Reliable Controls is the DDC platform we reach for first when a residence’s mechanical plant is serious enough to need real building-automation discipline — multiple boilers, multi-zone hydronic distribution, radiant slabs, snow-melt, geothermal, dedicated outdoor air. The factory is in Victoria, British Columbia — the same city as our studio. We are an authorized Reliable Controls integrator through our sister company, Wenner Group.
In the residences we work on, Reliable Controls sits between the mechanical plant and the household-facing Crestron and Lutron systems. The plant runs in its native protocol; the household touches a single climate vocabulary on the wall panel and in the Tahoe app. The seam is where most residential HVAC fails — and where, programmed natively, this combination quietly excels.
Reliable Controls is a North American DDC manufacturer with a thirty-year history in commercial building automation. The platform was built for hospitals, universities, and government campuses; we deploy it on residences at a scale where the plant has commercial-class load and demands commercial-class control.
The programmable hardware that sits near each piece of mechanical equipment. Native BACnet on the wire, programmable on Reliable’s own toolchain, by hand. Each controller is written for the equipment in front of it — not from a Reliable Designer template.
The supervisory layer that ties every controller in the residence together — trends, alarms, schedules, setpoint history, override authority. The household never sees this directly. The senior engineer who keeps the residence in service uses it daily.
Graphical building views, floor by floor, system by system. A way of reading the residence’s mechanical state at a glance — what is running, what is calling for heat, what is overriding, what is alarming — without having to read the schedule table by hand.
Intuitiv Spaces is a Wenner Group company. Wenner Group is an authorized Reliable Controls integrator with a long history on the platform — the relationship predates Intuitiv and runs deep into the manufacturer’s engineering organisation.
In practical terms: the engineers programming Reliable Controls on the residences we work on are factory-trained, on the latest firmware, and have a direct line into Reliable’s technical staff when an edge case needs a manufacturer-level answer. Both companies are headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia — the same city as the Reliable Controls factory — and the working relationship is on a first-name basis.
For the household, the consequence is straightforward: the firm programming your DDC is not a generalist who picked up Reliable Controls last year. It is a practice with a decade of platform-specific depth, on a residence-scale where most authorized integrators only ever see a commercial project.
Reliable Controls is the layer between the mechanical room and the rest of the residence’s control system. Above it sits Crestron (the household-facing surface) and Lutron (lighting and shading). Below it sit the boilers, chillers, air handlers, hydronic manifolds, and zone-level Tekmar controllers.
Native BACnet/IP and BACnet/MSTP, Modbus where the equipment requires it. Every primary plant signal — supply temp, return temp, modulation rate, valve position, alarm state — flows up to MACH-System for record and analysis.
Native BACnet bridge to Crestron at the scene engine. The household’s “Goodnight” intent on the wall panel propagates as a set of climate setpoints into Reliable Controls, which then sequences the plant beneath. Crestron programming →
Every trend, every alarm, every override is read by Intuitiv AI daily. The platform learns the residence’s seasonal rhythm and surfaces drift — stuck valves, miscalibrated dampers, ERVs running outside their envelope — before the household feels it.
The questions that come up most often when households, architects, and mechanical engineers first reach a conversation about specifying Reliable Controls on a private residence.
For most residences, yes. For the residences we work on — two or more boilers, hydronic distribution, radiant slabs, snow-melt, geothermal, or any combination of those — it is the appropriate level of control. Below that mechanical scale, a Crestron-driven thermostat layer is enough; above it, Reliable Controls is the architecturally correct answer.
Yes. Intuitiv Spaces is a Wenner Group company, and Wenner Group is an authorized Reliable Controls integrator with a decade of platform-specific experience. Both companies are headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia — the same city as the Reliable Controls factory.
Yes, natively over BACnet. We programme the integration so the household’s single “set the bedroom to 68” intent propagates from the Crestron scene engine into Reliable Controls, into the hydronic zone controllers, and into the boiler modulation rate — all as one coherent action.
Yes, directly, or in concert with Tekmar at the zone level. On most residences with substantial radiant scope we use both: Tekmar zone controllers managing the individual radiant loops, reporting up to Reliable Controls at the supervisory layer. More on Tekmar →
Yes, frequently. The platform handles geothermal heat exchange, snow-melt timing against outdoor air and slab temperatures, and the interaction between the two on residences where the geothermal field is shared between domestic heat and snow-melt load.
Frequently. We audit the existing programme, write a remediation plan, and either work alongside the original installer or take over the engagement entirely. The first survey is usually free; the remediation plan is a paid deliverable that the household owns.
A short, written brief is enough to begin. We respond personally, within two business days.
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