Central heating - Best place to resite thermostat

[diywhoopsy]

Hi

I am already thinking of the winter ahead and the gas bill price hikes and I would really appreciate some advice.

My central heating system has a thermostat that is sited in the hall which is in fact the warmest part of the house. (It is a small hall with lots of natural sunlight.)

The problem is :

a) because the temperature in the hallway is 20-21 degrees IN WINTER, I have to manually adjust the thermostat to 21 degrees or more for the CH kick in.

b) the other rooms in the house are cold until i do this manual adjustment. if i set the thermostat at 20 degrees but the hallway is 21 degrees it means the CH doesn't come on at all. (it pains me to leave it at 21 and 22 degrees as I think it might be more expensive.)

c) the high temperatures used to make the other rooms in the house uncomfortably hot. (TRV's were fitted to all radiators to solve this.)

Would it be better to re-site the thermostat to the living room where the temperature is more representative of the other rooms? The stat would be set to a correct (lower) temp and the CH would kick in at the right time. isn't that the way it's supposed to work? or is it just better to keep setting it to 21 degrees or more and use the TRV's to regulate the room temps.

i really hope that makes sense. please let me know if you have any q's.

(edit: typos)

 

[DP]

I would instal the thermostat in a cold room, TRV the rads that are in the rooms that are also heated by sunlight.

Now you will have naturally warmed room radiators shutting down as rooms get to desired temperature and cold room with stat fitted gets to stat temperature and boiler goes off line.

 

[ChrisOxford]

If you plan to install an RF (wireless) stat, you have the luxury of being able to try the sensor in various positions all round the house to see where it works best, before fixing it to the wall.

There's no "perfect" position though, and some slight fiddling with the stat and TRVs depending on the season is often required.

 

[diywhoopsy]

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer.


Chris Oxford:
I'll look into the wireless stat though i doubt it will be an option with my boiler.

DP:
Sounds like a plan. Thank you!


I wonder if you or anyone else passing through can tell me if resiting the stat will help save on my gas bill in the long term or is it six of one or half a dozen of the other?

 

[ChrisOxford]

You can fit a wireless stat to any system as far as I know. They're made by all the big names (Siemens, Danfoss, Honeywell etc.), you don't have to buy one specifically designed for your make/model of boiler.

 

[Whitespirit66]

The hall sounds like a bad place for your stat. Stats need to be away from sources of direct heat, ie. not near rads, fires or sunlight. As you have discovered, the strong sunlight in the hall makes it's temperature unrepresentative of the rest of the house.

I have never seen a boiler/ch system that you can't get a wireless room stat on. Let us know what you have, and we can advise.

Whatever room you put the stat in, you will need to leave the TRVs on the rads in that room full on, otherwise the TRVs and room stat will work against each other. You control the heat with the stat.

 

[diywhoopsy]

Thanks guys.

The boiler is a Worcester 24i RSF. Let me know if you need any more info.

 

[flameport]

Worcester 24i RSF.

Any mains (230v) thermostat can be fitted to that.

 

[bengasman]

The short version.
For optimum comfort, you install the stat in the room where you spend most time; normally the lounge. Bar maybe the bathroom, this should also be the warmest room in the house.
That in turn means that the lounge becomes the master room, driving the trv's in the slave rooms. This does presume that all the rads are more or less proportionally sized, and the lounge does not have a major other heatsource.

The long version.

*********************************** <-- Click!

EDIT

The link I posted for you was deleted by a moderator, but you can find all the info you need if you type in FITTING CENTRAL HEATING CONTROLS BROMLEY in Google; should be the first one that comes up.

 

[SpecialK]

You can get programmable stats with a "party mode". When this is activated it turns the heating on to a preset temp for an hour or so - Great for a little boost when you need it and it wont stay on all day!

I used to have my room stat in the living room, but with laptops, people, tv etc etc running the rest of the house stayed bloody cold lol.

 

[ChrisOxford]

...the rest of the house stayed bloody cold lol.

Quite! I found the best place for mine was in the hall upstairs. One of the cooler parts of the house, well away from sunshine, the living room, as well the kitchen and front door. The TRVs (on all rads except the one in the airing cupboard) then take care of the individual room temp. variations.

Adding a room stat was a very worthwhile and cheap upgrade to the system in my case. The guy who installed the system (combi + 10 rads, 9 with TRVs) said I didn't need one, but until I got one, I found I kept having to switch the CH on and off manually as the house often felt too cold or hot. I hardly use the timer/programmer at all now, just turning the stat down to 15 at night and when I go out, up to 20 when I'm at home, and right down to between 5 and 10 when I'm away for long periods. The posher (programmable) ones contain a timer too, so even this amount of intervention is un-necessary. Being a combi, the water takes care of itself.

Was very easy to install. The sensor/display/temp control runs off 2 AA batteries and is just fixed to a wall with screws and wallplugs. The receiver is a box about the size of a VHS video cassette, which is mounted fairly close to the boiler, is wired to it (live and neutral in, and switched live out).