Hive been installed by british gas today not working

[Aiden Davenport]

British gas have installed hive today for me and the lights are coming on on the hive receivers when I turn them on via the thermostats/app but the boiler is not kicking in. The engineer has installed the receivers upstairs next to my hot water cylinder. the Honeywell valves that direct the water are opening up but the receivers are not talking to the boiler to heat the water up. However if I turn my old vaillant wireless thermostat up the boiler then kicks in and heats the water giving me heating and hot water but when I turn the hive off the boiler is then overheating as the hot water has no where to go. I have attached photos of my boiler/hive set up/water cylinder. Where do I go from here? Should I get british gas to come back out or is it something simple like a link needs removing or putting in?

 

[ericmark]

OK so British Gas has fitted a on/off system which can only use 230 volt control to a boiler which has ebus and 24 volt control, however there is a 230 volt option, so although may not be the most suited system it should work, and clearly they should have not left the covers off the control panels, and can't work out why with Hive there is any connection to the bus, but any faults are down to British Gas to correct, what is the point getting some one to fit it, then fix it your self, they will have to arrange a hotel until fixed.

If you want you could try moving the bleed leavers on the motorised valves to bleed position and see if that will temp give you heat, but even if it only needs a simple link then it's down to British Gas to fix it.

 

[Aiden Davenport]

Ok will be straight on to british gas in the morning. It looks like the engineer has taken the power directly from the fuse spur above the ebus control panel so I'm guessing the ebus panel has been made redundant. As for the control panel covers I took them off to take photos to post here. Thanks for shedding some light hopefully british gas will sort it out.

 

[Mottie]

OK so British Gas has fitted a on/off system which can only use 230 volt control to a boiler which has ebus and 24 volt control........,

I don’t know whether this has anything to do with this problem but when I had my Vaillant Eco TEC Plus 418 boiler installed using my existing Honeywell 230 volt controls it went crazy after the installer had left. While I was waiting for him to return the following day I contacted Vaillant technical help. Before I could finish explaining my problem they interrupted me and said "He's forgotten to remove the 24 volt link". When I said it was a Vaillant approved installer they said it was the most common mistake installers make when fitting their boilers if they are not using Vaillant controls. I located and removed the link myself, cancelled the installer and it’s been working perfectly since.

 

[stem]

However if I turn my old vaillant wireless thermostat up the boiler then kicks in

I would be also be asking questions about that too. Why has the old room thermostat been left wired in, and not decommissioned properly?

Also, where is the cable strain relief here. These cables should be clamped, secured, or enclosed in trunking. An accidental pull on them and you could have a problem.

I can't believe a 'professional' has done this. What a bodge!

 

[muggles]

This is awful on so many levels, really poor quality installation work and likely a downgrade on nn what you had before

 

[bernardgreen]

British Gas or Britis Gash

That standard of wiring is not acceptable.

 

[SaajanB]

Hopefully you get it sorted, unfortunately British Gas did a worse job than that when they 'installed' our Hive system! They left the room thermostats neutral and earth connected in the wiring centre and left the other ends floating in the back box. Took a few nuisance RCD trips before we worked that one out.

Look into gettting Vaillant Vsmart fitted to your system if you can (I'm not sure if it's compatible with your boiler), much better than Hive, and should integrate with your exisiting Ebus kit which is much better.
Hive is just a glorified wifi timeclock, there's nothing really smart about it.

 

[Aiden Davenport]

Thanks for the replies now I know more about it I can question the engineer hopefully it's a different engineer that comes out! They are coming out this afternoon so hopefully it will be sorted. Much appreciated!

 

[ericmark]

Hive is just a glorified wifi timeclock, there's nothing really smart about it.

As far as I am aware "Smart" means it connects to a phone, and nothing else, however I do like the concept of the Hive system, where the TRV head sends a "demand for heat" to the wall thermostat, so while any room is under temperature the boiler will remain running, allowing the return water temperature to control boiler output, but will still auto switch off as weather gets warmer rather than have boiler cycling.

But unless the Hive TRV heads are also fitted and linked to the wall thermostat, it is rather useless.

The pictures however show up and down on the motorised valves, and there seems to be two Hive bases, which makes on think the old motorised valves are still used, this seems in most cases daft, OK my house where the flat under the house is rarely used, having a motorised valve to turn off flat makes some sense, but in the main house we have 11 radiators, want the toilet and bathroom always heated, at 8 am I want the temperature to raise in two bedrooms and kitchen, but 10 am I want the living room heated and bedroom temperature can reduce, by 3 pm want dinning room heated, by 8 pm the dinning room and kitchen can reduce heat, by 9 pm the bedrooms are heated again, by 11 pm the living room is allowed to cool, the craft room and office we press the button to change from eco to comfort when we want to use them, I am sure most homes are the same, two zones are not enough for the modern house, you want more like 8 zones, so zone valves are out, and programmable TRV heads are in. And the whole idea of Hive is using Hive TRV heads they talk to the wall thermostat.

To my mine it is a rather expensive system, at £50 per TRV head my house would cost over £500 to use Hive TRV heads, I have done it on the cheap in the main with eQ-3 heads at £15 each for blue tooth version, non blue tooth down to £10 each, but at £90 for second Hive that would have bought 2 TRV heads and with programmable TRV heads no real point in having zone valves, the TRV heads are zone valves.

I am rather disappointed, I went for MiHome and Nest, only to find Nest has stopped supporting MiHome TRV heads so now they are not linked. And Nest don't seem to do their own TRV heads, so in spite of having OpenTherm and volt free contacts Hive now in theory at least works better than Nest (assuming also fitting TRV heads) even EvoHome to connect to the ebus needs an extra module, don't know about Tado?

So yes if fitting half a system, i.e. wall thermostat without linked TRV heads Nest is far better than Hive, but if fitting complete system Hive now better than Nest since Nest removed the link with Energenie MiHome.

 

[Mottie]

I didn’t understand any of that.