Help Identifying Heating Controls

[Bodmin]

My son recently moved to a modern flat in Edinburgh.

The property has a Vaillant Ecotec Plus 624 condensing system boiler. Central heating consists of 3 conventional radiators with thermostatic valves, and finned tubes running under a grille in the living room.

I’m assuming that the finned tubes are heated by the boiler, and not electric (I only thought of the fact they could be electric as I type this).

The only wall mounted controls I could find in the property are the two items shown in picture which are both in the living room approx 300mm above floor level. One is obviously a thermostat (although unlike any I have seen before), and I’ve no idea what the other item is.

Can anyone please assist me?

 

[picasso]

The bottom "thing" in the pic is a remote sensor for a rad, its just a thermostatic rad valve with the sensing element remote from the rad its controlling, can you post a pic of the boiler and valves /cylinder and perhaps a rf stat in a drawer somewhere.

 

[dilalio]

Top thing is also a room sensor... Could be humidity. Possibly both linked to the trench heater.

 

[CBW]

Room thermostat’s usually go to 30-35 degrees (depending on type).

 

[stem]

It looks like a remote TRV head with a separate sensor similar to this example here. You say there are no other controls, there should also be a programmer somewhere to control the heating and hot water on/off times. And ideally (but not always fitted) an electric room thermostat that acts as a boiler interlock to save energy,

 

[Bodmin]

Thanks for all the help.

Using the leads provided I’ve now identified this as an Oventrop UNI FH thermostatic valve with remote sensor. As to why the remote sensor is fitted 3” above the valve is a mystery though! According to the blurb the remote sensor is available with 2m or 5m capillaries, so it seems a bit pointless.

To answer another question the boiler does indeed have its own programmer, but there are no other room thermostats. I’m going to fit a dual channel Hive control sometime soon.

 

[stem]

These valves are only mechanical devices, meaning that they purely regulate the flow of water by opening and closing to maintain the selected room temperature. There should be some 'electrical' control somewhere that physically turns off the boiler once the property is warm. Otherwise the boiler will be 'on' permanently 24/7 just ticking over and keeping its self hot even if there is no water being fed thorough the heating system because the valves have closed.

Some modern smart TRV's can provide this control via WiFi to a wired in receiver.

This requirement is known as a boiler interlock. You can read more about boiler interlocks and thermostats here.