Is this article a Red Haddock ???

[ebee]

Years ago an elderly friend had heating problems, the lounge, where thermostat was, was always cooler than wanted but the rest of the house was very hot, the heating ran for long periods. I tried turning the lock shied valves down and yes it made a difference in as much as other rooms were a little cooler but turning them down further meant the boiler over temp stat opened and took ages to reset.

However the real problem was the lounge radiator was obstructed by the sofa and the room was so small there wasn't many options available to resite either. I added some papst fans from 19" rack units to blow air into the limited space betwixt sofa and rad which made a difference.
Ultimately I cut a hole through the lathe and plaster wall and set the 4 fans in the wall between the bedroom and lounge rad's which backed onto each other such that bedroom rad hot air was being blown in behind the lounge rad. I wired it to the room stat with an additional stat behind the bedroom rad to make the fan run on until cooled but with a switch which they turned the fan off a while before going to bed to raise the bedroom temp. A lot of rebalancing later it worked very well and yes it did save money as the boiler cycled more often, preventing the other rooms overheating.

Yes that makes sense too, nice explanation

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

However the real problem was the lounge radiator was obstructed by the sofa and the room was so small there wasn't many options available to resite either. I added some papst fans from 19" rack units to blow air into the limited space betwixt sofa and rad which made a difference.

Our living room radiator, is in a bay window, and if blocked in by the usual style of sofa, would suffer the same issue. To get around it, I deliberately chose a sofa, on small legs, so there was space under to allow air flow, through to the rear and the rad.

 

[ericmark]

However the real problem was the lounge radiator was obstructed by the sofa

Yes same here with one radiator, hence why I was looking at the fans, but wife is looking at getting rid of sofa, in the room, three easy chairs, sofa 3 persons, and 6 chairs for dinning table, were moved in when dinning room was used as a bedroom, and never moved back. Not really a small room, L shaped, and shortest wall 5 x Ikea Billy bookcases against it.

But the Myson in old house did not seem noisy in the day, but at night would need to turn up the TV a bit when it fired up.

And I am not sure if the oil on/off boiler is causing the hysteresis or the way the electronic TRV heads work? Today I feel cold, thermometer on table next to PC shows 19.6°C the TRV behind me 19°C, behind sofa 19.7°C and the wall thermostat 20.5°C and set to 20.5°C and heating not running, radiator cold. Did not take readings yesterday, but felt warm, the Kasa TRV will show a graph, as will the wall thermostat and it seems as if heating is doing as it is told, so why do I feel cold? Maybe because it is a dull day? Phone tells me 8°C which is also what the wall thermostat shows, where it gets it from I don't know, must be the internet in both cases.

If the room was 20°C in the summer, I would be thinking it was hot, so maybe kid ology works?

 

[ebee]

so maybe kid ology works?

I think you might be right Eric.
I do notice that throughout the year as ambient temperature varies the a lot of folk tend to like the home noticably hotter when its cold outside then when its warm or hot outside as soon as they get indoors wheras you might presume one steady temperature inside whether hotter or cooler outside and just wait a while to heat up or cool down accordingly.

I once noticed when working in a dental surgery the staff leaving for lunch and whacking the room stat right down then on return from lunch whacking it right up full. Why not just an ON/OFF switch! or better still leave the stat at one setting everyday during working hours? LOL

I was asked to fit "Tamperproof stats" in a few working Mens Clubs etc to prevent a few individuals whacking it up or down everytime they walked past it!

 

[ericmark]

The thermostat is programmed, so it will auto return next time a programmed change. 16°C overnight, 20.5°C during the day, and 22°C in the evening 16:00 to 23:00, we can change the TRV heads and wall thermostat with a simple voice command, my wife will turn off/on lights by asking google, but heating she always asks me. And in the main even when phone is in my hand, and I could also ask google, I will get up and press the + on the thermostat. So I asked google if there is a child lock on the thermostat

Yes, Wiser thermostats have a child lock feature, allowing you to lock the physical controls via the Wiser Home app to prevent children or others from manually changing the temperature settings. When locked, the thermostat can only be controlled through the app, and a lock symbol appears on the device.

That would be like the cooker, kids found out child lock by turning both outer knobs and would lock it so wife could not use it, they thought it was funny.

