Thermostat not working?

dutchcloggie

Hello,

I have recently moved in to a rental house that is very poorly insulated. The thermostat for the gas central heating is in the living room next to the door to the kitchen (where there is no radiator so it is very cold in there).

When the heating is on, the thermostat always thinks it is no warmer than 12 degrees Celcius! At first we thought the thermostat was broken so it was replaced but the problem with the new one is the same. It is a simply dial thermostat but even if the thermometre in the living room says it is a cosy 22 degrees, the thermostat clicks on and off at 12! This means we can never just leave the heating on at a low setting as the thermostat thinks it is never warmer than 12 degrees. It is basically nothing more than an on/off switch this way. I turn the heating on and it simply keeps going at full blast until I turn it off again, then it cools down and I have to turn it on again and so on....

What could be the problem? I have shielded the thermostat from the draft of the cold kitchen so I doubt it is related to its position in the house.

greyteam1959

Get the landlord to sort it ??

dutchcloggie

Thanks for that advise :-) I reported the problem before and, quite understandably, they replaced the thermostat, thinking it was broken.

I am just curious as to what the problem could be. If it is the location of the thermostat, there is not much the landlord can do about it, other than hacking a hole in the wall and re-wire the thermostat to a different location in the room, which I doubt he will be willing to do. Hence I was asking here if people have ideas of what could be the cause of this. I am a nice tenant: I prefer not to ask the landlord for too much if it is a small problem that I could solve myself. It means they are more likely to do stuff if there is a BIG problem because they know you don't call them unless you really have to.

ollski

Get a wireless receiver fitted so that you can locate it in a more sensible area of the house.

greyteam1959

If the thermostat is 'clicking' at around 12 degrees that that will be the temperature at the thermostat.
It sounds as you say that the thermostat is badly positioned.
I would go with Ollski's idea....
Plenty of examples on the net
http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wireless-Digital-Thermostat/p/220856
How to fit one.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EehJdvOGpZ4