Re: Master-Slave Thermostat recommendations?

I'm looking at doing a subzone in my house. Basically I'd have a huge duct
go from the furnace to the master bedroom, and a zone damper to control it.
That zone damper is actuated by 24V, which can be gotten from the furnace.

For now, I'll have the wire go in the master bedroom and use some
switch/relay to turn that damper on.

What I'd like to do is this:
Have a thermostat in the bedroom that actuates that damper, but that also
has a way to remotely turn on the master termostat that controls the
furnace.
This is because having the thermostat trigger in the master bedroom would
not trigger the master thermostat and cause airflow. Things would only work
if the master thermostat happened to trigger because its own temperature got
tripped.

So, what I'd like to do is have the bedroom thermostat be able to remotely
tell the master termostat to turn on or off, bypassing the master
thermostat's temperature (which it would then go back to once it gets the
off signal).
This is of course trivial for insteon switches, but I'm not sure what
thermostats I should consider to do this.

So, I've read so far:
1) Insteon thermostat, which apparently isn't great, but maybe would work
   either as a master or slave?
   http://www.smarthome.com/2491T1/Venstar-Thermostat-INSTEON-Remote-Control-Thermostat-1-Day-Programmable/p.aspx

2) Brian said 'RCS', not sure which one.
   http://www.asihome.com/ASIshop/product_info.php?products_id=1293  ?
   (not cheap)  

3) Joel said Omnistat RC-80, not sure if it would work well as a master
   or slave, and be money efficient.


What I'm looking for can use Insteon, X10, or even standard wiring if necessary.
I'm not sure if there is a way to reuse my existing master thermostat as a
master or slave (I have the regular 7 heat/cool/fan programmable kind, but
no remote programming that I know of, and I don't think its wires allow
signalling to trigger it remotely, but maybe its relay signals can be used
to control a smarter new master thermostat in addition to my subzone damper?

So, what would you recommend as my cheapest workable setup?

Thanks,
Marc
--
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/ 

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