Smart Thermastat

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Taf

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.

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.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by nomadking

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.

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.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

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.

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

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by nomadking

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

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.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

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.

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

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

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.

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.

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by Chris

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.

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.

Eh … it knew you’d gone out?

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by Chris

Eh … it knew you’d gone out?

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.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by Chris

Eh … it knew you’d gone out?

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.

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

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.

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.