Thermostat

I use the Salus 510rf, cheap and cheerful. Never had any problems with it. Thermostat\transmitter goes in whichever room I think appropriate at the time and shows the temp on display, receiver goes over existing thermostat backbox or next to the boiler, needs 240v.

Batteries in the thermostat\transmitter last us more than a year, more like two.

None of this geo fencing malarkey or the ability to impress fellow pub goers by making a show of switching the heating on with your smartphone before going home.

 

Plus 1. Simple but very effective at a good price and reliable too.

 

I looked for a cheap programmable wireless thermostat for my mother, I selected this as being about the cheapest at around £75, however it lost the wireless link, and over time had to place it closer and closer to the base, and it some times failed on heat, so boiler did not turn off, this non programmable has a 1/2 hourly check as to if RF link is working, but is more expensive than Hive, and to stop hysteresis it starts a mark/space ratio of switching off/on as it approaches the target temperature, this completely messes up the gas modulating boilers system, as every time boiler is switched off, it switches back on at full output, so it works very will with an oil boiler which does not modulate, but not with a gas boiler.

We have to consider the job of an on/off wall thermostat, it is not to control room temperature, the TRV does that, it is to stop the boiler cycling when we get warmer weather returning.

We are told the wall thermostat should be placed on ground floor as heat raises, in a room normally kept cool, so it does not turn on heating when likely the day will be warm, where there is no alternative heating, and no door to outside, and of course in a heated room, one thing missed is the room needs to cool quicker than other rooms, but the problem is the room rarely exists.

The hall however can be used if a TRV is used as well, the idea is when door to outside opened the hall cools and both the TRV and wall thermostat open/turn on. As the hall warms again the TRV starts to close, so stopping the hall reaching the wall thermostats set temperature before rest of house warms up, and set this up at mothers and it did work.

Other rooms controlled by TRV's as these slowly close/open, so avoid the hysteresis of a on/off thermostat, and also cause the boiler to modulate like it is designed to do, as each TRV closes more water is forced though those still open until the by-pass valve opens which sends warmer and warmer water back to boiler who's controls then cause it to first modulate (turn down) then start a mark/space ratio, but unlike the mark/space done by wall thermostat, when done with boilers internal software it turns back on at minimum output.

Of course this is a general system, some boilers do have more sophisticated control, some will alter the space time to reduce cycling.

So with a wired wall thermostat one of these is ample, at £35 but once you move to wireless, then likely the Hive is the cheapest option.

If I return to cooling time of the hall, that is a real problem, you can adjust heating time with the lock shield valve, but not cooling time, and if like with this house, the living room cools faster than the hall, then living room gets cold before hall thermostat kicks back in, with my Nest Gen 3 nothing I can really do, should not be fitted in living room as wood burning fire in that room, and Nest does not in the UK have temperature sensors, they only work with USA version, but with the cheaper Hive, if you have a cool room, you can add a linked TRV head, which will turn the heating on as long as hall under 22 degrees C.

Clearly the likes of Drayton Wiser, Honeywell Evohome, Tado with OpenTherm as long as boiler supports it are far better, and if using hard wired motorised valves the EPH can work them and the boiler where thermostat can be set as master and slave. EPH like Nest does not support linked TRV's but it does not need to, the installer has a choice use TRV's as zone valves, or use hard wired zone valves, little point using both.

Since no TRV will link to Nest, I use eQ-3 TRV heads they cost me £15 each in 2019, and work far better than the mechanical versions, main thing is programmable and set in degrees C no silly *123456. But of course no unlinked TRV can turn the boiler on.

Hive is a very basic system, but works, the Moes thermostat is likely the cheapest, and best value for money, but hard wired there is this comparison guide however it says Nest works with Energenie and I know to my cost it does not.

 

Sorry @MGW

TL : DR

 

I had the geofencing fail earlier this year, high winds took out the EE mast, but Nest has a built in PIR, so each time I walked past the thermostat it would switch heating to comfort, and then latter back to Eco mode, so it took me a day in a cool house to work out what had happened, also no way with Nest to set the distance, only the Eco and Comfort temperatures, so most if not all of the smart features have been switched off, the learning feature relies on doors always being the same, leave a door open one day and closed the next, it will never learn, the anti legionnaires function means the heating turns on when not required, and my house takes that long to warm up, simple times work better.

I use oil, so boiler does not modulate, mother house the boiler did modulate, and must admit the TRV heads worked very well, used these with the intention of adding Nest latter, but they were slow to heat room, I cheated set to 22 for an hour then back to 20, but they did once lock shields set keep rooms to temperature set. As to geofencing with IFTTT they could be set to work, but the OTT anti hysteresis software and need to cheat to heat up room in reasonable time, means I never used it. The big down side was needed a phone or PC to set them, the far cheaper eQ-3 you could toggle between comfort and eco with one button, no need for a phone, the bluetooth will only work with one phone, but linking to phone does make setting easier, but not required, the other TRV head is the Terrier i30.

