Time to look at central heating again.

[ericmark]

I know the problems are two fold, one can't find the by pass valve, and two hall cools to slowly. But can't do anything about that, so looking at another way to keep boiler running when living room is cold but hall has warmed up.

The simple answer seems to be second thermostat in living room in parallel with Nest Gen 3 in hall, I already have two wireless thermostats in the living room that I can read the temp of on my PC or phone, what I don't know is how to make them fire the boiler up. I think the Kasa one is most likely to be able to use, any idea? Other wise seems need a second wireless thermostat in living room, I know Nest do a cradle, which is USB powered, but that means it will stop working in a power cut.

Looking for ideas.

 

[Mottie]

I know Nest do a cradle, which is USB powered, but that means it will stop working in a power cut.

As will everything else electrical connected to the central heating, wont it? Pump, programmer, boiler, valves …..

 

[carmanmemoranda]

Turn up the thermostat in the hall. Doesn't matter what figure you set it at there if rest of the house needs heating more.

Easiest way, turn it up til you find the setting that suits

 

[ericmark]

As will everything else electrical connected to the central heating, wont it? Pump, programmer, boiler, valves …..

No the boiler supply has an UPS, so all off the boiler FCU is OK in a power cut, as are the freezers, but only 5 devices are UPS backed up, rest will fail in a power cut.

 

[ericmark]

Turn up the thermostat in the hall. Doesn't matter what figure you set it at there if rest of the house needs heating more.

Easiest way, turn it up til you find the setting that suits

At the moment in the morning it starts raising the temperature by 0.5ºC every couple of hours, it is less likely to over shoot that way, then down again at midnight. The main problem is doors, leaving doors open or closed will affect how the rooms heat up, be it cold draft from dinning room or hot from kitchen, the living room door is on rising butt hinges so will auto close, but no others, so however hard I set the heating, it all goes to pot as some door some where has been left open.

I am forever saying caw drws but can't seem to get my wife use to the new house, old one was open plan so we had no doors to close, and up stairs would get roasting hot, had to be careful to close bedroom doors or room would be like an oven, but this house has doors on every room, I know old idea, but as a result each room is in essence its own zone.

Been here 4 years now, but during colvid not much option to modify the central heating, now we have the chance to change things, but what is the question, the immersion heater done today, iboost fitted, but not sure how it will work.

 

[carmanmemoranda]

Not sure I really understand your problem.

Great if you want different heat zones. But if hall is too hot and living room isn't, then just open that door, the 2 will equalise.

Personally I prefer simplicity for heating. On or off.

 

[ericmark]

We have debated for some time, using dinning room as a living room, much smaller and would need less to keep it warm.

 

[muh3]

I have a Danfoss Link System, it is discontinued but every radiator is his own zone and every radiator can fire the boiler up. Tado does a similar system, might worth looking at.

 

[ericmark]

The last thing I want to do is play around with central heating in the middle of winter when an error means not heating, when I changed a set of patio doors it changed the way that room heated, and also reinforcing the floors and carpeting them has also affected how rooms have heated up, but the fact the floors are sheets of fibre board now covered with sheets of plywood as we had problems with the only boarding giving way, means assess to pipes and wired is limited, so wireless seems the only way.

The TRV's are battery powered and default wide open, should the battery become flat, and the wall thermostat in the hall is powered from the central heating supply which is on an EPS and kept charged by solar in the event of no power. I must admit not run solar over winter yet, so not sure if it would power freezers and heating, but the main point is I don't want to rely on non backed supplies, all the central heating want to be from the same supply or batteries.

The main problem is the hall cools too slowly, and is also normally kept cooler than living rooms, so opening living room door to hall does not help, ideal would be a hub which connects to the TRV heads, Drayton Wiser, Honeywell Evohome, Hive etc. However to swap them is expensive, and also there is the problem of connecting to the boiler to control CH and DHW plus powering the device when there are only two cores in the cable between boiler and main house. At the moment using Nest Gen 3 which does not connect to any TRV heads although I was told it would when I fitted it, so looked at the temperature senders released in USA and thought OK when these are released in UK they will cure all problems, but still waiting. So looking at other options, hence the post.

 

[muh3]

The Tado system will work perfectly in your case it will also control the boiler, you can wire the control unit to your ups, but overall it costs a lot of money. I had my Danfoss now for about 10 years and it has never let me down, it did cost a lot of money but I saved this back over the year to be able to control every room individually.

Your system seems unbalanced and not properly calculated. The best option would be to move the thermostat to the living room, at least this means to get the best temperature there. In the hallway you can fit a normal TRV head so it don't get to hot.

 

[ericmark]

I can't make up my mind, I think easy option is a cheap wireless in living room wired in parrellel with the Nest.

 

[MeldrewsMate]

Clearly you have too much heat gain in your hall. A first stage, for me, would be to close the lockshield valve down in the hall to reduce its radiator's output.

 

[ericmark]

Not heating speed but cooling speed is the problem. Hall cools too slow.

Carpet in living room seems to be helping, so waiting to see how it goes.

 

[MeldrewsMate]

Not heating speed but cooling speed is the problem. Hall cools too slow...

So you're complaining that the hall loses heat slower than other rooms? ie it costs less to heat it?
Then improve the heat retention in the other rooms, or do what I suggested, and reduce the average temperature of the hall rad. It will heat the hall more slowly AND it will have less heat soaked into it once the 'stat is satisfied and the heating turns off...thus the hall will cool faster.

 

[ericmark]

The problem is there is no single room which is suitable to control all upper two floors with. The idea is a room with no alternative heating, so kitchen and living room are out, with no outside door so that's kitchen, living room, hall, and dinning room. Utility room is not heated, and shower room not really suitable.

So seems most likely method is two rooms in parrellel. In parrellel would not matter too much if in a power cut one failed.

So would make sense if they will work with existing TRV heads so either Energenie or Kasa. Prefer Kasa, seen a Tapo wall thermostat, which is also TP-Link, but aalthough found details not found one for sale.

So decided to weight and see what comes on the market, the Nest sensor would also do, but only released in USA.

Jjust seems all options not open for some reason, the Energenie worked wrong way around the wall thermostat tells the TRV setting required, not TRV when boiler needs to run.

But this year since carpets fitted it does seem to be working better.