Benefit of having Wireless Thermostat

Jag1978

Hi All

I’ve got a couple of silly heating boiler/stat related questions which I’m not totally clued up on. I’ve got a Vaillant boiler system and radiators with their own thermostat controls on them (the round things that I can adjust from 1 to 5 on each radiator)

All the radiator thermostats are on 5 otherwise I just can’t heat the rooms enough. On my boiler I’ve got an analogue 24 hour timer, which is fine but I really need a 7 day timer particularly for the early spring summer months as well as being able to set weekend heating times. As we’ve recently had a baby I’m finding that we’re using the heating more and more… The months leading into winter I’ve been using my central heating virtually all day and some of the night… It could be as much as 12-15 hours a day since November began. We constantly adjust the temperature on the boiler up and down so it doesn’t get too hot or cold, and is a pain running back and forth to the boiler. Before you ask I’ve gone through the process of loft insulation and cavity fill

As I don’t currently have a room thermostat I’ve been advised to get a wireless thermostat which includes a 7 day timer. This will enable me to program everything into the thermostat and set an ideal temperature so the system shuts down with the ideal temperature is reached.

Cost and having a warm house being a priority here. What would having a thermostat being set to an idea temperature do cost wise in comparison to what I’m currently doing.

Could someone explain the dynamics of a thermostat, particularly a wireless one. From the reading I’ve done so far the benefit of having wireless means that I can take the thermostat from room to room. So which ever room we use most at the time should have the thermostat in it, like bedroom at night. By setting an ideal temperature on the thermostat wouldn’t that mean that the heating is constantly being switched on and off thus costing more?

Also with a wireless stat I can’t see how, but Is it not possible to control individual rooms or create zones so only certain radiators are active at certain times???

Many thanks

Jag

gmgmgm

Jag1978 wrote: »

Hi All

I’ve got a couple of silly heating boiler/stat related questions which I’m not totally clued up on. I’ve got a Vaillant boiler system and radiators with their own thermostat controls on them (the round things that I can adjust from 1 to 5 on each radiator)

All the radiator thermostats are on 5 otherwise I just can’t heat the rooms enough. On my boiler I’ve got an analogue 24 hour timer, which is fine but I really need a 7 day timer particularly for the early spring summer months as well as being able to set weekend heating times. As we’ve recently had a baby I’m finding that we’re using the heating more and more… The months leading into winter I’ve been using my central heating virtually all day and some of the night… It could be as much as 12-15 hours a day since November began. We constantly adjust the temperature on the boiler up and down so it doesn’t get too hot or cold, and is a pain running back and forth to the boiler. Before you ask I’ve gone through the process of loft insulation and cavity fill

As I don’t currently have a room thermostat I’ve been advised to get a wireless thermostat which includes a 7 day timer. This will enable me to program everything into the thermostat and set an ideal temperature so the system shuts down with the ideal temperature is reached.

Cost and having a warm house being a priority here. What would having a thermostat being set to an idea temperature do cost wise in comparison to what I’m currently doing.

Could someone explain the dynamics of a thermostat, particularly a wireless one. From the reading I’ve done so far the benefit of having wireless means that I can take the thermostat from room to room. So which ever room we use most at the time should have the thermostat in it, like bedroom at night. By setting an ideal temperature on the thermostat wouldn’t that mean that the heating is constantly being switched on and off thus costing more?

Also with a wireless stat I can’t see how, but Is it not possible to control individual rooms or create zones so only certain radiators are active at certain times???

Many thanks

Jag

You seem to have a few problems! Assuming you're out at work during the day, the heating should only be on for a few hours per day.

Some simple steps to take: put the boiler to a hot temperature and leave it there. Then adjust the temperature using the dials on the radiators. These dials are relative- so put the rooms you want warmest on 4 and the other rooms on 2. (This gives you some leeway).

You don't need a wireless thermostat- put the money towards nice warm heating.

Use the radiator dials to change the heat in a room and don't keep touching the boiler.

Once the house warms up, the boiler will not be working so hard so it's ok to leave it on for an extra hour or so.