As to showing off in pub with geofencing, well if you need to get phone out to turn on the heating, then clearly geofencing is not working.

 

It was supposed to be a joke.

With all due respect to yourself and your knowledge and experience I am not at all sure whether all this fiddling about makes much difference either in money\energy saved or comfort or indeed the time spent tinkering with things.

We simply have the thermostat\transmitter in the living room with the TRVs in the kitchen and living room up full and have not given it a second thought. The rest of the house has the TRV's either at 0 or very low. As for having the hall thermostat as 22 I don't think we have ever had our thermostat set above 18.5. All depends on the layout of the house; we have a big hall and landing with 9 doors leading off, I have no intention of keeping that at 22 degrees or anywhere close.

 

My home also not very warm at the moment. Between 13 and 16 degrees C down stairs. This is of course at TRV hight, hall at 14 at TRV and 16.5 at wall thermostat which is higher than the TRV and near enough centre of the house. In summer with no heating on they show the same, so not a calibration issue.

This was the problem with the Nest system even if it did work, it auto set the TRV same as wall thermostat, and it really needs to be 1 to 2 degrees lower or it will turn off heating prematurely.

Mothers old house with a gas modulating boiler the TRV's were spot on, this house with an oil boiler no where near as good, they work, but clearly if boiler not running TRV can't do its job.

Mothers house was kept on the warm side, at 90 mother needed it, here house allowed to remain much cooler.

However every home is different, my first house had hot air central heating, expensive to run, but whole house at nearly same temperature as large fan circulating the air, including past the single glazed picture windows, which is why it cost so much to heat.

My last house was open plan, so wall thermostat actually controlled rooms temperatures, being placed between the two main rooms, the TRV's were used to try and stop upper rooms over heating, shutting doors was important or bedrooms got too hot.

This house has doors on every room, getting my wife to close them is a problem, but if closed each room can be set to a different temperature, at least in theory, but clearly if boiler not running rooms will not heat. Did not realise how good a modulating boiler is, until I ended up without one.

But the biggest problem with most homes is how to set the lock shield valves, each radiator has lock shield one side and TRV the other, even my electronic TRV's take on Saturday at mid day around 3.5 minutes to fully open then close and then return to setting as they exercise to stop the TRV pins sticking.

Does not sound long, but it is long enough for the radiator to reach full heat if lock shield not set, and start a hysteresis. Mothers house this made it easy, if current exceeds target then lock shield needs closing a bit, and once set, when the old mechanical type were put back before selling house, rooms still spot on.

But how does anyone set the lock shield and the TRV otherwise, one needs to be correct to be able to set other by trial and error, the idea of a differential thermometer and setting in and out pipes to 15 degrees C between them, easy to say, but how many people have a differential thermometer?

Had my mothers been set up correctly when the central heating was put in, I would have never learnt, I read the books which said you don't have a TRV and wall thermostat in the same room, so would open the front door and take mother out, in her wheel chair, so not fast, and hall temperature would plummet. Very large radiator so opening the lock shield valve it would re-heat hall, but then every other room would get cold. It says put wall thermostat in a lower floor room, with no alternative heating, and no outside doors, there was no such room.

I tried all sorts, including a wireless thermostat moving it to room being used, in the end I tried fitting a TRV in the hall with the wall thermostat, bingo, at last I got it to work, it was because I struggled for so long to get it working, that I learnt that modulating boilers are controlled by the TRV's. Trial and error, mostly error.

There is some thing wrong with this house, hot water returns to boiler, yet not a single radiator is fully warm, there is clearly a by pass some where which I have not found, but this room is warm 19.3 degrees C, so other rooms being a bit on cold side does not matter. I have 14 heated areas, 11 rooms, 3 floors, I simply don't need them all warm, just the rooms being used.

 

For a straightforward solution without all the bells and whistles, a basic wireless thermostat sounds like the way to go. It's great that you're focused on functionality rather than smart tech.

 

Ai? The thread is a year and 4 months old!

 

If you're looking for options, you might find some good choices at connectautomation.co.uk. They offer a range of home automation products that might include the kind of thermostat you're after.

 

I have a Gaggia Classic pre 2010 with an Auber PID installed. The following was happening before the thermal fuse blew:

I have set my PID temperature to 100C, however the temp on the PID display would get stuck at for example 95C. When I then switch on the front button of the machine, let some water come through and switch it back OFF, the temperature on the PID would be much higher than 100C. After I turned the front switch OFF again, the temperature would drop back to the pre set 100C.

it went like this for a few times, until it hit 200C on the PID which likely blew the thermal fuse, and now the front panel doesn't turn on anymore (although the PID display still seems to works).

I'm not quite sure what could have caused the problem. It's clear to me that I need to replace the thermal fuse but would like to fix the cause as well.

I was hoping someone could help me?

 

You need to start a new thread. Introducing your coffee maker into a thread about central heating thermostats is just plain stupid and has trashed the whole thread. If you are commenting on an existing thread, you could do with reading it first, to see whether your comment is relevant or not. Here, it definitely is not.

 

More Ai?