DANFOSS RET230P ISSUE - HELP

[brian1982]

Hello

I've got a DANFOSS RET230P thermostat hard wired into a DANFOSS timer. It has been in for two years and always worked fine. Problem came when I paid an installer to upgrade it to the new NEST thermostat - it turned out to be faulty and when I asked the installer to re-install my old DANFOSS it no longer seems to work.

Someone came to try and fix it today and left with it still not working (they claimed to have fixed it) - can someone look at the attached photos and let me know if they can see anything obvious that is wrong? Should there be a wire connected to "OFF"???

Any help appreciated.
View media item 77634 View media item 77633

 

[EFLImpudence]

No, nothing should be connected to 'off'.


It looks correctly wired - assuming grey is neutral and black is switched live.

 

[ericmark]

I also would say without testing nothing looks to be wrong the wiring diagram is here.

Would be interesting to hear what was wrong with NEST? I use a combined thermostat and timers which altered temperature through the day similar to Horstmann DRT2 but I have an open plan house so single thermostat controls whole house.

My son wanted something similar but he has doors to rooms so needs to be part of thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) but he can only find RF controlled add on units he wanted hard wired and as a result it means quite a large unit to send signals to each TRV. With his house a single thermostat just will not work so it's either standard TRV or RF controlled TRV and the price is something else for RF controlled.

My first house had hot air central heating and would have worked well with the hive or nest system it was very like the American systems. But with doors and radiators the TRV likely does a better job than simple hive or nest so it would require rather a complex system to control each room independently and even then not sure I would want to change temperature of room by phone?

My son did shell out for RF TRV and when alarm is set heating goes off and bedrooms are only heated just before bed time and little latter living area heating goes off every room has different times and temperatures set all powered from a central boiler a simple TRV will set temperature but it's the times which present a problem.

So why did it not work with you?

 

[brian1982]

Thanks for the help.

In terms of my NEST, it's a saga that has been ongoing now for nearly two months. I'll try and keep it brief!!

I ordered a NEST thermostat and paid for the NEST certified installer to fit it where my old Danfoss thermostat was in place. All bought via the NEST website

The installer arrived, replaced my thermostat and showed me how everything worked and he left. Within 20 minutes I was getting "low power" warnings on the NEST. I was confused as it should have been connected to the mains (as my last thermostat was)

Anyway, the same company who installed the Nest sent a different installer out to try fix the problem. He spent half the day in my house and even called in his supervisor as they were clearly baffled at what the previous chap had done.

In the end, they told me I had a faulty Nest as it wouldn't hold a charge at all and I should get them to send me a replacement out. They re-installed my old Danfoss thermostat and left.

Unfortunately for me, the old Danfoss thermostat no longer works so I'm chasing NEST to cover the cost of a new one - they've been really bad on customer service (slow, not returning calls etc)

I suspect the first installer wired something up wrong, it blew something inside the NEST and that is why the second team failed to rectify things. Not sure why my Danfoss thermostat is not working though and I'm hoping I don't have to wait too much longer for Nest to install me a new one.

NEST customer service is dreadful, but if you are able to install yourself then it does look like a decent system. Just remember that it won't control your hot water - it only does heating.

 

[brian1982]

Also - have a look at Honeywell Evohome. It sounds like the sort of thing you are looking for but it can be very, very expensive.

 

[ericmark]

At the moment we are looking at Arduino it would seem we can program it to do as we want. What we are worried about is if we become ill who would repair it.

What we really want is something like this

and this

i.e. KISS (Keep it simple stupid) this would allow both heat and time control to each room.

But it is the solenoid which is the stumbling block these

looks the part but not found a UK supplier as yet and the USA price is $65.95 each so likely £40 each and that does not include swapping existing TRV to danfoss so I can use them. So with one radiator a room with 6 rooms looking at around £600 to automate. Even with high fuel prices it would take some time to get this back.

The point is the solenoid valve has to be slow acting to stop hammer.

Actually while I am writing this I may have worked out how to do it on the cheap. The slow acting valve has a heater which warms up wax to open valve but any normal TRV also has wax which warms up. So turning valve to high temperature and fitting a resistor (heater) and a insulating jacket could do the same thing. So now experiment time.

Not for my house as open plan but for sons and mothers. I assume your house also either open plan or hot air as only with a house built like that with a single thermostat work.

 

[flameport]

I suspect the first installer wired something up wrong, it blew something inside the NEST and that is why the second team failed to rectify things. Not sure why my Danfoss thermostat is not working though

Likely whoever installed the first one got it wrong and blew a fuse somewhere.

What is the rest of the system - combination boiler or standard boiler with hot water storage? If the latter, most of those are wired so that there is no power at the thermostat unless the programmer is set to heating on - and therefore additional wiring changes would have been required there.
If a combi, fuse blown in the boiler is a possibility.

Either way, those who broke it should repair it.