Heating and cooling idea...
 

So things are slowing down a little at work so it's given me some time to think. :D

So the general idea is to have each room of a building be on its own thermostat or possible all controlled by one central brain. Now the interesting part about this idea is the have a water to air coil in each room. Obviously when it's cold out hot water would be flowing and you could have a small efficient variable speed fan to blow that hot air around. Very similar to the idea of a mini split. The trick would be cooling and the condensation drainage. But I imagine it would look a lot like a mini split so it would be a matter of running a drain somewhere.

This way you could shut a room off or keep it cooler or hotter. Or at night you can turn the main part of the house down and keep your room warmer or even the baby's room.

Then you would have a central water to water or water to air heat pump that would make hot/cold water to be pumped around the house. Or in my case the winter time I could use my WMO burner.

Thoughts?

Sounds ideal to me. That is what I'm planning to do as I renovate the house, except I'm just putting in hydronic floor for heating. I have no A/C. Each room will be on its own loop, so they can all be controlled individually.

I can’t comment on system design.
I have mini split in three bedrooms and a two head unit for the rest of the house.
It is great being able to keep each room at the temp we want. All three bedrooms are kept at a different temp. Only a few degrees different but that keeps us all comfortable.

Down the road when we are empty nesters we can conserve energy on the two kid’s rooms.

Sounds like a 3 pipe system to me. They are used in large buildings, mainly because of the ability to simultaneously heat and cool spaces independently. The opposing zones add to system efficiency.

There are 2 main types of 3 pipe systems: refrigerant as working fluid, and water as working fluid. Pictures are easier than words.

Refrigerant type:
https://vertexeng.com/wp-content/upl...or-768x576.jpg

Water type:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ns4IqjLd4z...600/3+pipe.JPG

Hmm I'm assuming the 3 line idea is to be able to hear or cool in different zones at the same time? I wasn't planning on doing that. It would be strictly a heating or cooling mode.
That being said I've been starting to play with a raspberry pi and learning Python. I just found out yesterday that the have a pi zero that cost 5$. So that got me thinking about a great way to control each room. Obviously each room would need its own temp sensor and fan. Currently I'm looking into the best way to control a fans speed and find an efficient transformer. Or possible just run a 120v fan with triac.
But the thought would be to have a small desktop touch screen that holds the pi zero and a sensor that would attach to something that was similar to a radiator on a wall but much more pleasing to the eye.

https://www.ijirset.com/upload/2015/...7_40_Speed.pdf

Ok, so a two pipe setup makes zone control more difficult. With only a send and return line, the plumbing is simpler. But how can the indoor units know what mode the outdoor unit is in? Something has to be told something, if you know what I mean. Automatic, independent operation of zones must be devised so the indoor units know what mode the outdoor unit is in at all times. The fan coil units can be bought or fabricated pretty trivially.

I had just planned on putting an option for heating and cooling in the room thermostat. I'm sure there would be a way to have a "master" controller could tell the room controllers what mode to run in. But we will see when we get there

A home glycol system would be pretty cool, but unless you are doing a serious renovation or new build I would just stick with splits.
Also the chiller units are actually bigger than what you would expect them to be. I would have to say the glycol coolers I have seen are about double the size of an A/C evaporator.

How does the cost of the water system compare to MS heat pumps ? How does the operation cost compare ?

God bless
Wyr

So I've been thinking about this more and more lately. The basement isn't finished in the new house. So that Ives me access to run water lines around the house where needed. The biggest problem I've found with this idea is the actual heat exchangers in the rooms. The only units Ivan find that look good would cost about 500$ per room.. That pretty much kills the store bought idea. So that brings me to the DIY side. I need to find some small hydronic coils in the 6kbtu and less category and some small efficient fans. Maybe pwm computer fans? I don't think I would need really high cfm for just one room? Maybe 150?