Hi Experts....

I am wanting to upgrade my current thermostats to Ecobee 4, but it appears my system needs an upgrade first. Hoping you all can guide me in what to purchase and how to wire.

Details of my setup:

1. Gas Furnace and Air Conditioner...believe they are Andersen 95% efficient (have pvc exhaust)
2. 2 zone system with 2 thermostats. One on main level, and one in basement
3. DuroZone SMZ-SW controller controlling dampers with what appears to be 3 wires to each damper??
4. 7 wires connected to main floor thermostat (C,R,B,W,Y,O,G)
5. 3 wires connected to basement thermostat (R,W,B)

My questions:

Can ECOBEE 4 be wired up to this controller? and will functionality be the same? According to ECOBEE support, answer to this is no.

What zone controller should I buy? HZ-311?

Can anyone help me with some wiring diagrams? Would need each thermostat and zone controller wiring.

It would be easy to run another 7 conductor cable to the basement thermo if needed or would help..

some pictures attached for reference.

Let me know if I can provide any more information.
Thanks!
Jason

 

one more picture detailing where wires go from control board currently

 

Looks like you have a heat pump, The Ecobee should be compatible with your system.

 

I don't have a heatpump....its a gas furnace.

 

ecobee as well as most other thermostats are not compatible with that zone board. Per note from Durodyne:
HZ-311 is one of the most common zone controllers so would be a good choice.

 

Can someone help me? If I buy the HZ311, how should I wire it?

Anyone have a diagram?

Thanks!

 

Wiring is mostly one-for-one with what you have. Big difference with dampers as HZ311 doesn't have an M2 connection so you need to connect this to transformer R. Also do not hook up C from furnace. https://forwardthinking.honeywell.co...69_2069efs.pdf

Other and much simpler option is to keep existing board but add separate heat/cool switch. https://www.amazon.com/MCS-DXB-Contr.../dp/B01DJMS9PS

 

I can draw you a diagram but you would need to post a better picture of your current zone control board connections.

A flash light and a picture of zone one, a separate picture of zone two and possibly another of the equipment connections if you dont want to use a third party site that allows you to post bigger pictures.

"Zone 1" and "equipment" look too small and dark to read.
I can see the wire colors on zone 2 but not the zone board labels.

 

The size of the pictures is ok.... just needs to have the camera be able to see the markings on the board. When viewing the pictures.... either download and open them or right click on them and select "view picture". The DIY system resizes the pic for the board but actually stores and serves out the full size picture.

This should help.....

 

great enhancement. I still can't see equipment C or Y.








Damper wiring...
white - M1
blue - M4
Red - R

 

I have the same SMZ-SW zone board and am looking to replace it with the Honeywell HZ311 zone controller. My HVAC system is also a master/slave setup, but I only have 1 damper. This means I can heat/cool just the downstairs, or both floors, but not the upstairs by itself. Would this setup be supported by the HZ311? The main reason for switching the zone controller is so that I can replace the thermostat with something modern and programmable.

 

I'm adding a diagram here of what I believe would be the "one-for-one" wiring when swapping my SMZ-SW for an HZ311. Some of the wires dont seem to have a matching connection on the HZ311 and am hoping someone can tell me where they go (ie. Equip wires C and R, Thermo1 wires B and O). Do I need to make sure there is a wire to/from all inputs in the HZ311 thermo side to the actual thermo? Current setup has only 3 wires for thermo2, but HZ311 has 5 inputs. Also, Astuff recommended connecting damper wire 2 to the R power. Is this correct?

 

Equipment C will no longer connect to the zone control board.

Equipment R will connect to RH and you will bridge RH to RC on the new board with a jumper wire.

The old thermostat O and B will no longer be in use.

Do you have extra (formerly unused) conductors running to the zone 2 thermostat location?

 

Houston204, thank you for the info. Yes, I have a total of 8 wires going to Thermo2.

The diagram you posted is still just a little bit unclear to me. Do I wire terminal 2 on the damper straight to the transformer? White wire or black or doesnt matter? Alternatively, could I not wire it to the Power R terminal on the zone board?

 

Yes the way that you drew it up looks good to me.
Connect damper 2 to power R.

I would connect R,C, G, Y and W to the zone 2 thermostat and the new zone control board.

 

Houston204, thank you so much for the help! I've ordered the zone board now that I feel confident where all the wires need to go. I've been wanting to do this for over a year. Cant wait to have some modern thermostats (and maybe even add a damper to zone1 in the near future)!

 

I just wanted to confirm that this setup worked for me. The wiring all checks out and I am now using a Nest thermostat with my Honeywell zone controller. I'm grateful for this forum and for Houston204 who was so helpful and crucial to this project being a success!

 

That is great news. Thanks for posting back with the results.

 

Houston:
In the same exact boat, looking to upgrade to Z311 from the SMZ-SW. Only difference is I have a 3 zone system, 3 stats and 3 dampers. You had him connect the damper to Power R on the new board, how would I wire it with 3 dampers?

 

I have a similar problem. I have a hot-water boiler and a separate air-conditioner system which is controlled by a Durozone SMZ-SW. There are 2 zones in a master-slave configuration. I am trying to connect an Ecobee3 as the thermostat in the slave zone but ran into issues with supplying a steady power between Rc and C when the master switches from Cool to Heat (when that happens there is no voltage between Rc and C). I spoke with Ecobee and they suggested that I replace the controller with an HZ311 but I am unsure how I would wire the HZ311.

The slave zone thermostat has 4 wires: Rc, Rh, Y, and W. I have 2 extra wires in the cable run, so I should have enough for anything I need to do.

The master zone thermostat has 6 wires: W, Y, G, O, R, and B.
I had looked at the earlier post and it seemed to make sense.

Right now, I have the C for the Ecobee3 wired to C on the board and since we are in Cooling season it is working ok. When I go to switch to Heat the ecobee will shut off because there will be no power to Rc.

Does it seem like I could use the same logic as the OP for wiring this? And, for the extra damper that I have, 1->M! 4->M4 and white to Power R?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

Sorry. Not sure what happened to the photo in my previous post. Hopefully this one will last longer. Otherwise, I will have to find another place to store photos that can be inserted here.

Sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused.

 

Welcome to the forums.

No inconvenience.
The problem is that Photobucket no longer allows free third party hosting. They got greedy.
You can load pictures directly to the board like I did for your picture.
How-to-insert-pictures.

 

In a similar situation, was just wondering what happens to the equipment c wire if it's not on the board? Does it go right to transformer or do I just cap it off and leave it?

 

Welcome to the forums.

Just cap it off. It's not needed.

 

Thank you very much! Just wanted to confirm before I did anything

 

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