on/off switches on the programmers to choose which one is running)
(or use a 2-channel programmer)
(or replace the rocker switch with some home electronics driving a mains relay)
Room thermostat wired in series with all the above.

I have some wireless thermostats from the Conrad FS20 range, not too pricey, apparently this range can be driven from a PC or phone but I havent tried this.