Do new central heating installations require a wireless thermostat?
- Thread starter benjiman
- Start date
no is the simple answer
Personally, it's wired for me every time. No communication issues between thermostat and receiver, some types don't have batteries to replace. There's only one advantage of wireless.....you don't need to install the wires 
. And that's not always necessary, if there's a wired thermostat in place already.
Some heating installers prefer to use wireless because, it's quicker, and as they are not electricians they can complete the installation themselves without getting a sparky in, especially if the thermostat receiver is built into the boiler.
. And that's not always necessary, if there's a wired thermostat in place already.Some heating installers prefer to use wireless because, it's quicker, and as they are not electricians they can complete the installation themselves without getting a sparky in, especially if the thermostat receiver is built into the boiler.
There's only one advantage of wireless.....you don't need to install the wires
There's also the benefit that they are far easier to optimise the positioning of the sensor as a poorly located thermostat may consequently lead to poor performance of the system as a whole.
It's not a problem if you get it right in the first place .
Relocating a wireless room thermostat post installation would be easy, but it would mean moving a TRV as well.
.Relocating a wireless room thermostat post installation would be easy, but it would mean moving a TRV as well.
It's not a problem if you get it right in the first place
Relocating a wireless room thermostat post installation would be easy, but it would mean moving a TRV as well.
Or fit TRV's to every radiator, but remove the head where the stat is.
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My son did run in his old house wires for the thermostats, and as you say it seems to be rather rare to find any wired room thermostats, most of them are battery powered, or pure mechanical. There are some
this unit can it seems be mains powered and supplied from a wall thermostat, but really made for under floor heating and either on or off.
In the main the thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) which controls room temperature gradually opens and closes, although we often have some master device which stops the boiler cycling all summer which is on/off, most gas boilers modulate, i.e. turn up/down, so most the controls also need to modulate.
Oil still has on/off control, but even with oil the whole idea is central boiler but room by room control.
So with gas the idea is in a room normally kept cool so it does not trigger heating when likely to be a nice day, on the ground floor, with no outside doors or alternative heating we fit a on/off wall thermostat. In real terms room rarely exists, so we use the hall, not ideal as door to outside so we need some thing else.
The some thing else can be a TRV in the hall or TRV's in other rooms linked to hall wall thermostat or even temperature sensors in other rooms not built into the radiator.
Since the boiler is rarely in the hall as well, we need to connect the thermostat to the boiler, and unless wires were included when house wired wired some times not easy. But if those wires are there, then better to use them.
If no wires then we want two way comms, or some other method so if comms lost it fails safe. My TRV heads are claimed to auto open when the battery voltage starts to drop, which is why you should not use rechargeable batteries in them.
Regs wise all it says is must with new build be able to control areas at different times and temperatures, referred to as zones, but the TRV does this so no real need for motorised valves, in fact they often mess up the control rather than improving it, as they are on/off, and in the main with gas we want up/down not on/off.
The idea is for the air to circulate
so right under the radiator or if not possible slightly to one side is about the best place to measure whole room temperature as is in the circulating air flow. A wall thermostat should be on the opposite wall to radiator, and on an internal wall so not cooled by the wall, this is again rarely possible as to keep pipe work short and so quick response times radiators often mounted on inertia walls, so no idea place for wall thermostat.
So either use the TRV or free standing thermostat. Which in turn means battery powered.
The whole of the central heating is a compromise, made worse as we have not caught up with changes, we still see this
clearly true in the days of single glazing, we have traditionally made a hash of home heating, I remember the coal fire, there should have next to the fire been a vent to allow combustion air in without causing a draft, but know, instead drawn right through the house and we sat in high backed chairs facing the fire and may have just as well been sitting outside.
this unit can it seems be mains powered and supplied from a wall thermostat, but really made for under floor heating and either on or off.In the main the thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) which controls room temperature gradually opens and closes, although we often have some master device which stops the boiler cycling all summer which is on/off, most gas boilers modulate, i.e. turn up/down, so most the controls also need to modulate.
Oil still has on/off control, but even with oil the whole idea is central boiler but room by room control.
So with gas the idea is in a room normally kept cool so it does not trigger heating when likely to be a nice day, on the ground floor, with no outside doors or alternative heating we fit a on/off wall thermostat. In real terms room rarely exists, so we use the hall, not ideal as door to outside so we need some thing else.
The some thing else can be a TRV in the hall or TRV's in other rooms linked to hall wall thermostat or even temperature sensors in other rooms not built into the radiator.
Since the boiler is rarely in the hall as well, we need to connect the thermostat to the boiler, and unless wires were included when house wired wired some times not easy. But if those wires are there, then better to use them.
If no wires then we want two way comms, or some other method so if comms lost it fails safe. My TRV heads are claimed to auto open when the battery voltage starts to drop, which is why you should not use rechargeable batteries in them.
Regs wise all it says is must with new build be able to control areas at different times and temperatures, referred to as zones, but the TRV does this so no real need for motorised valves, in fact they often mess up the control rather than improving it, as they are on/off, and in the main with gas we want up/down not on/off.
The idea is for the air to circulate
so right under the radiator or if not possible slightly to one side is about the best place to measure whole room temperature as is in the circulating air flow. A wall thermostat should be on the opposite wall to radiator, and on an internal wall so not cooled by the wall, this is again rarely possible as to keep pipe work short and so quick response times radiators often mounted on inertia walls, so no idea place for wall thermostat.So either use the TRV or free standing thermostat. Which in turn means battery powered.
The whole of the central heating is a compromise, made worse as we have not caught up with changes, we still see this
clearly true in the days of single glazing, we have traditionally made a hash of home heating, I remember the coal fire, there should have next to the fire been a vent to allow combustion air in without causing a draft, but know, instead drawn right through the house and we sat in high backed chairs facing the fire and may have just as well been sitting outside.
Having got the thermostat location right in the first place a wired thermostat could not get moved to another location but a wireless one could be moved away from the optimum location.
Wired were the original way to include a stat, because wireless ones were not permitted by the radio regulation anyway. Once the regulations gave them radio spectrum, wireless ones were developed and they are certainly much easier to fit, due to not needing wires. They can also incorporate much more intelligence than the original basic wired versions, including wifi control and on/off times, programmable temperatures etc., remote wifi control. Some can even take it a step further, so as to ramp the boiler up and down to predict and suit the demands for heating.
Yes, true point!
Whilst all useful features they're not really exclusive to wireless stats though. Wired ones can also offer them.
They can, but they tend to more widespread in the wireless versions. Mine offers all those features, in both a wired and wireless version. The wireless version makes it easy to just take the unit with you, from its default position in the hall, to the living room when we finally settle down for the evening after dinner. Its default position gets some of the heat from the cooking of the dinner, so the heating tends to shut down prematurely.
I have the Honeywell TR3. Programming is not difficult although my gas engineer did say that some of his elderly customers prefer to just use the on/off function. In this case it's not correct to say that there is no wiring involved as it connects to a sender unit which is wired to the boiler.
All if the wireless ones have to have a receiver, which connects by some means to the boiler - they just avoid the need to have wiring from the thermostat location to the boiler or the 3-port valve.
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