First-time house renovation

Canucklehead

TomsMom wrote: »

We don't have a room thermostat. Or am I being a bit thick Canucklehead? Told you I know nothing :rotfl: .

No roomstat:eek: ...the shame of it all...but seriously you should have one. This Vaillant roomstat can be used with your boiler but unfortunately it isn't wireless so installation could mess up your newly plastered/painted walls. The alternative is to remove the Timeswitch and fit a VRT 360F or the Honeywell I mentioned earlier.

In the end, you will make good savings on gas consumption if you have appropriate heating controls.

HTH

Canucklehead

TomsMom

andrew-b wrote: »

Just got round to looking at your blog as i've got a bit behind on this thread...what a difference the carpet makes! It makes such a difference! I guess even slightly muddy boots in your house are strictly banned now!

Oh yes! I'm a barefoot person indoors anyway (where there's carpet) and OH does wear his slippers, and a carpet really does wear better when no outdoor shoes are allowed so at the moment I have a pair of sandals outside the lounge door at one end and outside the french door at the other so I can slip them on to walk elsewhere in the house. No shoes in the bedroom either.

We've not had any visitors yet apart from the grandchildren who came into the house with their bodyboards and sand on their wet shoes (is that what they call them???) and I shrieked "No shoes in the lounge, we've got carpet now". They're pretty good actually as there is more or less a no shoes rule in their own lounge. Not sure I know how to handle visitors though. I'd be happy to take my shoes off in someone else's home but not sure how to approach it with people I don't really know - friends and family would be fine I think.

The h/s/l carpet is a fairly sensible colour, sort of the dark part of a mushroom. But how do you get people to wipe their feet on the doormat in the porch? I've noticed that people just don't do that any more, we were taught as children that you don't go over the doorstep until you wipe your feet.

Your OH sounds similar to me in some respects TomsMom - i ignore everyone telling me to take things easy and won't be told (despite knowing they are right!), overdo it and end up exhausted like i was warned in the first place!

No point in me saying pace yourself then , you know you should ! But I do understand.

I'm still in my "can't be bothered with anything" mood (aka. CBA-mode) at the moment

I hope you get your mojo back soon - showing my age there .

TomsMom

Canucklehead wrote: »

No roomstat:eek: ...the shame of it all...but seriously you should have one. This Vaillant roomstat can be used with your boiler but unfortunately it isn't wireless so installation could mess up your newly plastered/painted walls. The alternative is to remove the Timeswitch and fit a VRT 360F or the Honeywell I mentioned earlier.

In the end, you will make good savings on gas consumption if you have appropriate heating controls.

HTH

Canucklehead

Well, I don't think we have one , there's nothing on a wall anywhere.

Do you really need one? We set the TRV at the number we want, mostly 2 (but heating's not on at the moment) and sometimes they're quite hot and other times just warm, so I assumed that they were already adjusting themselves to the temperature of the room.

Like I said, I don't know much about this sort of thing :rotfl: .

Anyway, I'll show your post to OH when he comes out of hospital and see what he says.

ETA: Just thought. Two CORGI/GSR chaps have been involved with the boiler and the builders also did some pipework and rads, how come no-one mentioned a room thermostat, is it a case of people not doing their jobs properly?????????

Josepina

what controls do you have for the boiler: the OH has given up on the Vaillant programmable roomstats as many customers find them a bit complex

Well at moment the boiler still isn't hard wired in although the wires are in place. I'm hoping the electrician will come Thurs and sort it out. So in meantime we have no controls except on and off
But i've been told I've got a wireless vaillant programmable timer....all sounds bit complex to me, anyway hopefully it will become clearer on Thurs!

andrew-b

Josepina, for some unexcusable reason i'd not read your blog for ages as i'd neglected to become a follower (sorted now!)..i've just picked my way through it from day 1...took quite some time!

I'm amazed how many walls you can knock out of a house and yet still keep it standing! I would never have been that ambitious myself! Still some nice hefty steels holding it together! I can't quite follow how many new rooms are being created/combined etc (guess you've mentioned it somewhere here!) but it's looking good and i'm looking forward to seeing the pieces of the jigsaw reveal themselves! I guess by now you want your house back but i'm sure it will be worth it in the end!

Andy

Canucklehead

TomsMom wrote: »

Well, I don't think we have one , there's nothing on a wall anywhere.

