Tekmar is the specialist platform we specify on residences where the hydronic layer is large enough to warrant its own zone-level intelligence — radiant slabs across multiple wings, snow-melt across long approaches, hydronic towel warmers and pool circuits integrated with the primary heating loop. It is the right tool for these jobs in a way no general-purpose DDC platform quite matches.
In the residences we work on, Tekmar sits beneath Reliable Controls and reports up to it. The primary DDC platform supervises the whole plant; Tekmar handles the radiant and snow-melt specifics. The household never thinks about the boundary — they touch one climate vocabulary on the Tahoe panel or the Crestron app, and the right specialist tool answers underneath.
Tekmar Control Systems is a Canadian manufacturer (Vernon, British Columbia) with a long history in hydronic and radiant control. Where Reliable Controls is the generalist DDC layer, Tekmar is the specialist — particularly strong on the parts of the residence where water, not air, is the working fluid.
Per-zone slab temperature control across multiple wings of the residence, with outdoor reset curves tuned to each elevation’s thermal profile. Slabs respond slowly; the controls anticipate against the next forecast, not the last hour’s thermostat reading.
Driveway, walkway, and stair snow-melt against outdoor air temperature, slab surface temperature, and weather forecast. Tekmar can pre-warm the slabs before a storm arrives, ride the storm at the right brine temperature, and cool down afterwards without wasting the residence’s primary heating capacity.
Hydronic supply temperatures shift with outdoor air, slab demand, and primary plant capacity. Tekmar’s reset controls run the boilers cooler when they can and ramp them up only when the building actually calls for it — saving fuel and extending equipment life on residences where the boilers are expensive and the runtime is long.
Tekmar is a specialist layer, not a whole-house controls platform. In the residences we work on it sits between the mechanical equipment and the supervisory DDC layer above. Reliable Controls reads the zone-level state from Tekmar; the Crestron / Lutron systems read setpoint summaries from Reliable Controls. The household touches one vocabulary on the wall panel.
The integration is what makes Tekmar work on a luxury residence. As a stand-alone, Tekmar produces excellent zone-level control on a single subsystem. As part of a properly-designed DDC architecture, Tekmar’s zone intelligence rolls up into the residence’s overall climate vocabulary — and the household sees a unified system rather than three independent controllers in different parts of the mechanical room.
Most failures we see in residential radiant systems are at exactly this seam. The slab is installed correctly, the Tekmar controllers are wired correctly, the thermostats work — but the radiant zone never speaks to the boiler reset, never speaks to the air handlers, never speaks to the household-facing scene engine. The house has a beautiful radiant floor that runs as if it were in a different building from everything else. The fix is integration, not replacement.
The questions that come up most often when households, architects, and mechanical engineers first reach a conversation about Tekmar on a private residence.
When the residence has substantial radiant heating, snow-melt scope, or hydronic complexity that warrants its own zone-level intelligence. On smaller residences with a single radiant zone or a short snow-melt run, Tekmar may be over-specification; on larger residences with multi-zone radiant and serious snow-melt, it is usually the right specialist tool.
No — they sit at different layers. Reliable Controls is the supervisory DDC platform across the whole plant. Tekmar handles the zone-level intelligence on radiant and snow-melt. The two work together, with Reliable Controls reading the Tekmar state at the supervisory layer.
Yes, in two ways. Directly, via the household-facing scene engine on simpler installs; or, on the residences we typically work on, indirectly through Reliable Controls as the supervisory DDC layer. The household never sees the difference.
We specify and integrate Tekmar on the residences we design. The hardware is typically procured through a mechanical contractor of record on the project; we’re responsible for the design and integration — the zone layouts, the reset curves, the linkage into Reliable Controls and into Crestron — that lives around it.
With slab temperature sensors at multiple points along the run, outdoor air temperature, and weather forecast input where the residence has it. Tekmar can pre-warm against an incoming storm, ride the storm at the right brine temperature, and cool down without wasting the primary heating plant’s capacity — the kind of orchestration a stand-alone snow-melt controller can’t do on its own.
Frequently — most residences we inherit have Tekmar somewhere in the radiant layer, often un-integrated with the rest of the residence’s controls. We audit the existing wiring, write a remediation plan that brings the Tekmar layer into the supervisory DDC, and either work alongside the original installer or take over the engagement.
A short, written brief is enough to begin. If the residence has substantial radiant or snow-melt scope, we respond personally within two business days.
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