Switching boiler on remotely - is this impossible?

Mojisola

aliasojo wrote: »

Yes, I understand all that but there will be times in the future when I need to be away from home.

If for argument's sake I will be away for say 3 weeks, I would want to turn the boiler off.

If, whilst I am away, a sudden icy cold snap arrives, I would like to be able to switch the boiler back on again remotely and turn the heating on to help avoid burst pipes etc.

This is what I'm asking, is there something on the market to enable me to do this or does the boiler have to be left on so really it's only the actual thermostat that can operated remotely??

A friendly neighbour?

We've never turned the boiler off during the winter. Why do you want to do it?

LadyBoss

Even if you were away for 3 weeks, you wouldn't want to power off the boiler, in my opinion. Six months, perhaps, but not 3 weeks. If the thermo was set at a low enough temp, the boiler won't fire anyway.

However, if you insist, you should be looking for the equivalent of the time clocks you can buy for lights, but heat sensitive instead of timed. Even then, the boiler would need to have a plug, and not be hard wired, and it's not really powered off. It just has an intermediate step. Best of luck anyway!

aliasojo

Mojisola wrote: »

A friendly neighbour?

We've never turned the boiler off during the winter. Why do you want to do it?

Largely for safety reasons. I'm just not comfortable with anything being left on 24/7 if the house is empty, especially not something that involves gas and a flame. :rotfl:

There is someone I could ask but I'd really prefer not to. Someone did something for me once before and left the house completely forgetting to lock the door. It's this kind of thing that would worry me and I'd much prefer to be in control myself.

Mojisola

aliasojo wrote: »

Largely for safety reasons. I'm just not comfortable with anything being left on 24/7 if the house is empty, especially not something that involves gas and a flame. :rotfl:

There is someone I could ask but I'd really prefer not to. Someone did something for me once before and left the house completely forgetting to lock the door. It's this kind of thing that would worry me and I'd much prefer to be in control myself.

I can see why you wouldn't trust them again!

The problem with starting the boiler remotely - if it's even possible - is that you'd also need some way of making sure it had switched on otherwise you could still come back to frozen pipes.

aliasojo

LadyBoss wrote: »

However, if you insist, you should be looking for the equivalent of the time clocks you can buy for lights, but heat sensitive instead of timed. Even then, the boiler would need to have a plug, and not be hard wired, and it's not really powered off. It just has an intermediate step. Best of luck anyway!

Ah, so not particularly easily done then.

The boiler is hard wired and I'd be loathe to change that.

I may need to re-assess then and accept the boiler should be left on and just the thermostat is controlled.

southcoastrgi

To finally answer your question if you turn the power switch off on the front of the boiler no there isn't anything to turn it back on apart from a finger attached to a hand attached to a human or a very clever monkey

macman

aliasojo wrote: »

Largely for safety reasons. I'm just not comfortable with anything being left on 24/7 if the house is empty, especially not something that involves gas and a flame. :rotfl:

There is someone I could ask but I'd really prefer not to. Someone did something for me once before and left the house completely forgetting to lock the door. It's this kind of thing that would worry me and I'd much prefer to be in control myself.

But if you turn off either the gas or the power (or both) for 'safety' reasons, then no app or remote control system can power it back up again.
You simply need to overcome your rather illogical safety concerns and leave it in standby so that the frost 'stat on the boiler or programmer (if fitted) will kick in and fire the boiler should it get cold enough to trigger it.
If your boiler is going to explode then it'll be safer for it to do so when you are away from the property rather than in it...

aliasojo

macman wrote: »

But if you turn off either the gas or the power (or both) for 'safety' reasons, then no app or remote control system can power it back up again.
You simply need to overcome your rather illogical safety concerns and leave it in standby so that the frost 'stat on the boiler or programmer will kick in and fire the boiler should it get cold enough to trigger it.

Which is exactly what I was asking about and now, thanks to the replies, I know it's not possible.

As for the 'illogical' comment, I'm not sure that was necessary? You could easily have made your point without that.

Anyway, thanks to all for the replies, it would seem leaving the boiler on is the way to go.

Ruski

Hmmm.... I wonder....

http://www.sensibleheat.co.uk/remote-access-for-home.html

Wherever it is it'll be expensive!!!!

HTH

Russ

mymedi

I'm not entirely sure why everyone is in such agreement when this is actually trivial and entirely POSSIBLE. All you have to do is control the power supply, not the boiler! There are plenty of devices that turn things on/off with a phone text. See below:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GSM-REMOTE-CONTROL-SOCKET-POWER-SWITCH-PHONE-PLUG-/160638680570
The only difficulty that I see is that OP stated that the boiler is hardwired, which is strange for a boiler, btw - how would you isolate it for repairs?