Hive installation Ideal Combi ESPI 35

[uashraf89]

Hi,

I apologise if this question has already been asked.

I have recently purchased a Hive Active Heating to upgrade my Danfoss thermostat (x2, one for upstairs and one for downstairs) (battery powered and has two wires connecting to it).

How do I connect up the two receivers based on the wiring diagram below near the boiler?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Dan Robinson]

It has been answered a million times.

 

[stem]

Thanks for the photo, unfortunately it doesn't help much without knowing what is on the other end of each of the wires. The wires and their colours would have been chosen based on the personal preferences of the installer and the cables he has to hand. One installer may choose black for a certain function, another may choose grey for the same function. It doesn't matter though, you don't have to disturb any of the wires in there anyway.

You don't mention any hot water control, so I assume that you have a combi boiler that gives instant hot water (and not a hot water cylinder that has timed control of its heating) so you just need central heating control, so should have two single channel Hive receivers, one for each heating zone.

Nor do you mention any other time control so I assume that the existing thermostats are programmable thermostats (ie have both time and temperature control built in) and there isn't any other time control / programmer elsewhere.

The existing room thermostats will have to go, so that they don't interfere with the operation of the Hive. So the two switching wires that presently go to each of the Danfoss Thermostats (sorry I can't be more specific as you don't state the model of your thermostat) will be re-routed go to the Hive terminals (1) 'common' and (3) 'heating on'. One thermostat to 1 & 3 of the first receiver and the other to 1 & 3 of the second receiver.

Then each Hive receiver requires a Neutral and Live to N & L to power it. If your existing thermostats are battery powered there probably won't be 230V present at their location, so a new 230V supply will need to be run to each receiver N & L. This should come from the same 3A fused spur that supplies the boiler.

 

[uashraf89]

Thanks @stem for your detailed reply.

Yes unfortunately there aren’t any diagrams detailing what each wire does, for a new build I didn’t expect much.

Apologises, yes it is a combo boiler so I don’t require hot water control.

Going by what you’ve said, the receiver will replace the existing thermostats and won’t be next to the boiler once I’ve sorted out a 230v supply? Any ideas how I would do this? (There is an another wire in there which isn’t being used, could that be split into L and N?)

Many thanks

 

[stem]

The receivers can be physically located pretty much wherever you want as long as the manufacturers recommendations are followed.

Usually I find that the existing thermostat cables are longer than needed so can be rerouted to the new receiver location. This is usually the easiest way for DIY as you don't need to trace the cables to find out where they go back to, or change any wiring at the wiring centre.

Alternatively if you did want to run new cables to the receiver you will need to trace the existing thermostat cables back to the wiring centre, remove them from the wiring centre and run new cables to the receiver in their place. I suspect that the two black wires in the bottom left terminals will be one each from the two thermostats. (one from upstairs and one from downstairs) The clue is that they are both connected to the brown wires going to the motorised valves.

So, if I were doing it I would disconnect the 'suspect cables' from the wiring centre and then test them with a multimeter to make sure that I had the right ones.

Once you have located the thermostat cables then you can either take them out and run a new ones to the receivers.

If there are three wires at the existing room thermostats, you may well have 230V present already. But I need to know the model of the Danfoss thermostats and the details of where the 3 wires are presently connected to confirm.

 

[uashraf89]

@stem thanks for your quick response. Please see the photos below to hopefully confirm where the wires are connected too and the model of the Danfoss Thermostat (TP5000).

I think ideally I would rather have the receiver near the boiler and out of site rather than on the wall as it isn't attractive.

 

[stem]

Most do locate them near the boiler, or wiring centre out of sight.

The process for each thermostat is the same, so I will just refer to one of them to start with.

You can either re-route the existing thermostat cable to the new location, or trace the cable, disconnect it, and replace it with a new one that goes to the new location instead.

The thermostats you have are battery powered and so don't presently have a neutral connected. The brown wire [com] will be the live supply, and the black wire [N/O] will be the switched wire that operates the motorised valve. So, the other end of the black wire will be one of the two blacks at the wiring centre I mentioned earlier. One of the two black wires is the upstairs thermostat connection, and the other the downstairs thermostat connection which depends on the motorised valve they are connected to. If you are going to run new cables you should still test the existing cable first to confirm that you have the correct cable before removing it. (If you re-route the existing cable, the brown and black wires will already be connected to the correct terminals at the wiring centre)

You will notice, that the Hive Single Channel Receiver has terminals marked the same as the Danfoss. So that's the Brown and Black wires sorted.



Brown wire in Danfoss 2 COM = Hive (1) Common

Black wire in Danfoss 3 N/O = Hive (3) Heating on NO

The Brown is the live supply, so as well as going to terminal (1) Common as above, it should also go to the Hive (L) terminal
The unused blue wire can be used to provide the (N) for the Hive receiver, but you will need to check that it is connected to neutral at the other end. Don't just assume that it is.

The process is repeated for the second thermostat.