Thermostat postioning, everywhere seems wrong!

[Tomat35]

Hi all
I’m fitting a new wireless wall mounted thermostat but reading the advice on where to mount it is just telling me that nowhere available is the right place.
It’s a first floor flat with cavity walls and no radiator in the landing.
Don’t put it on an outside wall, not near a radiator, not in the kitchen, not near a door or window, put it in a main room…
Please give your opinion on the least worst position!

 

[Tomat35]

Green is the combi boiler, red is a radiator

 

[hetheboss]

I've put mine on an Ikea shelving unit in my lounge. I figured my lounge is the room I spend most of the time - aside from the kitchen - and that's the room I want to concentrate on. The only issue is occasionally when the sun shines it heats up the lounge so the heating doesn't click on when the rest of the house is quite cold. But I can just wirelessly boost the heating for an hour to get some warmth into the rest of the house. Easily the best 'smart' device in the house!

 

[fixitflav]

Hi all
I’m fitting a new wireless wall mounted thermostat but reading the advice on where to mount it is just telling me that nowhere available is the right place.
It’s a first floor flat with cavity walls and no radiator in the landing.
Don’t put it on an outside wall, not near a radiator, not in the kitchen, not near a door or window, put it in a main room…
Please give your opinion on the least worst position!

I'd put it on one of the inside walls in the living room. That's where temperature control is most important for comfort. Don't have a TRV on the rad there. If you don't have TRVs on the other rads throttle the valves to get the right temperature.
Usual advice is to have the roomstat in the hall (that's where mine is) but it seems more logical to put it in the living room, and that suits your situation.

 

[Mottie]

On the inner wall in the lounge in line with the dividing wall between the kitchen and bathroom.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Living room or hall. Really, where it goes is where the radiator in the room has no TRV or you set the TRV to maximum. If it's wireless, you can try it in those places, without permanently fixing it.

 

[stem]

You are right, it can be difficult in certain properties. And I can't see a perfect location in yours either.

The hall or landing doesn't have a radiator in, so is not suitable. If the doors into it were closed it wouldn't be able to detect any temperature rise when the radiators came on and the rest of the property was warm. Conversely, internal rooms often don't loose their heat as quickly as external rooms with windows, and if that was the case it may not turn the heating on when the other rooms had cooled down.

I think you have two choices. First, I would tend to agree with @Mottie.

On the inner wall in the lounge in line with the dividing wall between the kitchen and bathroom.

Although, if the kitchen gets hot when there's cooking in progress and the wall between it and the lounge isn't insulated, I might move it so that it's on the bathroom side slightly.

However, it's even worse if the kitchen is open to the lounge without a door, which your plan suggests it is. In this case cooking would probably heat the lounge as well, thus turning the heating off everywhere. Maybe you could live with this as cooking only tends to be for a short time. No problem though if you don't cook, or live on salad.

The second choice would be one of the bedrooms. However, most people like a cool bedroom so a thermostat in there wouldn't necessarily be representative of the requirements of the living areas, which could then be too cool.

I used to live with my parents in a bungalow with a similar layout and back in the 1980's when I was still at college, I created 5 separate heating zones, one for each room, each with it's own dedicated motorised valve and room thermostat.....probably a bit excessive though looking back now.

 

[fixitflav]

However, most people like a cool bedroom so a thermostat in there wouldn't necessarily be representative of the requirements of the living areas, which could then be too cool.

That doesn't follow. With the roomstat in the bedroom, provided the rad there doesn't put out too much heat (and is throttled down if it does) the tempertaure in other rooms can be higher than the roomstat setting.

 

[stem]

It's a possibility, which is why I listed it as my second option but thought I ought to mention the possible shortfalls. Depending upon on how cool you like the bedroom, the heating may not even come on at all, and throttling can sometimes be tricky to get right.

 

[JohnD]

Living room, half way along the internal wall.

 

[vulcancontinental]

If you mentioned the brand I missed it but when and if you do settle on a final resting place for the thermostat and not carry it around then make sure it can be re calibrated. i.e. if on an external wall which will be colder you could re calibrate to get 20 to show when the wall is actually 15. If you're not in an exposed location the external wall might be a more stable location than near a kitchen that changes with usage.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The second choice would be one of the bedrooms. However, most people like a cool bedroom so a thermostat in there wouldn't necessarily be representative of the requirements of the living areas, which could then be too cool.

Two stats in parallel would deal with that.