- Joined
- 27 Jan 2008
- Messages
- 29,620
- Reaction score
- 3,658
- Location
- Llanfair Caereinion, Nr Welshpool
- Country

Boiler here does not modulate or condense, but did with mothers, where we lived before here looking after her. I found it was less disturbance, will not call it noise, having it run, it was hearing it start up which one notices.
Also if I can hear heating, when it turns off, I feel cold, if I can't hear it then it can be off for hours, and I will not notice.
As to turning it on before I get home, last house gas fire, Myson fan assisted radiator, and a large likely 3 kW radiator in living room, so it heated up so fast, no real need. This house the radiators are much smaller, and looking at least an hour to re-heat living room, tried geo-fencing, and it simply turned on too late to be any good, the turning off bit worked OK when I left the house, but turning on was way too late.
Going to the phone to turn on, I seem to forget, I turn on outside lights before I get home, but always forget to turn heating off and on when leaving the house, but retired so don't leave house that much.
As to voice commands with heating, worried it will get it wrong, google Nest Mini's in my case, and yes hey google turn living room to 22°C will mean both TRVs and the wall thermostat all turn to 22°C, but normally I will have the TRVs set higher, at say 24°C, as I want to be sure the wall thermostat will turn off boiler so want that to control room.
Battery wise, the Kasa TRV only lasts just over a year, the eQ-3 TRV around 18 months, and the Energenie and Wiser seem to last around 2 years, don't think I have renewed batteries in the Wiser wall thermostat yet, I know the eQ-3 are documented to fail open, don't know about the others.
So on average 10 batteries a year, for the 10 electronic TRVs and wall thermostat, the Nest Gen 3 was left connected in parallel to Wiser, so even if batteries go flat I can turn up the Nest thermostat, so not without heat, even if not to level I want.
This year moved to oil filled radiator between the living room chairs, as to which costs more, not sure, but want the oil to last the year, without a top up, cost wise, looking at around 10p/kWh with oil, and between 8.5 and 30p/kWh for electric, it depends when I use it. Yesterday run out of cheap electric at 10:45 pm, tried to look at Octopus app, but not showing yesterday yet. So I don't know how much electric heating costs compared with oil, I will guess it will cost less, as only heating one room, and heating it where we sit, but the smart socket adaptor tells me I used 2.32 kWh I turned it on twice, and it times out after 90 minutes, using same unit as we used in summer for the AC, and it was set to 90 minutes so condensate did not over flow.
Once into winter will use the central heating, but Autumn and Spring, it seems likely the oil filled radiator is cheaper.
Also if I can hear heating, when it turns off, I feel cold, if I can't hear it then it can be off for hours, and I will not notice.
As to turning it on before I get home, last house gas fire, Myson fan assisted radiator, and a large likely 3 kW radiator in living room, so it heated up so fast, no real need. This house the radiators are much smaller, and looking at least an hour to re-heat living room, tried geo-fencing, and it simply turned on too late to be any good, the turning off bit worked OK when I left the house, but turning on was way too late.
Going to the phone to turn on, I seem to forget, I turn on outside lights before I get home, but always forget to turn heating off and on when leaving the house, but retired so don't leave house that much.
As to voice commands with heating, worried it will get it wrong, google Nest Mini's in my case, and yes hey google turn living room to 22°C will mean both TRVs and the wall thermostat all turn to 22°C, but normally I will have the TRVs set higher, at say 24°C, as I want to be sure the wall thermostat will turn off boiler so want that to control room.
Battery wise, the Kasa TRV only lasts just over a year, the eQ-3 TRV around 18 months, and the Energenie and Wiser seem to last around 2 years, don't think I have renewed batteries in the Wiser wall thermostat yet, I know the eQ-3 are documented to fail open, don't know about the others.
So on average 10 batteries a year, for the 10 electronic TRVs and wall thermostat, the Nest Gen 3 was left connected in parallel to Wiser, so even if batteries go flat I can turn up the Nest thermostat, so not without heat, even if not to level I want.
This year moved to oil filled radiator between the living room chairs, as to which costs more, not sure, but want the oil to last the year, without a top up, cost wise, looking at around 10p/kWh with oil, and between 8.5 and 30p/kWh for electric, it depends when I use it. Yesterday run out of cheap electric at 10:45 pm, tried to look at Octopus app, but not showing yesterday yet. So I don't know how much electric heating costs compared with oil, I will guess it will cost less, as only heating one room, and heating it where we sit, but the smart socket adaptor tells me I used 2.32 kWh I turned it on twice, and it times out after 90 minutes, using same unit as we used in summer for the AC, and it was set to 90 minutes so condensate did not over flow.
Once into winter will use the central heating, but Autumn and Spring, it seems likely the oil filled radiator is cheaper.