Do you have a heating thermostat?

Nada666

redux wrote: »

But surely that can happen anyway?

Just using valves, two bedrooms here are completely unheated except when there are visitors staying and my bedroom is unheated most of the time. I just turn up my room's radiator slightly when its very cold outside.

From similar threads I think lots of contributors live in massive mansions but can't afford staff. Or something.

System

redux wrote: »

But surely that can happen anyway?

Just using valves, two bedrooms here are completely unheated except when there are visitors staying and my bedroom is unheated most of the time. I just turn up my room's radiator slightly when its very cold outside.

Of course it can; however, you could also not have TRVs and just close off the lock valves. The point is that most people wouldn't bother and, at my age, crawling under study tables is not that easy. We have a system that not only saves us money but one that is capable of multiple room settings, and intelligent learning. Set the bedroom to be at 15C at bedtime and the controller 'learns' how long this will take - similarly when cooling down a room. Give it 5 years, zoning the home will become a new build standard.

Cardew

MillicentBystander wrote: »

Agreed but Evohome goes further than that in that it can also (remotely and automatically) heat occasionally used rooms only at the times they will be used, which I think is one of the maain advantages of the system. I know people say why not just turn your TRV on and off yourself and I can see the argument but, hand on heart, who actually would do this all the time? Plus Evohome apparently learns how long it takes any particualr room to heat to the desired temparature so should you set the temp in, say, a bedroom to be 20c at 10pm then that's the temp the bedroom will be at at 10pm. Very clever. Can't wait to put it to the test...

Look forward to a road test report!


It is the capacity to cope with irregular patterns of use that interests me. For instance my daughter might go to her bedroom really early one night and very late the next night. Ditto in the morning - early and then late.

I_luv_cats

I have a standard room thermostat.

Handy to kick the heating on / off and regulate it a bit. (though can get too hot before the thermostat kicks in)


Handy to leave on minimum to keep the place toasty.


Not sure if I want to go hi-tech with an app etc.

Pincher

Wait till the valve motors start wearing out.


My house is set to 16 degrees off, 18 degrees on.
By default, only the ground floor is heated, with a separate Honeywell timer with BOOST button for the first floor if I want to heat it.


It doesn't take that long to heat it from 16 to 18 degrees.
When I come in, 16 degree is not exactly freezing.


The pre-heat function I actually want is for the car.
I want the windscreen defrosted before I come out.
That's really worth having. I don't even need heated seat: if it's cold, I would be wearing trousers.

Smiley_Dan

I've had Heat Genius installed. Seems to work really well. I've not given over to trusting the "footprint" mode yet though (where the system learns which zones are used and turns heating on and off). Just working with timers and different temps for different zones.

For us it wasn't a financial decision - it was a comfort and convenience one. We decided we didn't want to heat the whole house so I spent a lot of time turning rads on and off at different times. And sometimes we didn't bother, and just shivered. So now, we heat to a sensible temperature and don't feel bad about (as much) wasted energy.

Biggles

redux wrote: »

But surely that can happen anyway?

Just using valves, two bedrooms here are completely unheated except when there are visitors staying and my bedroom is unheated most of the time. I just turn up my room's radiator slightly when its very cold outside.

True. But the advantage of a system like Evohome is that you can do what you suggest, plus you can have rooms at different temperatures at different times of day. For example, you might want the bedrooms and bathroom to warm up first in the morning, maybe followed by the kitchen, but only for a couple of hours, and not have the lounge warm up at all until the evening. Or you could have a lower night-time minimum in some of the downstairs rooms than bedrooms and bathroom.

And if you have a change of plan while you're out, you can make a one-off change to these arrangements via your smartphone.

I did consider Evohome but was advised that, to get the best out of it, I would need to replace my [STRIKE]clapped-out[/STRIKE] elderly boiler.

MillicentBystander

Biggles wrote: »

True. But the advantage of a system like Evohome is that you can do what you suggest, plus you can have rooms at different temperatures at different times of day. For example, you might want the bedrooms and bathroom to warm up first in the morning, maybe followed by the kitchen, but only for a couple of hours, and not have the lounge warm up at all until the evening. Or you could have a lower night-time minimum in some of the downstairs rooms than bedrooms and bathroom.

And if you have a change of plan while you're out, you can make a one-off change to these arrangements via your smartphone.

I did consider Evohome but was advised that, to get the best out of it, I would need to replace my [STRIKE]clapped-out[/STRIKE] elderly boiler.

I'm assuming this was a heating engineer looking for a decent pay day:D? Get a second opinion lol. It's not like the Evohome boiler relay switch can't be retro-fitted to any new boiler you may acquire in the future....

MillicentBystander

Cardew wrote: »

Look forward to a road test report!


It is the capacity to cope with irregular patterns of use that interests me. For instance my daughter might go to her bedroom really early one night and very late the next night. Ditto in the morning - early and then late.

Road test report will definitely be forthcoming once I've got to grips with using it properly;) Incidentally, on a (fairly) related note, we have now moved into a bungalow preaparing for our dotage and the radiators seem very underspecced for the size of the rooms so we plan to replace them one by one as the rooms are updated (a very old couple owned the bungalow from it being newly built in the 80s and it would appear that most of the decor/fittings/plumbing hasn't been changeds since!).

The lounge one will be the first to be replaced (it's a single panel/convector 450mm x 1600mm expected to heat up a room measuring 6m x 4.5m with a large double glazed bay window!). Drawing on your knowledge in these matters, would it be wise, given the Evohome system I am using, to install an oversized rad in the room? My thinking is it may mean the boiler is firing less to keep the room at the desired (and set by Evohome) temp thereby saving fuel? Or is that far too simplistic a theory? TIA!

Cardew

MillicentBystander wrote: »

The lounge one will be the first to be replaced (it's a single panel/convector 450mm x 1600mm expected to heat up a room measuring 6m x 4.5m with a large double glazed bay window!). Drawing on your knowledge in these matters, would it be wise, given the Evohome system I am using, to install an oversized rad in the room? My thinking is it may mean the boiler is firing less to keep the room at the desired (and set by Evohome) temp thereby saving fuel? Or is that far too simplistic a theory? TIA!

That radiator sounds like it was from an era when 'part central heating' was the fashion; did the room ever have an open fire?


Given the bungalow was built in the 80s it is unlikely to be insulated to today's standards and I cannot imagine that radiator would adequately heat a room of that size(27 m2) to 21C or so when really cold outside.


When built the property would have a non-condensing boiler so having a large radiators with TRVs(manual or automatic) would not be a problem.


However if not already fitted, it will sometime have a condensing boiler. To achieve high efficiency on those boilers, the principle is to have the return water to the boiler as low as possible to keep it in condensing mode. Generally that will mean the boiler output temperature will be lower than the 80C it is possible to use on a non-condensing boiler; and thus the small radiator even more inadequate.


Quite frankly it seems something of a black art how this efficiency is maintained with varying loads on the boiler(more radiators and HW on), and I read conflicting theories on both MSE and elsewhere. Throwing the Evohome into the equation is above my pay grade I am afraid.


Perhaps the Evohome guy will advise.