I’m looking for a replacement thermostat for my gas fireplace. The current thermostat is a simply two wire system with a mercury switch. Any z-wave recommendations?
Anyone have a soluution for this? Possibly getting/making a 24v power supply?
I have been wondering about this as well for a thermostat in a remote building (that thermostat does not get any power). However, the only way I can see to do it would be to have a 24v power supply to power the ZWave radio in the thermostat.
When I first hooked up a ZWave thermostat in my house, I failed to get the proper power wire connected. The thermostat would exhaust the backup battery in just two days.
This has been discussed elsewhere (http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=786.15), but I am still hoping that someone who has done it can chime in and explain the setup in a little more detail.
I’ve got a situation where it is next to impossible to run a new thermostat cable from the furnace, but installing a 24v 500mA power brick in the basement directly below the thermostat location is totally doable. I think it’s just a matter of hooking up the two wires from the power and the two wires (in my case) from the furnace, but would love a positive affirmation from someone who has done it.
This will be something that I experiment with here shortly, since power adapters are cheap. So if nobody else has any wisdom for us, hopefully I’ll have some better information to share soon.
Yes adding the 24vAC power supply is the answer. After much research here and elsewhere, and discussions with the Tstat vendors (very helpful!) the answer for me was to add a transformer and run a new wire to each stat. I have 3 zones and ran new 5-wire cable to the first 2 floors, and powered the 3rd floor from the attic Air Conditioner’s transformer. It’s actually quite simple once you figure out how to get more wire to the Tstat.
Contact your thermostat’s vendor, they will be quite helpful I’m sure.
Good luck!
I was just catching up on my forum reading after a couple of weeks, and earlier stumbled across a posting where someone had purchased and installed a z-wave thermostat made by 2GIG, which apparently can run either off of 3 AAA batteries or a 24V power connection.
The user is running it off batteries for now to test the manufacturer’s claim that it can last up to 10 months on battery. But even so, I’m in a similar situation where the heating source in my loft is a couple of thermostat-controlled gas fireplaces, without 24V power wires, so I may give this 2GIG tstat a try.
Here is the posting where I found this…
Id try the 2 gig
You can always add a power supply