Automatic control system for a building

An automatic system for controlling the environmental conditions in a building divided into a plurality of zones comprising:

• at least one power consuming appliance in each zone;
• at least some of said appliances including a heating/air conditioning unit;
• said building including AC power lines for supplying operating power to said appliances;
• a control station including means for applying onto said power lines appliance control signals that include bursts of radio frequency oscillations having a predetermined frequency and a predetermined duration;
• said frequency of said control signals identifying the zone in which said appliances are to be controlled and the duration of said control signals determining whether said appliances in said identified zone are to be turned on or off;
• a receiver coupled between each said appliance and said power lines for receiving said control signals and turning said appliances on or off in response thereto;
• and
• each said receiver being responsive only to the control signals having a frequency associated with the zone in which said receiver is located;
• said control station including a programmable computer for enabling the generation of said control signals to control said appliances in said zones in a predetermined manner;
• said control station including manually actuatable means coupled to said computer for manually entering appliances control data into said program controlled computer to enable said appliances in said zones to be turned on or off in a desired manner;
• said manually actuatable means coupled to said computer also adapted to override the predetermined appliances control data stored in the program of said computer when manually actuated.

An automatic system for controlling the environmental conditions in a building divided into a plurality of zones comprising:

• at least one power consuming appliance in each zone;
• at least one said appliance including a heating/air conditioning unit;
• said building including power lines for supplying operating power to said AC appliances;
• a control station including means for applying on said power lines appliance control signals that include bursts of radio frequency oscillations having a predetermined frequency and a predetermined duration;
• said frequency of said control signals identifying the zone in which said appliances are to be controlled and the duration of said control signals determining whether said appliances in said identified zone are to be turned on or off;
• a receiver coupled between each appliance and said power line for receiving said control signals and turning said appliances on or off in response thereto;
• each said receiver in a zone being responsive only to the control signals having a frequency associated with the zone in which said receiver is located;
• said control station including a programmable computer for enabling the generation of said control signals to operate the appliances in said zones in a predetermined manner;
• and
• temperature sensing means for producing a signal that is indicative of the temperature outside said building;
• and
• means coupling said outside temperature signal to said computer;
• said computer adapted to alter the predetermined turn on time of at least some of said heating/air conditioning units in response to the difference between the outside temperature and a reference temperature.