Help to improve central heating and hot water

Hi all,

Im after a little advice to try and improve our heating efficiency. We live in an old solid wall semi. House is one room wide front to back, meaning all rooms have an external wall. Its a pretty cool house. Keeping it warm in all rooms, balanced, is a struggle. Normally one room gets hot before another and shuts the heating off meaning the latter room then gets colder.

Anyway....

1st problem is, we've had a log burner installed in the front room, but this is where the room stat is so having that burning tends to make the rest of the house cold as it shuts off the heating as the stat gets up to temp quick, well before the rest of the house has heated up. So i guess i need to move the stat. Prob is all cables etc are buried in the wall so means decoration plastering etc... is there a wireless device i could put where the old manual dial control is, so i can then carry a wireless one with me in whatever room i may be in, or fix to a wall somewhere else?

2nd problem.
We have a hot water cylinder and a timer/programmer that is for the whole system. We don't use that much hot water as we have an electric shower dishwasher etc.... but i have left the timer set to on all the time, and control the heating with the room stat (turning it up and down all the time as its not time programmable unfortunately), and TRVs on rads. However, this means the hotwater is prob being heated, cooling, heated etc... when its not really needed. Is there a simple change I can make to my system to get separate time control of the tank stat? I was thinking maybe some form of wireless timer controlled cylinder stat maybe?

3rd problem
My TRVs seem a bit hit and miss.. Either heating rooms up to hot or not hot enough. Find it hard to find a happy medium with them. They are Bulldog valves. Are they rubbish? Any better ones that would do a better job?

I think that's it for now.

Many thanks for your time.

Cheers
Gav

1 - Any wireless thermostat will do that.
2 - Room thermostats with time settings can be obtained. Whether you can have separate control of the hot water depends on the type of system you have got. However the cost of heating a cylinder is minimal, provided is is properly insulated.
3 - All TRVs are slow to respond and the settings on them do not relate to actual temperatures. Set to a mid point and see what it's like for a day. If too hot/cool, adjust up/down by 1 digit and see what happens for another day. Do not adjust them continually just because someone decides it's a bit cool/warm, otherwise you will spend your life altering them and never get a decent setting.
The room with the thermostat must not have any other form of heating in it, and the TRV in that room must be set to maximum and left like that.

flameport said:

1 - Any wireless thermostat will do that.
2 - Room thermostats with time settings can be obtained. Whether you can have separate control of the hot water depends on the type of system you have got. However the cost of heating a cylinder is minimal, provided is is properly insulated.
3 - All TRVs are slow to respond and the settings on them do not relate to actual temperatures. Set to a mid point and see what it's like for a day. If too hot/cool, adjust up/down by 1 digit and see what happens for another day. Do not adjust them continually just because someone decides it's a bit cool/warm, otherwise you will spend your life altering them and never get a decent setting.
The room with the thermostat must not have any other form of heating in it, and the TRV in that room must be set to maximum and left like that.

Click to expand...

1 - any? Dont some need more wiring than others. Im after something that will need no more cabling other than what goes to a standard oldskool manual dial control? I dont think there will be a live feed there.

Any suggestions on a good one (VFM)

2 - System has two valves, one for heating controlled by room stat, and one for hotwater controlled by the tank stat. The programmer in place only has available wiring to turn on and off the boiler i believe. So at present there is no option to easlity plumb in a new 2 channel programmer. This is whay i was thinking along the line of maybe a seperate timer (rf/wireless) that i could stick upstairs near the loft hatch that could just control the tank stats signal for heat, timed would be ideal. Thinking this way to save having to run cables as its a fair old trek to where the programmer is at present.

3 - will give this a go, thanks

What timer do you have? Where is the timer fitted? Seems like a rather poor setup you have! Can you move the programmer to near the wiring centre if the existing wiring is no good, a photo of the programmer wiring would be useful, or at least a good description.

A wireless programmable roomstat wired into the wiring centre could control the heating, the existing programmer could possibly be altered to control the hot water times. Depending on the wiring you have there could be a better way.

Bulldog TRVs have a wax sensor and are therefore rather slow to react to temperature changes. Buying a better-quality valve with a liquid sensor, such as a Danfoss Ras-C2, would improve things but you need to decide whether the expense of doing this is worth it!

littlepigeon said:

1 - any? Dont some need more wiring than others. Im after something that will need no more cabling other than what goes to a standard oldskool manual dial control? I dont think there will be a live feed there.

Click to expand...

Doesn't matter. No need to put the receiver unit where the old thermostat was - it would normally be installed next to the boiler or wiring centre, where all of the electrical connections are.
Cable to the old thermostat disconnected.

freddo said:

What timer do you have? Where is the timer fitted? Seems like a rather poor setup you have! Can you move the programmer to near the wiring centre if the existing wiring is no good, a photo of the programmer wiring would be useful, or at least a good description.

A wireless programmable roomstat wired into the wiring centre could control the heating, the existing programmer could possibly be altered to control the hot water times. Depending on the wiring you have there could be a better way.

Click to expand...

Hi Mate,m

Sorry for delay. I can quite imagine its a poor system. The guys that installed it before we moved in seemed clueless but it was kind of out of our hands.

I believe the system is an S Plan system. The boiler is right at the back of the house in an outbuilding. This is also where the programmer is. The wiring center is right up in the loft with the 2 valves and cylinder with tank stat. The room stat is right at the front of the house in the front room.

The timer is just a 1 channel timer, on off for everything, rather than a seperate Hot Water and Heating timer . I'll get the details and a picture, of that later when i get home.

flameport said:

littlepigeon said:

1 - any? Dont some need more wiring than others. Im after something that will need no more cabling other than what goes to a standard oldskool manual dial control? I dont think there will be a live feed there.

Click to expand...

Doesn't matter. No need to put the receiver unit where the old thermostat was - it would normally be installed next to the boiler or wiring centre, where all of the electrical connections are.
Cable to the old thermostat disconnected.

Click to expand...

Ahhh makes more sense.