Hive installation wiring

[dl8860]

Wasn't sure whether to post this in electrical or pumbing etc. so please move if this isn't the right place.

Anyway, my CH controls have been playing up, with the boiler not always firing when it should. For ages I've been tinkering and prodding to somehow keep it going (endless thermostat fiddling, battery changes, pressing every button possible on the controls and receiver, even messing with the 3 way valve in the airing cupboard).

I've got to the point where I'm 99% sure it's the thermostat receiver that's the issue. It's one of these and I've read in a few places they are prone to fail
https://www.amazon.co.uk/BRITISH-GAS-WIRELESS-RECEIVER-WR1/dp/B01FBSQCQG

I've followed the advice here https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/british-gas-wr1-wireless-system.396570/ several times in managing to get it to work again, but inevitably it keeps dying on me.

Looked into putting in a new hive system and watched a good tutorial video on rewiring the new receiver in place of my current controls/receiver.

The video tutorial only had a controller to be replaced, am I right in thinking I replace my current controller (https://www.toolstation.com/drayton...AGlGR6pAQtKZ25rp1tBwA0U5oW_No6EBoCIW0QAvD_BwE) with the Hive receiver, and I can leave the current receiver wiring disconnected? As that is just to receive the thermostat signal, whereas the hive receiver will both receive the new hive thermostat signal, and 'control' the boiler via what it is told by the thermostat? Or is it the hive hub maybe?

Secondly, for my existing controller wiring, there is no wire into the central heating OFF terminal. Is that quite strange? The CH does click off when it's supposed to, so is this bit no required or am I missing something?

EDIT: this is for a non-combi boiler if that makes any difference

 

[stem]

The thermostat can cause the problem you describe, but in my experience more often it's the motorised valve at fault. The thermostat operates the motorised valve and then a small switch inside the motorised valve is what actually is responsible for switching the boiler on when the central heating is required. The switches can wear and become intermittent.

However to answer the rest of your post.

You exchange the Drayton LP for the Hive (you need the dual channel version)

As you can see from the diagrams below, the terminals are exactly the same. So a straight swap. Lucky you

Drayton Programmer

Your heating system dictates what wires are required, so don't worry that not all of the terminals have wires connected, that will depend upon the type of system you have. If there isn't a wire there now you won't need it with the Hive either. I've never yet seen a programmer in the UK that has a connection to Central Heating OFF. So it's the norm, and not unusual at all.

Once the Hive is installed, the old room thermostat needs to be decommissioned. It can't just be disconnected as the wiring would be left 'open circuit' and the heating will not operate. So the live switching wires need to be permanently connected together to complete the circuit.

The easiest way is to leave the receiver and wiring in place and add a link between terminals 1 and 3 so that they are electrically connected. [Your BG thermostat receiver is actually a re-badged Drayton SCR]

If you want to remove the redundant receiver completely instead, then post back a photo of its internal wiring connections and I will tell you how to do it.

 

[dl8860]

The thermostat can cause the problem you describe, but in my experience more often it's the motorised valve at fault. The thermostat operates the motorised valve and then a small switch inside the motorised valve is what actually is responsible for switching the boiler on when the central heating is required. The switches can wear and become intermittent.

However to answer the rest of your post.

You exchange the Drayton LP for the Hive (you need the dual channel version)

As you can see from the diagrams below, the terminals are exactly the same. So a straight swap. Lucky you

Drayton Programmer

View attachment 185377

Your heating system dictates what wires are required, so don't worry that not all of the terminals have wires connected, that will depend upon the type of system you have. If there isn't a wire there now you won't need it with the Hive either. I've never yet seen a programmer in the UK that has a connection to Central Heating OFF. So it's the norm, and not unusual at all.

Once the Hive is installed, the old room thermostat needs to be decommissioned. It can't just be disconnected as the wiring would be left 'open circuit' and the heating will not operate. So the live switching wires need to be permanently connected together to complete the circuit.

The easiest way is to leave the receiver and wiring in place and add a link between terminals 1 and 3 so that they are electrically connected. [Your BG thermostat receiver is actually a re-badged Drayton SCR]

View attachment 185378

If you want to remove the redundant receiver completely instead, then post back a photo of its internal wiring connections and I will tell you how to do it.

