Heating bills

[Jupiter01]

Hopefully one for this forum.
A few years ago when the house was renovated, I had a multi zone heating system installed. Downstairs has 4 separate zones with their own thermostats to control the underfloor heating and upstairs is another zone using radiators.

This has worked well and we have only been using the zones hat are required at that part of the day.

Then came along Covid! This has meant that I have a home office in one of my bedrooms and am working from home (seems like an eternity!). How can I heat this room in the most efficient way please? Clearly, I could switch on the upstairs zone but that will push heat to all of the bedrooms and bathrooms. Perhaps a storage heater?

I'd appreciate your advice on this. Thanks in advance.

 

[JohnD]

Do the radiators have TRVs?

 

[Jupiter01]

Do the radiators have TRVs?

Yes and the upstairs temperature control thingy-magik is in the landing

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Turn the TRV's down, in the rooms which are not being used.

Long term, you can buy programmable TRV's to fit (talk to Ericmark).

 

[Jupiter01]

Turn the TRV's down, in the rooms which are not being used.

Long term, you can buy programmable TRV's to fit (talk to Ericmark).

Can I please check, when I turn the TRV's down in all the unused bedrooms (not sure about bathroom towel rads...) heating is only being generated for my office? Also, with the thermostat in the hallway, would this be factor as it will always be cold in this area and it will keep churning heat out?

Sorry, not familiar with how this works and how energy is being used in this scenario.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

If your other zones are off and the TRV's are turned to off in the same zone, then the only room which will get heated, is the room you want to be heated. It would try to churn out heat while ever that TRV demanded heat, was open to flow, but the boiler would cycle on it's own built in stat - rather than keep churning out heat.

An improvement on that, would be to be able to take the thermostat into that room with you. So the boiler cut off when temperature was achieved - you can do that, with a wireless thermostat and setting the TRV to maximum.

When only having one radiator on, that one radiator needs to be permanently wide open to avoid the situation of no flow through the boiler, but I would assume one of your radiators is permanently on already/ doesn't have a TRV, or your system has a bypass? Your bathroom towel rads might already fulfil that function?

 

[oldbutnotdead]

As @Harry Bloomfield , look at WiFi or Bluetooth TRVs. Big advantage you have (with an already zoned system) is you only need the pricey heads to subzone your upstairs zone. Can't speak for other types but I've got the Drayton Wiser valves & controller, it coexists happily with 2 port valves and thermal store. The valves do whirr for half a second when going from OFF to a setpoint, I haven't looked to see whether they run full flow to setpoint or reducing flow as setpoint is approached

 

[Jupiter01]

Would the "smart" TRV heads only remove the need for me to manually open/close TRV's in the unused rooms?
I am guessing that other than that, energy consumptions implications are the same as when the TRV's are manually opened/closed?

 

[Jupiter01]

This is my current thermostat/programmer

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Would the "smart" TRV heads only remove the need for me to manually open/close TRV's in the unused rooms?
I am guessing that other than that, energy consumptions implications are the same as when the TRV's are manually opened/closed?

Correct. You can program the individual valve with on and off times and different temperatures- no idea if there's a limit to the number of changes per day in the Wiser app. Bonus with the WiFi valves is each individual valve can trigger a call for heat to the boiler (the traditional room stat is pretty much redundant tbh).

 

[Jupiter01]

Correct. You can program the individual valve with on and off times and different temperatures- no idea if there's a limit to the number of changes per day in the Wiser app. Bonus with the WiFi valves is each individual valve can trigger a call for heat to the boiler (the traditional room stat is pretty much redundant tbh).

I thought there was something in an earlier response which suggested that the room stat is still significant and there may be benefits in having this in my office? Apparently it triggers the boiler cut-off.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

If you have a wireless room stat then (without going to the trouble of fitting new TRVs and new controller- don't know about others but Wiser valves will only talk to Wiser controller) yes you can use that to control heat in the radiator zone- office TRV wide open, landing TRV on a bit if you want, other bedroom TRVs off.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Would the "smart" TRV heads only remove the need for me to manually open/close TRV's in the unused rooms?
I am guessing that other than that, energy consumptions implications are the same as when the TRV's are manually opened/closed?

Basically, yes..

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I thought there was something in an earlier response which suggested that the room stat is still significant and there may be benefits in having this in my office? Apparently it triggers the boiler cut-off.

That is correct - best place for the thermostat is where a space is heated.

 

[Jupiter01]

My current understanding: the "smart" TRV's really come into their own when you want to zone the whole house. Manually maintaining all the rads in a house could be a pain. In my case, since the house is already zoned, I could turn off the TRV's in all vacant bedrooms and leave the Office TRV open. This will have a significant impact on energy usage but additionally, having a wireless thermostat in my room could help too.

Have I understood the above correctly and how much does the wireless room stat add to the overall energy saving if I am already closing the TRV's in unused bedrooms?