Wall mounted thermostats !

ziggyman99

Fitting TRV's to all rads and turning up the stat is not a recognised configuration and is very wasteful. It means the the boiler would be firing just to heat the pipework, with no heat required to the radiator.

Cardew

ziggyman99 wrote: »

Exactly. So he takes the head off the TRV in the bathroom and puts the wireless roomstat in there. This would ensure the boiler is fully interlocked, as per the minimum requirements of Part L1, BS5449 and the Benchmark scheme.
Alternatively, a weather compensator is fitted.

I think we are at cross-purposes here as we are fully in agreement with the installation requirements.

However he now has had his system installed and he wants a simple way of just taking the chill off his bathroom with the heated towel rail, without having his hall radiator 'blasting out heat' as he puts it!

Assuming he has an ABV(almost certainl he will?) simply turn off the hall radiator to achieve that objective.

Incidentally how will a weather compensator help the OP? All they do is replace a wall thermostat and their purpose is to delay switching on CH on mild days.

My wife for instance likes to have the heated towel rail on for a short while to dry(air) towels even on a warm summers day!(only when I am not around!!). The airing cupboard is the other side of the house and she normally forgets to get them out before getting in the shower or bath!

ziggyman99

I'm not saying your suggestion wouldn't work, just that I couldn't condone such a solution as it's incredibly wasteful ('im a bit of greeny). He did mention about wasteing gas. I wasn't suggesting a weather compensator as a solution, I offered it as the alternative to a roomstat, i.e. if you lose one you must have the other.
I use a S plan with the bathroom on it's own zone.

Cardew

ziggyman99 wrote: »

Fitting TRV's to all rads and turning up the stat is not a recognised configuration and is very wasteful. It means the the boiler would be firing just to heat the pipework, with no heat required to the radiator.

Agreed - as I stated in my earlier post; but very wasteful - I think not?

HOWEVER

My wall stat is in the hall. I might be in study, wife in one reception room, one kid watching TV in another reception room, another in a bedroom. Other rooms unoccupied.

Give me a non-wasteful solution to sorting that lot out? Especially if I don't want to heat a huge hall, with stairs leading off.

My solution is wall stat to max, hall radiators off, and all rooms use TRVs to obtain the correct temp.

Compromise is the name of the game.

ziggyman99

Cardew wrote: »

Incidentally how will a weather compensator help the OP? All they do is replace a wall thermostat and their purpose is to delay switching on CH on mild days.

No. Thats delayed start or optimum start. Weather comp reduces average boiler temps in mild weather. This helps the boiler stay in condensing mode thus saving oodles on gas.

ziggyman99

Cardew wrote: »

but very wasteful - I think not?

I KNOW so! How can a boiler firing when it is not required, heating up underfloor spaces, not be wasteful?
Good to here though. I'll stick a rad in the garden and leave it going all year round.

Cardew

ziggyman99 wrote: »

No. Thats delayed start or optimum start. Weather comp reduces average boiler temps in mild weather. This helps the boiler stay in condensing mode thus saving oodles on gas.

Well loads of plumbers on the Green and plumber's forums disagree with you about their effectiveness.

Weather Compensators

These measure the temperature, either internally or externally, and delay switching on the central heating on milder days. Simple ones are quite inexpensive and replace a normal room thermostat; they are well worth considering, although the programmer will appear to need to be left on for longer periods when they are first installed.

<H3 style="MARGIN: auto 0cm">I'm having a new central heating boiler installed (there is no central heating system at the mo) and getting quotes at the moment. When I mentioned about the weather compensator to the corgi engineer giving me a quote he said it was an extra option but he didn't think it was worth it - his explanation being: If it is warmer outside then it will be warmer inside, therefore if I have got an internal thermostat the boiler will fire up until desired temperature is reached and then stop. With weather compensator, boiler will fire up later when needed. But net effect the same, the boiler will be on for the same amount of time to reach desired internal temperature. This seemed to make perfect sense, is there a flaw in this argument? He also said they were more useful for larger buildings but for single dwellings not that useful.

</H3>

Cardew

ziggyman99 wrote: »

I KNOW so! How can a boiler firing when it is not required, heating up underfloor spaces, not be wasteful?
Good to here though. I'll stick a rad in the garden and leave it going all year round.

That it is wasteful is not disputed - I said so earlier; the operative word is VERY wasteful.

Most of the time the heat is not 'lost' - it heats up the fabric of the house; and this only occurs when the heating is switched on by the timer.

It is the same as people talk of 'losses' from a Hot water tank - (generally around 2kW in 24 hours @ 65C) most of the year it is simply acting as a tiny radiator.

I can lose more heat in a short time trying to heat my hall so the wall stat comes into play, than I would by operating as I do.

Bear in mind that it was perfectly normal not to even have a wall stat some years ago.

Obviously in future, zoned heating with modern controls will be the norm, but we have to make do with what we have at the moment - compromise rules!

ziggyman99

I'm not really interested in the opinions of a few dyed in the wool dinosaur heating engineers - plumbers mend taps - the thermostat is dead. WEather comp will be the ONLY way to go soon. The next edition of CHeSS could well be end for roomstats. In Holland and Germany it's a legal requirement. Were always years behind. We'll get there though. That is not the correct description of weather comp.

ziggyman99

Go to bed! Part 2 tomorrow.......;)