Smart Heating advice - controller or TRVs?

blakbruker

We have just moved into a much bigger house which is heated solely by a Worcester-Bosch 35CDI boiler woth DT10RF programmable timer and rads with TRVs in each room (except the kitchen which has no heating save the oven!). Unfortunately we've discovered that the timer transmitter is broken and programming the timer on the receiver doesn't work so it's either manually on or manually off.

Obviously we need to replace this and thought it might be a good idea to look into "smart" thermostats/controllers such as Nest, Hive, Tado etc. I've then come across "smart" TRV's, especially some by energenie which look good. The house is quite large with 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms so I thought it might be more beneficial to use these to control the heat in each room. If I did this, I thought I could probably just replace the timer with a simple timer/thermostat and then use the smart TRVs to control the heating. Does anybody have any views on which would be the most effective and efficient? Initial purchase and installation costs are obviously a big consideration too.

danbutler89

Hi there, for what it's worth, my own experience of 'smart' thermostats - in my case Tado - which rely on an internet connection and software running on servers located somewhere far away are inherently unreliable. In my case, any savings I expected to make were quickly wiped out by the system malfunctioning - at times unable to turn the heating on, and at other times the heating turning on for days at a time without me knowing. The technical support on offer is effectively useless because the company have no responsibility for installation nor for maintenance and therefore are always able to pass the buck. I'd strongly recommend exploring more traditional options for energy saving, or at least making sure that at all costs you avoid the mistake I made in allowing Tado to be installed (I foolishly allowed my plumber to install it with my new boiler).

TRB

I have Evohome , I can not fault it but it is expensive . I also am unable to say how much it will save as I put it in with a new boiler but others are saying between 15 and 20%. If you have a fairly regular routine it makes a lot of sense having rooms being heated only when you use them.

Raxiel

If you've not chosen something already, since you have a Worcester Bosch Greenstar boiler, you should also consider WB's own 'Wave' thermostat.

I won't bang on about it in detail here, but we've had one over a year and are happy with it.

blakbruker

Thanks for the replies. In the end I went with Lightwave RF boiler control and thermostat. I decided against Lightwave's TRV's as reviews said they were very noisy and I thought the investment wouldn't really be recouped for a long, log time. We're just manually changing TRV's in rooms that are seldom used! The Lightwave controls work well except the thermostat sporadically loses the date and time which results in either the heating not coming on when it should or staying on longer than it should! As a reflection it's turned out to be quite handy for turning the heating on remotely at times when it normally wouldn't (sudden inpromptu working from home sessions) but not a money saver.