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Replacing Honeywell with Hive!

Yes the ones at the bottom are supposed to be the stat ones. Right, do me a favour, the red marked photo that you posted recently, which one was 240vac when the stat was live/turned up?
Hi!

It was the black cable 2nd in from the left at the bottom marked with green arrow!

The new hive stat fires up the boiler but no action so assuming I’ve cocked something up wire wise!
 

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So no bridge is required, the black which was the stat, if dead the other end can be safely terminated. Your additional Hive needs to send the heating on in place of that.
 
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The new hive stat fires up the boiler but no action so assuming I’ve cocked something up wire wise!
Can’t see that happening tbh. If the boiler fires when demand created, then I’d say it’s something else
 
So no bridge is required, the black which was the stat, if dead the other end can be safely terminated. Your additional Hive needs to send the heating on in place of

Can’t see that happening tbh. If the boiler fires when demand created, then I’d say it’s something else
Thanks for all your help! You’ve been a legend!

So further testing and mauling and the issue seems to indeed be with the zone valves. On manual the boiler is working as normal and the radiators are heating up. However on the normal mode I get nothing from them. They click so I’m assuming the signal is reaching the valves but the level is not moving automatically (I’m assuming it should), do you think I’ve removed the wrong cable as mentioned earlier
 
Pre the programmable TRV head, the heating could be split into zones, and the zone valves act as a relay, so the valve has to be open, before the boiler can fire up. And we did not have by-pass valves, this is why the zone valve had to open before the boiler turned on.

When the programmable TRV came out, we required the by-pass valve, or the pump could be pumping against closed valves. Sometimes the by-pass valve is inside the boiler, and sometimes exterior to the boiler, and the pump is on the output of the boiler, but some old boilers had the pump on the return, I have also seen where the by-pass valve is after the motorised valve, theory this is OK, but in practice the micro switches in the motorised valves have been known to fail on, so in practice better if the by-pass is before the motorised valve so if the micro switch sticks it is not pumping against a closed valve.

The whole idea of Hive, EvoHome, Wiser etc, is the TRV controls the heating, however the plumbing does need to be correct for this system, the programmable TRV forms zones without the need for hard-wired zone valves, but I have seen Hive etc fitted without the programmable TRV heads, so in some cases, the zone valves are still required, until the TRV heads are changed. In fact, I have seen multi-hive thermostats/hubs fitted, it seems there are a few Hive units, with varying ways to wire them, including OpenTherm.

I went for Wiser, very similar to Hive, and I can have multi thermostats either built into TRV or wall mounted, as to which is best, depends on house design and where the radiators are.

So there is no right or wrong method to wire, it depends on how plumbed etc. And also your aims, I had all big ideas of geo-fencing etc. but it did not work, idea is great, but the recovery time was too long, so home had not reached comfort temperature when I got home. I tried it with Nest, not re-tried since Wiser fitted, but realised simple times worked better. The sequence switch of the TRV heads did work, allowing rooms used when I first return home to heat first, not a great delay for other rooms, but it means radiators in critical rooms heat up first.

But heating working, and heating working efficiently, is not the same, I studied electrical and electronic engineering, you need someone with a degree in heating and ventilation to plan how best to control a heating system. It can be simple with a non condensing boiler, but with a condensing boiler which can modulate (turn down) more care is required.
 

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