Hi Stem,

Thanks so much for this response.

So originally, I had issues with the hot water coming on, about 6 months ago. I was able to determine that it wasn't an issue with the controls (including the motorised actuator), but the valve itself. A british gas engineer came and saw to it, he didn't replace the valve but go it going again.

Now I have the issue with the CH not clicking on. When I detach the motorised actuator from the valve, and tell it to activate CH, the motorised valve doesn't change position. After I reattached both my programmer and receiver yesterday after checking the wiring and repairing the thermostat, the CH did actually fire on again. More confusion! But this tells me that the motorised actuator is still working? Or could that still be the fault? I actually bought another one and have it with me here, but after I manually turned it to CH using the lever, and the controls were able to tell it to move back to the HW position, I assumed the actuator was ok and the thermostat receiver just wasn't telling it the command to turn on - that's even with the receiver showing a green light.

But when you say 'a small switch inside the motorised valve is what actually is responsible for switching the boiler on when the central heating is required' then that makes me think twice. If I'm able to manually put the actuator to CH position and the boiler still doesn't fire, does that mean that the switch inside the actuator is the faulty bit? So I do need to swap out the actuator?

 

[stem]

The 3-port valve is a strange beast. It can stay in its last used position, which means that if the heating had been 'on' then gone 'off' and then come 'on' again the valve won't physically move if it was already in the correct position.

On the other hand, if the valve isn't moving to the correct position after a change of position is required then something is wrong.

If you have a multimeter and can check safely there should be a live from the programmer / thermostat on the white wire whenever the heating should be on. No live on the white wire means that the programmer, thermostat or their associated wiring is faulty. Look for 230V between the motorised valve white and blue wires.

If there is 230V between the white and blue wires when the heating should be on, and the valve is not in one of the central heating positions, then the valve is faulty.

In the unlikely event that your 3-port valve is the type that doesn't have a white wire (most do) then a brown wire will be used instead.

Manually operating the valve doesn't move it far enough across to operate the switch. The lever puts it in the mid heating & hot water position (it's designed to be used when filling the system) the switch only operates at the far end of the travel (heating only)

Regarding the previous problem with the hot water: The 3-port valve is pulled by a spring to the 'hot water only position' and unless it's jammed it would stay there even if the valve was faulty, or all of its wires disconnected. As the cylinder thermostat looks after the boiler for hot water control, a problem with the hot water side of things is not usually motorised valve related.

 

[dl8860]

Thanks again. I've just gone in to see how easy it would be to wire in the new actuator, and it looks like this.

The black cable coming in from the top is from the valve actuator.

I don't feel comfortable getting stuck in there myself to be honest, too much to go wrong, and I also don't fancy testing live electrics like you've said above. Could I (after making sure everything isn't live) cut the cable from the actuator halfway between itself and that box of horrors, strip back the wires and then just join them up with the wiring on the new actuator, using something like this?
https://plumbingsuppliesdirect.co.uk/5-way-pin-electrical-multi-plug-connector-socket-set/

If not then it's probably time for me to call an electrician, buy a hive kit and get him to come and just sort whatever it needs to make it work!

 

[ianmcd]

Thanks again. I've just gone in to see how easy it would be to wire in the new actuator, and it looks like this.

The black cable coming in from the top is from the valve actuator.

I don't feel comfortable getting stuck in there myself to be honest, too much to go wrong, and I also don't fancy testing live electrics like you've said above. Could I (after making sure everything isn't live) cut the cable from the actuator halfway between itself and that box of horrors, strip back the wires and then just join them up with the wiring on the new actuator, using something like this?
https://plumbingsuppliesdirect.co.uk/5-way-pin-electrical-multi-plug-connector-socket-set/

If not then it's probably time for me to call an electrician, buy a hive kit and get him to come and just sort whatever it needs to make it work!

Yes use that we all do , for all they cost saves a lot of faffing around

 

[stem]

You could certainly use the connector as you suggest. Be aware though that turning the heating and hot water off at the programmer won't isolate the motorised valve (the grey wire will still be live) you will need to isolate the whole heating system. There is usually a fused connection unit for this purpose.

