Nest Smart Thermostat V TRV's

WibblyPig

Hello All,

I'm trying to understand what the benefit would be installing a Nest thermostat in our house.

We have a combi boiler and TRV's fitted on all radiators (except hall and loft shower room). We do not have a separate room thermostat to turn the boiler on or off.

I like this system as it allows us the flexibility to control the heat in individual rooms. I have no problem with manually adjusting the valves in each room as required. If I'm going to be out of the house for a few hours, I can simply reset the timer on the boiler so that it is not running unnecessarily.

My hubby though is gadget man and has been making noises about the new Nest thermostat. Now if I understand correctly, installing this thermostat will mean that I will no longer have the option to adjust the heat in each room as the temperature set on the thermostat will determine this for the whole house instead. Potentially this could mean that the heating turns off because the temp on the thermostat has been reached, but the upstairs rooms could still be cold.

Also, I can't seem to find any clear indication as to how much money we would save from our energy bills by installing this device.

Would appreciate any thoughts for or against this gizmo.

Thanks.

brightontraveller

Are you a rep for them lol



The basics systems on the market at present are dumb much like those that buy them? Do you need an led display to tell you your hot or cold most people don’t They can work well if your exceptionally lazy and can’t be arsed to walk over and turn the trv down/up it will save you money in that example ? How much over it lifespan against its cost is very debatable?
The driving factor at the moment is more about making the manufacture profit than saving you money or the planet it doesn’t say if you cold put on a jumper etc it says heat the room?

If he loves gadgets then the best atm for integration with pcs phones tablets etc is the “Heat Genius Intelligent heating control system” which is a strange name for something basically used by morons lol

ABrass

You still have TRVs on the radiators, the Nest controls when the heating is on or not. The clever bit about it, and the Hive, Wave and so on, is how it tells to turn the heating on. Most have smart pattern recognising tools to turn your heating on only when you're around.

The Wave can do geo-location to tell when you're home or nearby (but is wired). It also has finer control of Wooster boilers than most thermostats.

The Nest can do motion detection and ties into the wired smoke alarms so can tell when you're in the house directly (but will trigger on pets).

We were going to get the Wave but it's wired only so we've sent it back and are considering the Nest.

AdamantUK

It's an interesting time for this to come up as I bought a Nest just a couple of weeks ago.

Whilst installation wasn't too difficult, I'd advise getting the professional installation if you're in any way unsure.

I turned off the auto schedule feature and programmed temps and times myself, it's a 5 minute job that ensures your settings are correct.

I was very careful to ensure that the heat is only on as much as necessary but just this week the auto-away has now kicked in and I've gone from my boiler running for 1.5-2 hours a day down to 0.5 hours a day with the auto-away function.

The "time-to-temp" and "true radiant" are great also as it means there's no more setting the heating to come on a couple of hours early and hoping it will be on temperature when I get there, it's all ready at the right temperature for when we get in.

Whilst £179 is a lot of money for the thermostat, if I save an hours heating a day (15Kw boiler @ 3.5p per kw = £0.52 per hour) then I'll make my money back in a couple of years.

WibblyPig

Thanks for all the replies. I'm not convinced though.

Frankly I am the intelligent thermostat! After 15 years of living in the same property we know when to set the heating so the house is warm in the morning, we know how long it takes for the house, or even certain rooms to heat up. I'm also in the home for the majority of the day so can turn the boiler on and off as required. It was even simpler when we both worked full time as the boiler came in for a couple of hours in the morning, was turned off all day, then came on around 5pm so the house was warm when we arrived home from work. We would then just tweak individual TVR's during the evening.

The big no no for me is that the whole temperatue of the house will be dictated by one central thermostat. So, in theory once the temperature in the room with the thermostat has been reached, the boiler will be switched off even if the upstairs rooms have not reached my ideal temperature. I prefer the flexibility to be able to adjust the temperatue in each room accordingly at different times in the day.

The only system that seems to match my requirements would be the "Heating Genius" one referenced above. However this would cost around £900 for set and gives no indication of what the likely savings would be. Honestly, we are quite able to walk around the house and adjust the TVR's or even turn the boiler off ourselves.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing your opinions.