new homeowner, inheriting pretty old split ac/heating system.... ideas on upgrades?

[swangy]

hi guys, at the risk of sounding very novice, was looking for advice on directions and ideas.

as title describes, just closed on a home. previous owner did a nice job of putting in split industrial heating (4 zone heated water) and AC units (forced air) but the thermostats are the old style manual crank heaters, and a separate AC thermostat. so theoretically i could senilely crank on both AC and heater and double my bill.

was looking for a solution that could automate these, preferably bring it into 21st century a-la ecobee and have nice stats and graphs,etc

hope this is the right forum for this, am continuing to scour these forums and net for answers, but seems like i have a semi-unique setup?

[noskilltech]

If you want cutting edge technology, then I'd say roll your own control system. You must have no need to hire a professional, so I'd suggest buying all your own components, building your own custom web based controller and design your own software. No need for a pro here.

Here are some links to some websites I used to design my own home system.

http://www.arduino.cc/ <---Great start here.
http://www.digi.com/xbee/ <---Use these to get your homemade controls wireless.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/ <---Control it all from a small web server running a bacnet stack.

Here's a guy who did it.

Or you could pay someone who knows what they are doing.

[Chris_Worthington]

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