Smart thermostats......

kleapatra

Hi

I have a a pretty old central heating system that has a boiler and hot water tank in the airing cupboard. It seems to be working well and has been well maintained (I only moved in last week). The hot water and the heating is controlled by an electric programming panel thing in the airing cupboard and there is a thermostat on the wall in the living room.

As it all works so well, I have no plans to put a new condensing boiler in in the near future however for me, a smart thermostat (ie one I could control via a mobile app) would be extremely useful. Is it possible to fit one on an older heating system or are they only compatible with newer boilers?

TheCyclingProgrammer

You'd have to check with the thermostat maker but they should work.

You can normally use them in place of your existing thermostat and set your timer to always on or replace the whole lot. It normally depends on the wiring of your thermostat.

benjus

If you're just planning to use it to control the heating and not the hot water, then it should be simple. A thermostat is basically just an on/off switch that's operated by changes in temperature. The "smart" part is working out which temperature it should be set to at any given time.

ic

Something to consider is that weather compensating controllers are starting to appear. These allow the boiler to pro-actively react to the weather outside (either via public weather reports online, or preferably a sensor mounted outside the house) rather than waiting for the internal temperature to drop to a cold snap. Some go further, and adjust the flow temperature of the water running through the radiators - this feature will be tied to the particular manufacturer. In doing all this the boiler should run more economically - less wasted heat and closer to the point it runs in condensing mode yet still providing comfort. So you might go buying a thermostat now, but then find it is unsuitable if you want to benefit from any additional bells and whistles your future boiler might support.