That wiring is indeed a bit of a rats nest. That's a socket box and doesn't have any cable clamps to prevent the wiring being pulled out of the terminals. If you do get a pro in to sort it I would recommend that you get them to install a proper wiring centre with cable strain relief at the same time

 

[dl8860]

You could certainly use the connector as you suggest. Be aware though that turning the heating and hot water off at the programmer won't isolate the motorised valve (the grey wire will still be live)

That wiring is indeed a bit of a rats nest. That's a socket box and doesn't have any cable clamps to prevent the wiring being pulled out of the terminals. If you do get a pro in to sort it I would recommend that you get them to install a proper wiring centre with cable strain relief at the same time

Yeah, yet more evidence of how little the previous owner cared about getting stuff done properly

In two minds now as to if I get that connector which may or may not solve it, or just splash the beans and get someone in to replace the actuator and install the hive stuff. Have been trying to save cash recently and really wanted to DIY this one but something tells me it's time to give over to the pros.

Thanks for your help guys, much appreciated.

 

[ericmark]

The first thing I note is a blue, red and brown wire together, so it seems likely blue used for line, so you can't trust any colours. Except for motorised valve as they come with cable attached so the orange wire would feed boiler.

So you can start to work out cables using the motorised valve colours.
So orange goes to black and brown, one likely to tank thermostat the other to boiler.
So four cables I can see the 5 core clearly motorised valve, counter clock wise we have a black, blue, red, green/yellow cored cable which seems to have red to white so seems reasonable to assume that goes to wall thermostat. Cable in same hole below it I can't work out where it goes, grey cable seems to have brown, black, grey and green/yellow and goes to grey on motorised valve, so likely goes to cylinder thermostat. So it would seem likely the cable I can't see properly goes to boiler or programmer.

However my aim is to show how using the motorised valve colours you can normally work out the rest.

As @stem says a wiring centre will help, I fitted two, one where the motorised valves are and one under the heat link (Nest name for what Hive call receiver) because the terminals were so small you could not put multiple wires in one terminal.

As to Hive, Nest, Drayton Wiser, Honeywell EvoHome, Energenie, and Tado which is the best I really don't know, read the spec and yes you can pick fault, Hive does not support OpenTherm, Nest does not support links to TRV heads, EvoHome the OpenTherm is add on module, Tado you pay yearly fee, but as to how they actually work is another story, people don't want to admit they spent £300 on a system that does not work, and that is if the actuality have every had a system that worked well, so just a slight improvement is seen as good.

However few of us want all rooms heating at the same time to same temperature all day long, so the main control for any central heating is the TRV, and so main improvement is normally fitting some sort of programmable TRV heads, I will hold up my hands and admit my Nest wall thermostat does not integrate well with the programmable TRV heads I have, energenie and eqiva eQ-3, however they do work far far better than the old mechanical TRV heads, and all in all do a good job, but likely a cheap £35 thermostat would have worked nearly as well as Nest, OK the geofencing and occupancy detection does work, but I only go out once a week and only if wife also goes out on same day does it really help.

Your controls are playing up you say, so job one is find out why, fitting Hive now before you find out what is wrong will likely result in you having even more problems, get heating working first, then change how it is controlled. This house I had no option, I found a thermostat base and no thermostat to connect to it, and a programmer which had names showing central heating and domestic hot water, but no wires to actually do what the names said, so Nest allowed power, CH control, and DHW control with two wires, and that was main reason fitted, not geofencing etc.

I rang out all my cables so I knew where they went, then rewired from scratch, just used old cables, you could do that, but it seems your not sure if the three port valve is working as it should, and the V3 micro switches inside motorised valves have been known to cause problems, so motorised valve needs proving as being OK to start with.

You say you used British Gas so assume you have a gas boiler, it seems likely old if using the Y Plan so some time it is likely you will replace the boiler, so what ever you fit, needs to also work with the new boiler, even if that is in 3 years time. The problem with Hive duel channel it does not have volt free contacts so limited what it will work with.

 

[dl8860]

Thanks for the info Ericmark.

