Heating / hot water controllers

West Cork Paul said:
Maybe I’m missing something but why the need for so much programmability? Surely just setting the thermostat to XX degrees and leaving it like that all the time is the most efficient and cheapest way to heat your house?

We set ours to 19c, dropping to 18c overnight. It’s on all the time. There are TRVs in the various rooms so if you want a room cooler than 19 or even 18, for eg the bedroom at night, then the TRV prevents that room being heated.

With a well insulated house, once the boiler has got the air temp up to the desired temp then it just cuts in and out and uses very little gas. If you have a programme that permits the temp to drop during the day whilst the house is empty it takes ages to heat it back up again and uses more gas ie costs more.
Click to expand...
simpsons-homer.gif
 
West Cork Paul said:
Maybe I’m missing something but why the need for so much programmability? Surely just setting the thermostat to XX degrees and leaving it like that all the time is the most efficient and cheapest way to heat your house?

We set ours to 19c, dropping to 18c overnight. It’s on all the time. There are TRVs in the various rooms so if you want a room cooler than 19 or even 18, for eg the bedroom at night, then the TRV prevents that room being heated.

With a well insulated house, once the boiler has got the air temp up to the desired temp then it just cuts in and out and uses very little gas. If you have a programme that permits the temp to drop during the day whilst the house is empty it takes ages to heat it back up again and uses more gas ie costs more.
Click to expand...
Insulation is the key issue here.
Most homes aren't well insulated.

Ours certainly isn't.
 
West Cork Paul said:
Maybe I’m missing something but why the need for so much programmability? Surely just setting the thermostat to XX degrees and leaving it like that all the time is the most efficient and cheapest way to heat your house?

We set ours to 19c, dropping to 18c overnight. It’s on all the time. There are TRVs in the various rooms so if you want a room cooler than 19 or even 18, for eg the bedroom at night, then the TRV prevents that room being heated.

With a well insulated house, once the boiler has got the air temp up to the desired temp then it just cuts in and out and uses very little gas. If you have a programme that permits the temp to drop during the day whilst the house is empty it takes ages to heat it back up again and uses more gas ie costs more.
Click to expand...
We tried leaving ours on and just turning it down a bit at night. Gas bill trebled.
Plus, gadgets are fun.
 
Got hive thermostat here which works well for us. The unit itself is wireless (4 aa batteries) so you can mount it anywhere, but there are parts of the kit that plug into the boiler and your Wi-Fi router. We had a boiler expert install it. Was told the nest thermostat needs a mains plug. Not sure if true. We use it to switch off when not in the house and to come on just before we get home.

Now working from home, having hive trv’s installed also. My home office is really badly insulated and gets properly cold. So as well as sorting the insulation the hive trv’s should hopefully keep the bills down as I heat only the home office. Fingers crossed they work as advertised!
 
Alan Williams said:
We tried leaving ours on and just turning it down a bit at night. Gas bill trebled.
Plus, gadgets are fun.
Click to expand...
The thing is to set it and have the faith to just leave it. For the first couple of days at 19c it felt chilly, there’s a massive temptation to turn the thermostat up a few degrees, but after a couple of days it settled down and was fine thereafter.

Just a few degrees on the thermostat makes a huge difference at the boiler. All houses will be different but if ours is set at 19c the boiler just comes on and off for about 10-15 mins maybe half a dozen times a day. At 20c it will be on for about 20-30 mins each time, at 21 it will run for 20-30 mins every 2 hours, get up to 25c and it’s running continually.

Most people come home to a cold or warming up house, find it chilly inside once they taken off coats etc and then wack the thermostat up. The house has just heated up by the time they ho to bed when the heating goes off and the house temp falls and the cycle repeats.

Have faith in modulation 👍

But yes gadgets are cool 😁👍 - speaking of which I guess Apple must have some home heating controls, I must check (cue @Loz from stage left 🤣).
 
West Cork Paul said:
The thing is to set it and have the faith to just leave it. For the first couple of days at 19c it felt chilly, there’s a massive temptation to turn the thermostat up a few degrees, but after a couple of days it settled down and was fine thereafter.

Just a few degrees on the thermostat makes a huge difference at the boiler. All houses will be different but if ours is set at 19c the boiler just comes on and off for about 10-15 mins maybe half a dozen times a day. At 20c it will be on for about 20-30 mins each time, at 21 it will run for 20-30 mins every 2 hours, get up to 25c and it’s running continually.

Most people come home to a cold or warming up house, find it chilly inside once they taken off coats etc and then wack the thermostat up. The house has just heated up by the time they ho to bed when the heating goes off and the house temp falls and the cycle repeats.

Have faith in modulation 👍

But yes gadgets are cool 😁👍 - speaking of which I guess Apple must have some home heating controls, I must check (cue @Loz from stage left 🤣).
Click to expand...
All agreed here. Even the trolling bit at the end! 🤣👍

The house is well insulated, now all my building & maintainence work is completed. 18C for 8hrs at night, 19C the rest of the time. Boiler at the moment is running sbout 90mins a day. Winner winner what time's dinner.

The difference in cost between 19 & 21C and even 20C, is appreciable and the lower temperature soon adjusted to.
 
Last edited:
What on earth are you lot on about?

We don't use the "warm" cycle of the reverse cycle A/C.

During our increasingly short winters we regularly have days with a maximum of 16-18C,nothing that a warm hoodie can't deal with. That's the thing, . A/C is for our our regular 40C+ days in summer where sitting around naked doesn't help -you need A/C - but winter is a choice of clothing.

What a bunch of soft sods.
 
West Cork Paul said:
The thing is to set it and have the faith to just leave it. For the first couple of days at 19c it felt chilly, there’s a massive temptation to turn the thermostat up a few degrees, but after a couple of days it settled down and was fine thereafter.

Just a few degrees on the thermostat makes a huge difference at the boiler. All houses will be different but if ours is set at 19c the boiler just comes on and off for about 10-15 mins maybe half a dozen times a day. At 20c it will be on for about 20-30 mins each time, at 21 it will run for 20-30 mins every 2 hours, get up to 25c and it’s running continually.

Most people come home to a cold or warming up house, find it chilly inside once they taken off coats etc and then wack the thermostat up. The house has just heated up by the time they ho to bed when the heating goes off and the house temp falls and the cycle repeats.

Have faith in modulation 👍

But yes gadgets are cool 😁👍 - speaking of which I guess Apple must have some home heating controls, I must check (cue @Loz from stage left 🤣).
Click to expand...
But with shit insulation we’d just end up boosting global warming. Fuck that.

When it was left on it was running most of the day, not 10-15 minutes a few times.
 
Am I right in thinking that Hive you can add smart TRVs to control individual rooms ?
(Others too like Drayton wiser).
But not with the Nest system ?
 
I looked at adding the Hive TRVs to my system but found them really expensive but they do integrate into the Hive hub. In the end I opted for some Genius BLE100 TRVs that are bluetooth and work with an app on my phone. Buying them pre-Brexit from Germany I got them for under £10 each so £100 sorted all my radiators that took TRVs.
Do not think Nest do a TRV.
 
chrisw said:
I looked at adding the Hive TRVs to my system but found them really expensive but they do integrate into the Hive hub. In the end I opted for some Genius BLE100 TRVs that are bluetooth and work with an app on my phone. Buying them pre-Brexit from Germany I got them for under £10 each so £100 sorted all my radiators that took TRVs.
Do not think Nest do a TRV.
Click to expand...
Looks like some of the TRVs are compatible with Hive or others.
Shame they don’t all use the same protocol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom