Worcester Bosch 37CDi controller quandry

Hi Guys

We are having the above boiler fitted in the garage, due to an extension being built. Our existing boiler (Potterton Puma 100e) is in the house and we tend to control the heating simply by using the front panel of the boiler.

My question is: which controller set to use. We'd like to be able to control the on, off and timer functions without having to go out to the garage each time, but at the same time, it seems to be felt on the forum that WB controllers are hard to get to grips with and may also be overpriced.

Is it possible to use generic (Honeywell, Siemens...) controllers with the WB boiler and if so what units do I need both for the boiler facia panel and inside the house.

A real shortcoming of the Worcester boilers is that they do not support weather compensation.

However, any programable thermostat can easily be used with your boiler.

They can only be over ridden until the next switch time and there is nothing to stop you having a simple room stat in series to just turn the dial if you want to hold it off or at alow temperature if you need to go away and reduce the maximum temperature for a few days etc.

The problem is that even a simple programmable room stat has lots of features but few people apart from technology freeks will bother to use them.

I am currently dealing with the tenants of an expensive flat who cannot use their top of the range prog stat. I will probably suggest to the landlord that the £90 unit is replaced with a £15 simple manual dial stat. I would do it free in return for retaining the good one!

Tony

Thanks Tony

On the WB website, all of the options seem to have two units, one fitted to the facia of the boiler and the other being the remote stat/controller, whether wired or RF.

So, if I get a Honeywell room stat/controller, for example, what do I need to fit at the boiler end to ensure compatibility?

A big consideration wrt the programmer is that if you use a WB one then it will covered under the boiler warranty so if you have a five year warranty on the boiler the programmer will also be covered.

Personally,I would only fit a WB programmer because you effectively get two programmers for the price of one. One controls the house temp and the other the boiler hot water preheat. The DT10RF optimiser is a pretty good programmer cost is about £150 or you can go with the cheaper DT10 RF digistat at about £30 less.

The Honeywell CM 927 RF is an excellent programmer (costs about £100) and will work with the boiler but it won't control the pre-heat on the boiler.

The preheat facility is a very good 'extra' on WB boilers but there is little point in either switching it off or leaving it on all of the time ,it really has to be controlled by time so that it suits your needs.

The problem is that even a simple programmable room stat has lots of features but few people apart from technology freeks will bother to use them.

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Such as the WB DT10RF. What a pain in the ar*e having to talk a customer through the different options on the programmer.
No longer using them.

Over the last 6 years we were mainly recommending WB gas/oil boilers, but are now seriously looking for an alternative manufacturer.

The latest WB boilers build quality is carp. As for reliability well?
faulty Pcb's (from new), failing fans, failing diverters leaking "o"rings, missaligning manifolds and razor sharp edges on sheet metal. missing parts

As for tech line, what a joke, thankfully their local engineers are a lot more helpful.

ps we do ensure the system is thoroughly flushed prior to fitting boilers and also fit magnaclean filters (so no reason for diverter valves to fail so soon after fitting)

Thanks guys

Although more expensive, is there any great benefit/drawback to using the TD200 text display (which i assume fits into the facia panel on the boiler?) and the RT10 room thermostat.

I know this system is wired rather than RF, but I think it's fairly easy to put a wired system in at the time of installation if there is a benefit to doing so.

If ther's no functional benefit then I'd be happy to go with the RF optimiser - the warranty issue is a very good point

Just had the landlord on the phone! Its a digistat+3.

The tenant had managed to put the "enable off" function into the "on" mode !

Now that may be logical to some people but to me i understand exactly what the words say.

Needless to say doing that had put the system into the always OFF condition.

Tony