Swapped out the motorised valve actuator tonight using a 5 point connector, was a fairly simple job with no hiccups and all working well so thanks again @stem for pointing out that that was the likely culprit. It's now hard to justify dropping the cash on a new controls system, especially as winter is now done and I'll probably be moving after only one more winter. Then again for the right buyer I think a smart home heating system could even add more value than it costs so there's that. Anyway, at least I can make that decision at my leisure now.

 

[dl8860]

@stem Hi, the new setup was going great until the other day when I tried to lower the minimum temp on my thermostat, and the system just stopped working again. It might be a coincidence, as it's the same 'symptoms' as before, everything appears to be saying 'go' but the boiler just doesn't fire. This is even after I've set the thermostat back to exactly the settings it was at before.

I'm still suspicious/hoping that there's something wrong with the existing receiver and controller so have bought the hive unit.

Could you please elaborate on this part you mentioned before:

Once the Hive is installed, the old room thermostat needs to be decommissioned. It can't just be disconnected as the wiring would be left 'open circuit' and the heating will not operate. So the live switching wires need to be permanently connected together to complete the circuit.

The easiest way is to leave the receiver and wiring in place and add a link between terminals 1 and 3 so that they are electrically connected. [Your BG thermostat receiver is actually a re-badged Drayton SCR]

If you want to remove the redundant receiver completely instead, then post back a photo of its internal wiring connections and I will tell you how to do it.



The front and back of the receiver, and the wiring behind it looks thus





So for option 1 (leave receiver in place), I just link together the brown and blue wires in slot 1 and 3 respectively using a connector like this? Do you know what current rating I need?
https://www.screwfix.com/p/3a-terminal-strips-pack-of-10/25545

And put the receiver casing back over the top and forget about it?

I would probably prefer to remove it completely but I suppose it's one less thing to go wrong if I change as little as possible.

For the old thermostat on the wall, I'll just be able to throw that away for good with the wiring now completed I imagine. That'll be nice!

Thanks in advance.

 

[dl8860]

OK I installed all the hive stuff and it's working fine now, which is a huge relief. It works like clockwork so I'm convinced for now my woes are over. It must have been that both the 3 way valve actuator AND the old receiver were conking out, because it really did work fine for the 3 weeks since I started this thread after changing the old 3 way actuator until I managed to somehow upset it!

Only remaining question is, when I put the old receiver box back over the wiring, it has the little red light on. I suppose I expected no lights to come on as this is now 'removed' from the system, but is that normal for the light to be on?

 

[stem]

Well done sounds as if you have sorted it. The SCR (Receiver box) is still powered up so the lights will be on, but it won't have any control of the heating anymore.

If you want to remove it then you can, but the way yours has been installed it is also serving as a junction box. (ie having two wires in each of the N and L terminals) which is why I asked for a photo before advising how to do it.

You could remove it and replace it with a junction box as follows:

1) Put both blue wires now in N into a single terminal in the JB so they remain connected together

2) Put both brown wires now in L into a single terminal in the JB so they remain connected together

3) Put the brown and blue wires in 1 and 3 into a single terminal in the JB so they are directly connected together

 

[dl8860]

OK great thanks.

Currently I've attached the 1 and 3 like you said with a small connector as below.


So I can just do the same with the two in the N and the two in the L?

Fine to then just push them into the wall then and put a plate/cover over it like the one to the right?

 

[ericmark]

The rules say you must use maintenance free if hiding the wires, so would need crimp connectors not a simple choc block, and to be frank I don't like any connectors without some cable strain relief so I would fit a plaster box back box and blanking plate like the one next to it but a single not double.

So yes 4 connections line, neutral, switched line, and earth will be OK could tie rap cables together, some one has done something like that in my house, red, yellow, blue and earth leave the utility room, and brown, black, grey and earth arrive in the flat by the boiler, since colour change clearly a junction, and one core has failed, but not a clue where that junction is, so only two wires between house and old garage underneath the house which has been turned into a flat, so to be able to control both domestic hot water and central heating with just two wires I fitted Nest, also means only 12 volt but I cursed when I realised there was a hidden junction.