Smart Thermastat
 

I've just started looking into Smart Thermastats as I saw Bulb Energy give a 35% discount on the Tado brand.

I currently have a conventional boiler with a wired Honeywell thermastat and my understanding is I can get their wired starter kit and replace the Honeywell.

How much of a difference do these things have on heating bills based on your opinions?

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

The only way I would use a smart stat was if the boiler has the receiver and the stat can go anywhere. I was looking into it and my boiler would allow it but often older boilers would have to have the stat wired in one place.

In my house the wired stat is in the hall which is the most stupid place of all because as you know hot air rises up the stairs making it impossible to set a temp and it holds that temp in my living room which is where i would want a stat if anywhere. The only benefit I would have had was not having to get up to constantly have to moderate the living room temp


Thankfully all became moot with the price increases and no using heating anymore so did not follow it up

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Mines also in the small hall but that is right next to my livingroom and the stairs are in the livingroom.

The smart thermastat starter pack would detect when I'm not at home and turn the heating right down or off so I would definitely save on that when I'm at work and wouldn't want to come home to a frozen house at 10.30pm on late shift so it could turn it on before then saving around 5hrs of heating on that shift, but I don't think I would fit the special valves to the radiators.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Doesn't your boiler have a timer on it? up to you of course but I would just switch to timer when you are at work and then on to manual when you are off

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

The only advantage is to the installer in that it won't need a cable run to the master thermostat, as they operate via a radio signal.

Some are purely thermostats, but others operate as timers and/or override switches.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

There is a control in the airing cupboard, on/off first thing in morning for a few hours which will heat the hotwater in the Megaflow tank and heating the house in that time and then on again around 4pm until 10pm I think as my boiler is conventional this is for both heating and hot water.

So you can see why I would benefit from better control with a smart thermastat when I'm not at home with the heating part of it as long as no one else is in the house.

Basically when I finish work I don't want to come home to a frozen house at 10.30pm when I go to bed so I need the heating on a few hours before that when I'm not there.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

yeah I get ya bud :)

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

And then when I'm at home all the time I don't want to freeze my bollocks off so will have the heating come on whenever it wants to with hopefully better control so it will turn off more economically and hopefully save money.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

I have used Hive for many years now.

Remote wi-fi receiver to control the heating / water, remote wi-fi thermostat (in my hallway atm) and a hub that links them plugged in near my router (as it needs internet).

The receiver and hub need mains power, the thermostat is battery powered.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

I ended up buying the Tado wired thermastat on Black Friday and installed it yesterday replacing the Honeywell in the Hall used for the heating.

I've no idea if it'll save me money or whether it'll increase my Gas usage but the extra control I now have especially when not at home will hopefully be a positive.

I think I need to get it the habit of switching it to Away mode where it's set to not let the house drop below 10c when I leave for work and then a few hours before I return home turn it onto 20c again.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

We have Hive (in the hall) as there is no mains near where the thermostat is sited. We do have the problem that the hall takes ages to get to temperature so is set a little low and then the rest of the house has problems. It's a new boiler and system was cleaned out.



One thing we found out was that the manufacturer's thermostat can use features on the boiler that run the pump after the burner turns off. Hive has a "Ready by" feature so instead of setting the heating to come on/off at fixed times you set the time you want the temperature to be ready at. It will turn the heating on upto an hour earlier to reach that temperature, if the room is a bit warmer it doesn't turn the heating on until a bit later. I'd like to get Hive thermostatic valves on the radiators so the heating can stay on and warm rooms like my office without heating the empty rest of the house.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

The problem with thermostatic valves on the radiators is they they can only really switch the radiator off. Unless the main thermostat switches the heating on, the radiators won't heat up.
Unless my hallway is below the thermostat setting, the living room radiator will be cold. The alternative is to set the hallway thermostat higher than it needs to be. The hallway doesn't need to be that warm, because you're only ever passing through it. Just annoying and crazy.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

The advantage is supposed to be that if your comings and goings from home during the week don’t match what’s set in the thermostat’s timer, you can remotely turn it on or off, or up or down, as required. It should save money if you’re able to turn the heating off when you’re out for the evening. To be honest I suspect the advantage is minimal. Certainly in our house full of teenagers there’s lots of coming and going and giving any one of us remote control over the heating would be even more problematic than having a fixed programme in a dumb stat at home. At least this way, whoever’s home can alter it if they need to. At least in our case, the house is new and well insulated so it warms up quickly.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Its useful to be able to control the heating remotely, and via Alexa.

With four adults, a 17 month old child, and myself permanantly working from home, there is very rarely a time when no one is at home.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

As per regs at that time, the hallway radiator hasn't got a TRV, the flow through it was turned down by the installers, so that it doesn't heat too quickly, shutting down the entire house.

But the new boiler has a bypass loop, so if all the rads are TRVed and shut off, the pump will keep running with the flow going through the bypass until the hall thermostat shuts it off. But the council refuses to accept that, despite it being in the handbook, so no hallway TRV.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

The conclusion I've come to, is that my hallway radiator is too big. It's bigger than the living room one. That might be ok for a house where you would be heating the stairway and upper landing, but in a bungalow it heats up too quickly compared to the living room.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

You should be able to balance that out by adjusting the lockshield valve at the opposite end to the thermostat/main tap to cut the flow rate down.

Normally the lockshields are adjusted to obtain a particular surface temperature on the radiator.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Didn't realise that sort of thing existed and was in place.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Should be part of the original installation and set up during commissioning. Not necessarily obvious and as its name suggests that you can't obviously see the valve as it's covered by a domed shield. Radiators a long way from the pump would have their valves well open whereas those close would be shut down to balance the flows correctly.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Yes, this'll be the fourth winter we've been messing with ours and still not got it balanced to our liking.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

There was 2 major faults with the installation of 7 years ago. The flue siphon wasn't set up correctly so was dangerous, and the thermostat was wired up incorrectly so that it was always on. I didn't know until the annual gas check, as I had disabled the heating because I had noticed it was on in summer when I first move in.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

This is the first time I've left my house since installing it and it notified me asking if I wanted to put it in away mode which is set to 10c which I did, I've now just switched it back on to let it heat the house for 2.5hrs before I get home. I think I should save with this as normally my heating would come on at 5 and go off at 10 even when not home.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Eh … it knew you’d gone out?

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Yes because the phone was on me which has the app on it, I can change the distance from home too.

What temperature do people's houses drop to if the heating isn't on? Mines around 14.5c at the moment and with the heating turned on from 8pm to 10pm while I was at work it raised to 17c.

My house is 25years old so it won't have modern insulation from the last few years.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

Our hive heating has got geolocation built in, can do all sorts of things when it knows you're on you way out or way home.

Re: Smart Thermastat
 

The thermostat and timer is integrated in a modern system. You don’t set the heating to come on or off per se, you tell it what temperature you want at different times of day. In our case you also set upstairs and downstairs independently. At the moment our downstairs is allowed to drop to 18*c during the working day before the heating kicks in (so between around 8.30am and 4pm iirc). However, it’s set at 21*c between 6am and 8.30am. We’re finding, with the outside temperature around -7 first thing and still below zero mid afternoon, that the temperature indoors hits 18 maybe around 2-3pm. So we’re losing maybe 0.5 degrees per hour, with a 15-20 degree gradient between indoors and outdoors.