DVardysShadow

Radiator thermostats should do a reasonably good job, provided you do not whack them from endstop to endstop. [Too hot -> 0, Too cold ->10 - just move them up or down by about a half a mark or less]. Don't control room temperature with the boiler - let that sit on max.

A wireless thermostat is a problem in its own right - you should not have a thermostatic valve in the room with the wireless thermostat - because the 2 of them will interfere with what the other is trying to control. But if you must, set the radiator valve to max while the thermostat is in the room.

A thermostat is not sufficient to create zones, you need motorised valves additionally.

Jag1978

Thanks for the quick replys... as I haven’t yet got the thermostat I’ll try the initial bit out where I will set the heating temperature to maximum… (I’d always assumed you shouldn’t set the temp to max on the boiler as it would be more expensive to run that way round). Then will adjust the radiator stats accordingly. Once I get the wireless stat I’ll put that into the equation. Ideally I will only need to set 2 radiators to max, the living room and bed room… The other rooms are not used as much.

Regards

Jag

xenon2020

I would advise getting a 7 day programmable thermostat fitted, adjusting the TRV's on the rads as suggested in the previous posts and leaving the boiler alone.

DVardysShadow

Jag1978 wrote: »

Ideally I will only need to set 2 radiators to max, the living room and bed room… The other rooms are not used as much.

Only set the valve to max while the thermostat is in the room, otherwise set it to a position where it does its job.

Jag1978

I did a little bit of experimenting on my boiler (Vaillant Turbomax Plus 824e) last night and set my boiler heating temp to max and let the system run for a while… All my radiator stats were on max just to see what kind of output I have. All heaters got to temperature in good time and were all very hot… Living room got to a comfortable temperature but never really got too hot, which I was expecting! Two reasons probably the radiator is not adequate for the room size even though it’s a double. Secondly… the rad was very very hot on the top and only hot on the bottom so not even distributed heat. Looks like it’s got a build up of sludge at the bottom so might get that sorted out which hopefully will make a bit of difference.

Part of my house has very old aluminium style double glazing including the living room which has a big patio door leading to the garden which obviously doesn’t help, so noticed that those rooms still remained a little cold for my liking. Kitchen remained very cold due to the tile floor and the inadequate radiator size and same for the bathroom.

So in the spring / summer months I consider getting better quality double glazing in the rooms that require it and in the mean time will probably replace the small single rads in the problem rooms with larger double ones.The worst thing was when I bought the house about 5 years ago I had central heating and new boiler put it…. But I rented the house out for the last 4 years so didn’t really appreciate the way the heating was working until I moved in myself coming up to a year now.

Before you all ask. I’ve gone through the process of having my loft insulated properly and tried to have cavity wall filled but apparently I don’t have a cavity, something about the outside and inside bricks being too close to have a cavity??

Regards

Jag

confuseddad_2

Sorry to hijack the post but i have a new (2 year old) combi alpha. It has a temperature gauge on the front from 1-9. I have it on 6. Am I right in assumeing i should have it on 9.

All rads are new with trvs on them. Got cavity insulation loft done etc.

By changeing the temp gauge will i use more gas as its heating to a higher temp or will i use less as its taken less time to get to temp.

I try to control the rooms at 18-20 with most of the trvs on 3. I have turned some rads of as not req does this have a negative effect.

Thanks for any help.

bambibashercol

I would say if the rad are hot at the top and cold at the bottom then the rads need balancing for starters. Has the bypass valve been altered correctly on the boiler.? These are the first things to be looking at, But as its a new system i would be calling the fitters back to do this and make sure they bring temp guages as yo want 10-15c between flow and return.

bambibashercol

To confussedad. How i run my central heating is.
Beedrooms on number 2 on trv
Bathrooms on full. number 5 on trv.
Kitchen normally on number 3 trv.
Living room on number 5 on trv.
I keep the wireless stat in the living room so that shuts the boiler down.
If your rads are taking ages to heat the house then turn the boiler stat up.
It uses more energy leaving a condensing boiler low. Condensing boilers need to run hard to get the effiency from them.

Lube

When we moved our house 2 1/2 years ago from a old house that had one, I was lost without it as I had more control of boiler.

I noticed when we had another fitted my energy costs lowered even when prices actually crept up because we had better control. We already had the values on the rads