Remeha: “problem not important enough”

Today, after 5 weeks of waiting, i was called by a Remeha employee about my problems with the combination of Remeha equipment in my house: Remeha Calenta, Gateway and Celcia 20.

I told him the whole story from the beginning; the phone calls i made with Remeha in April this year to be sure that what i wanted would work, the problems i encountered, the emails to Remeha sales support about the problems, more phonecalls and not getting any answer from Remeha for more than 5 weeks now.

The bottom line is that Remeha is to busy with new developments to pay any attention to what problems i might be experiencing with this very rare combination of their hardware. Simply a matter of costs.  Investing time/money into this matter costs more then and the relevance of the problem is very low for Remeha.

So basically the answer i got today was: “we’re sorry”. Ok. Bad answer for me; i’m not happy with it. But in a way, i can understand it. But this was the first time i was talking to a Remeha person who had the guts to say it out loud… it hurt (a bit), but this is 10 times better than getting no answer at all. That’s really irritating and disrespectful; ever heard of after-sales? The Remeha employee apologized for that.

And before i metioned anything about it, I was told i could return the Gateway and defective Celcia without any problem and i would get my money back. Case closed… regarding doing it the Remeha-way i mean : I’m already one step further in accomplishing what i want another way…

Still integrating Remeha Calenta into my Domotica system

Remeha Calenta

Remeha Calenta

It has been a while ago since i worked on this project. After the new central heating had been installed in the first week of april, i spent time to get the combination of Remeha Calenta, Remeha Gateway and Remeha Celcia 20 to work. I failed…

Somewhere there is an unstable factor in this combination that makes these 3 devices not work together as they should, and as was stated that they could by a Remeha technician. So i put this project on hold for a while. But now that holidays have started, and the days will get shorter in a matter of weeks, i would like to have this project finished by the time  we need the central heating again…

Last week i talked to the  person who installed the Calenta and he asked me to write down all my problems in an email that he would forward to Remeha Technical Services department, to see if it was possible to have a Remeha technician coming over to my house to investigate the problems i am having.

After integrating lights, appliances, garage doors, alarm systems, TV, Home theatre, music, the largest piece of equipment that is not yet integrated is the central heating. That has to change… one way or the other! :-)

All kinds of things are made possible these days in this area, just look at the Danfoss Z-Wave controlled radiator thermostats for example. It’s a sign you can’t ignore. So i hope Remeha has a clue of what is going on in terms of Domotica & HVAC; and i hope they inderstand that the systems they produce can no longer be isolated from the rest; it’s time to connect!

Remeha Calenta or Avanta?

Next wednesday i have a Remeha representative coming over to my house to see what’s the best heating system for our house. Remeha has got a new model since recently, the Remeha Calenta. Probably with a much higher price than the Avanta, my choice so far. Another very important issue is that the Calenta needs to have the ability to be operated with the Remeha Gateway just like the Avanta. The recommended thermostat for the Calenta does like very nice, BTW. And maybe i’ll add a solar water heater to the system, who knows. Alot of questions, hopefully to be answered next Wednesday.

Remeha iSense

Remeha iSense

Remeha solar water heater

Remeha solar water heater

Remeha Avanta

Remeha Avanta

Remeha Calenta

Remeha Calenta

Time for a new central heating

Yesterday we got a letter from the company that does the maintenance of our central heating. It said our current central heating was to vulnerable to failures and we were offered an upgrade to a newer central heating at a reduced price. Well, it is true that our central heating has caused us a lot of trouble through the 10 years that we live here. So i understand the reason why they want us to upgrade to a newer model from a different brand. But i’ve got my own wishes…
Our new central heating should be controlled by means of the Opentherm protocol for instance, so that i can ‘tap’ the communication between central heating and the thermostat and incorporate the data that i can get out of that, into my Domotica System. And i’ve made my choice: our new central heating will be a Remeha Avanta, controlled by a Remeha Celsia 20, including a so-called gateway for attaching a RS-232 cable to it and tap the communication.