I have a gas fired hot water boiler that heats my house. The three heating zone thermostats run independently from the boiler and turn the circulator fans on and off as needed. The boiler turns on and off as needed to maintain 180 degree water, but is mostly on--and therein lies the problem.As with all boilers, it has an emergency on and off switch on the boiler itself. At the top of our basement stairs there also is another on and off boiler switch. Since the boiler stays on almost all the time, and heats the house even when the house does not need to be heated, I'd like to replace the on and off switch at the top of the stairs with a clock timer that can allow me to control when the boiler is turned on. Is there any danger in installing such a timer? Could you recommend one? Most I have seen are for electric water heaters? Any other concerns I should have about such an arrangement? Can I assume that this is a relatively simple do it your self project? Thanks.
Technically, the switch at the top of your steps is more for emergency use than regular operation. In other words, it's not designed to be used all the time. But in theory, it can be replaced by a timer. If your boiler has mechanical controls the timer shouldn't effect it but if you have solid state controls, then an electronic timer may influence it in one way or another. Since the line to the on/off switch is probably low voltage (the control circuit), you'd have to get a timer that's driven by that voltage or run 120VAC line to drive the timer and then have it break the control circuit. But I think I would investigate first why the boiler runs so much in the first place. To have it run most of the day isn't cheap and may be remedied by insulating or tweaking a few things here or there.