 

[ebee]

Hmm, the tamperproof stats I was referring to were basically jus a protective cover held in place by "tamperproof screws" the bluetooth and Wi-Fi were not a thing back then, Computers were Spectrum Basic or Vic Commador, the only mobile phone was a short range wireless extension to the incomming BT Base station, People with remote control for their TV had a wire from the remote to the TV set and the kept asking you to not walk across them in front of them whilt they were watching TV , not because you would block their view of the TV but because you would yank the remote from their hand. LOL. Happy days gone by!

 

[JohnW2]

Today I feel cold, thermometer on table next to PC shows 19.6°C the TRV behind me 19°C, behind sofa 19.7°C and the wall thermostat 20.5°C ...

"Heat rises". How far above floor are your TRV (19.0°), your table (19.6°) and the wall thermostat (20.5°), I wonder?

 

[JohnW2]

We have all seen the adverts View attachment 405149View attachment 405150 and we think, will it work? The heater, plugged into a socket I would never entertain, but the fan on the radiator, seemed an interesting idea.

I was initially pretty sceptical about what I was seeing in the adverts, but a friend of mine has at least a couple of those, and they do seem to make quite a big difference - particularly in making the temp at 'person level' rise more quickly when the radiator is first turned on (without having to wait for the whole room to heat up 'from the top downwards').

 

[JohnW2]

I do notice that throughout the year as ambient temperature varies the a lot of folk tend to like the home noticably hotter when its cold outside then when its warm or hot outside as soon as they get indoors wheras you might presume one steady temperature inside whether hotter or cooler outside and just wait a while to heat up or cool down accordingly.

During the last year or so I have, out of interest, been paying a lot more attention to this, and have come to the conclusion, as you imply, that (at least in the case of my wife and myself) how hot or cold one feels has a lot less to do with the actual temperature than one might think, instead being strongly influenced by factors such as the 'outside temp' - or, more to the point, one's perception of the 'probable' outside temp based on the 'time of year'.

Of course, in addition to that 'perception' issue, there is often also a 'real issue', in that when it is colder outside (or when one thinks it's probably colder outside) people tend to put on extra layers of clothing when indoors, even if the indoor temp isn't actually particularly low!

 

[ericmark]

"Heat rises". How far above floor are your TRV (19.0°), your table (19.6°) and the wall thermostat (20.5°), I wonder?

This is clearly the problem in the hall, TRV is closer to the front door and lower, TRV 16°C and wall 20°C.
Living room, wall thermostat 20.5°C closer to centre of house, and about 5' high, table 20°C 3' high, radiator behind me 20°C 9" high and against the south wall, and radiator on west wall, 18.8°C again 9" from floor, since 1:35 am the heating has not been running for a while, radiators stone-cold.

When I moved from tungsten lighting to CFL, I found that the time clock and thermostat were no longer good enough, I wanted it warmer in the evening, and I fitted my first programmable thermostat. We had 6 bulbs in the room, varied sometimes 40 watts, sometimes 60 watts, which you would not think would generate much inferred heat, which since thermostat, was around the corner, after the arch between dinning room and living room, it would not get any inferred heat from living room lights.

It does raise the question did tungsten lights save energy? As I now set the thermostat to 20°C in the day and 22°C in the evening, so the room air is 2°C warmer to what it would have been with tungsten lights, so more heat will escape. Since electric is more expensive to oil or gas money wise, LED lamps help, but not so sure energy wise.

As to how good the old mechanical thermostats were compared with modern electronic ones, I don't know? The old mechanical TRV heads were not even calibrated in °C. A bit of guess work what *123456 mean. And I have the TRV head today set higher than the wall thermostat as don't really want the radiator to turn off, while boiler still running. Unless boiler only running for DHW.

But I have considered other forms of heating, but although a storage radiator may reduce the hysteresis, it could also result in the room being too warm. And electric even at 8.5p/kWh overnight is more expensive compared with oil. And for inferred using electric at peak rate, so don't want that.

However, for those will only electric heating, the situation changes.

 

[ebee]

"Heat rises". How far above floor are your TRV (19.0°), your table (19.6°) and the wall thermostat (20.5°), I wonder?

I must admit I find around 19 degrees see to be the maximum end of comfort (indoors) and around 16 to 18 being the most comfortable. The often thought of 20 degrees as "Room Temperature" is a little too much if choice is involved.