New house + boiler help

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Just moved into a new house over the weekend.

It has a Volkera boiler which has the timer and programmer on the boiler itself.

However I cannot find a thermostat! There is a blanking plate (above a light switch) so I presume it was here at some point but there is no thermostat. I have searched the house for a seperate mobile unit but I have not found anything. The only other thing I have found is a smart meter which is in the living room.

The radiators all have thermostatic valves on them apart from the bathroom which is a chrome towel rail. Do I need to get a thermostat fitted?! I have never been in a house without one and google seems to throw up a mix of answers! Any help would be appreciated.
 
It's certainly beneficial to have a thermostat fitted whatever the boiler. What model Vokera is it, I might be able to offer specific advice as I work for them. There is a data badge, often difficult to read, on the underside of the chassis base. You might need to photograph it to read the model.
 
There is a blanking plate (above a light switch) so I presume it was here at some point but there is no thermostat.
What's behind the blanking plate? If there are wires there it should be possible to find where they go to, hopefully near the boiler if it hasn't been moved. In that case it should be straightforward to fit a new stat.
 
I have a boiler guy coming out next Wednesday to have a look. I am not too confident on electrics so will be leaving the job to him.
It's certainly beneficial to have a thermostat fitted whatever the boiler. What model Vokera is it, I might be able to offer specific advice as I work for them. There is a data badge, often difficult to read, on the underside of the chassis base. You might need to photograph it to read the model.
I belive its a Linea48 - It has the dials for hot water and radiator temps on the front with an old school clock with the pins to flick in/out to change when it is needed.
 
I have a boiler guy coming out next Wednesday to have a look. I am not too confident on electrics so will be leaving the job to him.

I belive its a Linea48 - It has the dials for hot water and radiator temps on the front with an old school clock with the pins to flick in/out to change when it is needed.

Well it complied when installed but would not with a new boiler installation now. When you replace the Unica Max is a straight swap.
 
Can you turn the heating on and does it come on? It would seem a bit odd being above a light switch.
 
Yes can work the boiler as the on/off switch is on the front of the boiler.

The blanking plate is to the right of a door about head height and not too far away from a light switch as its also right beside the door
 
The TRV's is set correct with the lock shield valves will regulate the heat in each room, and the boiler is controlled by the return temperature of the water. However there is a problem, the TRV's can't turn boiler off, they can turn the boiler down, and once the lower limit is reached and start a mark/space ration where the boiler cycles on/off, but when warm weather arrives it will continue to cycle on/off.

One could manually turn the boiler off in the summer, however it is better to automate the switch off.

Many wall thermostats today are more like hubs to thermostats, they collect the info from some linked TRV heads to decide when the boiler should run. Using electronic heads 1696496720923.png the heating in each room can be programmed, there are 4 general types of electronic head.
1) Stand alone can be local programmed but no wireless, Terrier i30 and one version of eQ-3.
2) Can use bluetooth so can connect to a local phone, or to each other when two TRV's in the same room eQ-3 make one.
3) Use wireless normally needs a hub can be altered remotely where phone has reception and gives current temp and set temp I know of two, Energenie and Kasa (TPLink) makes setting of lock shield valve easier.
4) Links to a hub which in turn tells boiler what to do, there are loads, Hive, EvoHome, Wiser, Tado and the list goes on.

What you need to decide is your final goal, I got it wrong I got Energenie heads which were claimed to work with Nest, they do of sorts but wrong way around, Nest was to send settings to them, not them send demands for heat to Nest, but Nest withdrew support so the not work as stand alone, they do have geofencing but never used it, used Nest geofencing which failed when EE mast went down in the wind, and it could not be set with a distance so not much good anyway.

However my point is you need to work out final goal even if at that point you only gets some of it, and decide what will suit you, no point going for a thermostat with geofencing if you are never going to use it. However I have an expensive thermostat Nest Gen 3 which does not do what I want, so now looking to replace it, so a lot of work and £200 down the drain.

I will likely go for two thermostats in parallel, but I have an odd problem, mainly hall cools too slow, and I only have two wires between main house and flat where the boiler is located. Also I want all from same supply, I could get a base for Nest and put it in living room, but that would mean if there is a power cut heating would fail, as it is the heating is battery backed.

So you need to work out what you want, winter is coming so heating will likely be on 24/7 so the TRV's will control it well, it is when Spring arrives when you want the boiler to turn off on warm days when you need the wall thermostat. So you have some time to work out what you want.

Wall thermostats with built in programmers start at around £35 for hard wired, for wireless jumps to around £75 and for fail safe where if wireless link lost it will auto switch off rather than be stuck heating around £125, at around the £200 mark you get thermostats which turn boiler up/down rather than on/off, if your boiler has the option.

Reading about them I am leaning towards the Drayton Wiser if the boiler has OpenTherm, it seems about the best, but not cheap, so you need to decide how far you want to go?
 

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