I have a three story detached house which has 16 radiators. Currently we use the Digistat on manual control. The bottom floor is open plan from the diner thro to lounge then sun room and around to the kitchen. There are 5 radiators covering this area, two large ones in the lounge/dining area where we mostly sit at night. The hall and stairs have two rads. The middle floor is not used now the family have left home apart from the family bathroom which has the bath. The top floor is our en-suite which has two rads.
All rads are currently controlled by TRV's, with the middle floor rads turned down to 1. Our current problem is that the living area retains the heat well, whereas the master bedroom doesn't and we find that it is cold when it's time to retire.
My thoughts were to have all the rads on the ground floor fitted with the smart valves and probably a controlling room stat in the lounge/dining area. The bathroom would have a smart valve as would the rads in the master bedroom.
The bathroom rad would only be used as and when needed. The master bedroom probably need to come on about an hour or so before retiring by which time currently the bottom floor is up to temperature and the boiler just comes on ever so often to maintain the temperature in the lounge/diner area so is using very little energy. The controlling temp stat is in the lounge/dining area and the TRV's are almost full on to allow the stat to do it's work.
My question is; when the master bedroom calls for heat later in the evening will the energy used be greater or less than if the whole house was maintained as we currently do. I'm thinking that in the current situation the boiler needs to be on for at least 45 mins to an hour to get fully up to temperature due to the size of the system. If the master bedroom were to call for heat once the system was in maintain mode would the energy needed to heat the additional water be greater than just letting it be controlled by the existing stat.
All rads are currently controlled by TRV's, with the middle floor rads turned down to 1. Our current problem is that the living area retains the heat well, whereas the master bedroom doesn't and we find that it is cold when it's time to retire.
My thoughts were to have all the rads on the ground floor fitted with the smart valves and probably a controlling room stat in the lounge/dining area. The bathroom would have a smart valve as would the rads in the master bedroom.
The bathroom rad would only be used as and when needed. The master bedroom probably need to come on about an hour or so before retiring by which time currently the bottom floor is up to temperature and the boiler just comes on ever so often to maintain the temperature in the lounge/diner area so is using very little energy. The controlling temp stat is in the lounge/dining area and the TRV's are almost full on to allow the stat to do it's work.
My question is; when the master bedroom calls for heat later in the evening will the energy used be greater or less than if the whole house was maintained as we currently do. I'm thinking that in the current situation the boiler needs to be on for at least 45 mins to an hour to get fully up to temperature due to the size of the system. If the master bedroom were to call for heat once the system was in maintain mode would the energy needed to heat the additional water be greater than just letting it be controlled by the existing stat.