Is a room stat really essential? Electric boiler system just getting installed

[silver50]

Hi

Small one bedroom flat. Only 4 radiators, three of them quite small.

Potterton flow boiler installation manual makes reference to ensuring the system is operated with a room thermostat. My bathroom towel rail is to be the open route for the system so I don't particularly want another radiator to have to be on all the time work in conjunction with a stat. Mainly taking cost of running into consideration. i.e. If you don't want a warm hall then fine, just turn rad off!

I was planning on replacing the old CH control and stat (stat not in great place right above hall rad). Thinking of buying a suitable Drayton MiTime which I think are quite good/intuitive.

Can I just do without or should I really make the hall radiator the open route and install a stat?

Thanks

 

[Dan Robinson]

I'd say it was even more essential in a pokey place like that.

But are you not confusing a stat with a bypass?

 

[silver50]

No not confusing it, just making reference to not necessarily changing the current plan which is towel rail being the bypass. It seems to be ok not to have a bypass if the system has an open route through a radiator. The TRVs I bought (Danfoss) come with a grey cap that can be tightly screwed on ( I suppose could even be glued for extra safety..) so I can choose a radiator to be the bypass I guess. At the moment it was to be the bathroom towel rail. Not too costly to keep running when system on.

What makes you say a stat even more necessary somewhere small? Because will heat up quickly?

 

[Newboy]

grey cap that can be tightly screwed on

Probably a 'decorator's cap' - enables the TRV head to be removed and the valve to be shut completely to allow the radiator to be removed (for decorating)

 

[silver50]

is that what it is, i'm sure you're right. This afternoon they were on the valves and they certainly look sort of tamperproof

My bathroom towel rail has lockshields on it which I assume then are seen as a better more normal way of keeping the circuit open.

The crux of this is really how essential a stat is, then maybe meaning changing the hall radiator valves for lockshields too

 

[ianniann]

The Drayton MITime is a room stat for whichever room you put it in. Having another elsewhere also controlling the boiler might be confusing. It doesn't have to be in the same room as your only bypass radiator, although having it in a room with a TRV isn't ideal because that room may never get warm enough to run off the boiler even if the rest of the house is roasting. Ideal is a cool-ish location with an open radiator so that all the radiators in the rest of the house warm up nicely and shut down before the room stat turns the boiler off. Often this is a hallway, although directly over the radiator isn't great. If you don't want to heat the hall, at all, then think of somewhere else. The bathroom is not a good location for a thermostat, obviously, although the radiator is often left permanently on, partly because they tend to be under-sized and partly for practical purposes like drying towels or just keeping the toilet seat warm.

Does your boiler really not have an internal bypass? Might it be easier to fit an external one?

 

[Ted777]

A room stat should pay for itself in no time. What is the point of putting the heating on for an hour when you could be at a comfortable temperature in 30 minutes, a room stat will then turn the boiler off. Saving 30 minutes of wasted heat going round the bathroom radiator. assuming the electric boiler is 6kw. If you are paying 15p per kw running costs of 90p an hour. Might not be so bad now coming to the back end of winter, but in November, December when heat might be required from 5pm to 11pm it's going to get expensive. I thought that from 2009 all new boilers fitted must have trv valves and a room stat, but the could just be for gas boilers.

 

[silver50]

Thanks for replies folks

I'm not too sure if it's actually a regulation, having a room stat, but indeed it sounds sensible.

Is the following a fair idea? Put the room stat somewhere sensible in the living/kitchen area? Two radiators here both with TRVs, but i'm thinking if the stat was positioned quite well, it would then still do it's job? This would let you not bother with the hall radiator if you didn't want it on.

 

[Ted777]

I have my stat in the lounge now as it's where I spend 90% of my time and I don't use the fire alot. For the lay out of my home I didn't want it in the hallway as my lounge has a lot of windows and is the coolest room for me. So getting the hallway to 20c my lounge could be 17c and the heating would be off before I was warm enough and I don't want my hall at 23c to even it out. So my trvs are all set to 3 and my lounge rads have no trvs on.

 

[silver50]

Thanks, yes this idea sounds better/more sensible

I can see sense in thermostat's being in a hall but especially in the case of electric heating you don't necessarily want radiators on or areas heated you don't need to

 

[Ted777]

Also if you have the stat in your living room and you are not removing the trvs than the trvs should be set to max so the room heats up as quickly as possible and shuts the boiler down. In an ideal world you would remove them but it might not be worth it for yourself.

 

[Agile]

The whole purpose of the room stat is to turn off the boiler when no further heat is required.

Leaving a boiler on and relying on just TRVs means that the boiler is still using power to keep itself and the pipework hot.

Say you left it on all year round, the cost of that on gas would probably be about £150 and on electricity a lot more!

Tony

 

[silver50]

Thanks for the replies this evening

feel clearer on it

 

[Dan Robinson]

Say you left it on all year round, the cost of that on gas would probably be about £150 and on electricity a lot more!

The clue is in the thread title. Weren't you pontificating about reading posts properly and only replying to the original poster in line?

 

[Agile]

I like to give a more complete answer where possible.

More helpful to both the OP and anyone else reading.