Do you really need one? We set the TRV at the number we want, mostly 2 (but heating's not on at the moment) and sometimes they're quite hot and other times just warm, so I assumed that they were already adjusting themselves to the temperature of the room.

Like I said, I don't know much about this sort of thing :rotfl: .

Anyway, I'll show your post to OH when he comes out of hospital and see what he says.

ETA: Just thought. Two CORGI/GSR chaps have been involved with the boiler and the builders also did some pipework and rads, how come no-one mentioned a room thermostat, is it a case of people not doing their jobs properly?????????

Good morning: Yes, you should have a room thermostat. You have been poorly advised and served by those involved: they probably couldn't be a***d to follow advice given in this guide from the EST or Vaillant (see Section 4.16 p.28): basically, they have made it easy for themselves, gone with cheap/low skill option and fit the Time Switch 140, which is 'Plug&Play' i.e. stick it in the panel and away you go.

It does make my blood boil when GSRs don't do the best job possible: the client always loses in the end (in your case, higher gas consumption).

HTH

Canucklehead

TomsMom

Canucklehead wrote: »

Good morning: Yes, you should have a room thermostat. You have been poorly advised and served by those involved: they probably couldn't be a***d to follow advice given in this guide from the EST or Vaillant (see Section 4.16 p.28): basically, they have made it easy for themselves, gone with cheap/low skill option and fit the Time Switch 140, which is 'Play&Play' i.e. stick it in the panel and away you go.

It does make my blood boil when GSRs don't do the best job possible: the client always loses in the end (in your case, higher gas consumption).

HTH

Canucklehead

Well, bug ger me! You can't trust anyone these days! OH's going to be thrilled when he finds out!

The Timeswitch 140 is actually no-ones fault. Original Corgi bloke said "You'll need a timeswitch". We went to the local shop (talking a small rural town here, nothing sophisticated, no choice, nearest big town 60 miles away, you ask in the local small independent Home & DIY Centre and he sends for it, comes next day) and said "We need a timeswitch for the Vaillant boiler we've got. (We didn't buy the boiler from him, he couldn't compete on price.)

Timeswitch comes, we didn't ask for any particular model as we didn't know there was a choice - just told him the model of the boiler, we get the 140. Original Corgi bloke says "I'll fit it when the renovation's finished and you've moved in, no point in having it on a timer at the moment". So you trust all these people who you know and still don't get a good job.

Shop owner knows nothing - I redesigned my own kitchen after he came up with something stupid that involved putting the fridge next to the cooker and blocking a lot of the light from the window, he just likes to sit there and look pretty! Original Corgi bloke tried to get us to go for a cheap boiler from Staks but we wanted something really good and reliable, so he probably hadn't fitted a Vaillant before and just said "They're expensive, supposed to be good but expensive".

Second Corgi bloke says "I wouldn't use polypipe" or "I wouldn't use microbore" or some such thing, plumber from builders team says "Nothing wrong with polypipe" and "nothing wrong with microbore".

I asked "Is there any ticking from the CH pipes?" - "Oh no," builders say, "all quiet, not a sound". Rollocks! Tick, tick, bloody tick, driving OH and me mad. 8 rolls of hair felt, two weekends with floorboards up and down, pipes laid so close to each other they could be making love. Jeez..............

So now I've wound myself up I think I'll go and stick my head in the gas oven - at least that's connected and working properly. I wont turn it on mind :rotfl: .

Shoot........... I'm off. Sorry for the rant but, like you Canucklehead, it's made my blood boil, especially when you know these people and trust them to do their best for you.

Canucklehead

Nightmare! The OH comes across this type of behaviour weekly when he goes out to quote...sometimes the evidence of bodging/ripoffs is overwhelming.People don't know who to trust and end up trusting no-one...a sad state of affairs.
But you've got time to address the controls situation before the heating seasonand it is a straight-forward fix tbh.

HTH

Canucklehead

Shimmyhill

On the subject of timers ...

We have a really basic one that can not even independently set timers for heating and HW at different times.

Can the timer box be replaced by a better one or does it depend on the whole CH system ?

andrew-b

Shimmy, you could swap for a better timer but whether it can run the heating and HW at different time will depend if a 3-port motorised valve is fitted so that they can be controlled independently of one another (look for something like this - likely to be near the pump: http://www.screwfix.com/prods/31421/Plumbing/Central-Heating-Controls/Honeywell-V4073A-3-Port-Motorised-Valve).

Andy