Most economical way to heat a holiday let? Wireless?

blued

PasturesNew wrote: »

You say you have no way of turning the heat on for guests arriving ... but they would need a key - and clean sheets/towels.... and somebody to clean afterwards.

Whoever is doing the key handover could turn the heating on on the day if you pick somebody who is very close by... they'd be able to sit there an hour before guests arrive and think "it's a bit nippier today than usual, I'll pop over and turn it on now" or "no need to do the heating, it's quite warm here today".

That's certainly something to consider, I'm looking at a few options for changeover cleaning/laundry etc. and I know some of these companies offer a key holding service as well. However it's becoming quite common to gain entry via a key safe or a door lock with a PIN so that's also something I'm looking into. The remote heating would be one less thing that I have to rely on someone else to do.

newbieFTB

I would highly recommend the Nest, before I got mine I read a few articles and it seemed that Nest was recommended over the Hive for a few minor reasons. Nest is also a Google product so likely to be well supported into the future, I believe Hive is owned by British Gas.

The scheduling is brilliant, you can do it on your phone and have the heating coming on and off as many times in a day as you want, totally different schedules for each day and also different temperatures for each occasion too if wanted.

Your guests could turn the heating up or down as mentioned and I think it is possible to change the schedule from the thermostat but even if they did figure out how to do so it literally takes 5 seconds for you to reprogram it from the Nest app after they've left. It's so intuitive, nothing like the wall mounted controllers of yester-year!

Plus

Slightly random idea... have two thermostats.

Traditionally the thermostat output is a mains output that tells the boiler when to run - live=on, open circuit=off. Some of the 'smart' thermostats simply loop through this - you set your old mechanical thermostat to maximum, and then the 'smart' one breaks the connection when it wants to turn the heating off.

So what you could do is run two thermostats in either series or parallel. Series means both have to be on to heat the house, parallel means either one is on for heating.

For example, supposing you fit a conventional dial thermostat and put it somewhere obvious. That controls the house in 'warm' mode. Then you run an internet thermostat (either Hive or a basic one like Geo Cosy) in series with it set to the 'cold' temperature.

If the internet thermostat is in 'cold' mode, the house is in frost-protection mode which overrides the 'warm' setting. If the internet thermostat is set to having the heating on 24/7, then it's up to the dial thermostat to control the temperature. You just need to make sure the dial doesn't allow the heating to be set below the frost-protection temperature (which would prevent frost protection mode working) - a very simple solution to that is glue something to prevent the dial going below 10 degrees.

I'm a great fan of KISS and presenting your guests with a complicated techno-gadget is probably not what they want. Everyone understands a nice mechanical dial.

[Deleted User]

I booked a stay in an AirBnb house. I am afraid I fiddled with the heating system until it came on and warmed the house. It wasn't on for long, but it was pretty cold inside until I figured out how to turn it all on. Even then not all the radiators warmed up so I only removed the chill a bit in some areas. The whole set up was a reminder of why I don't like poxy new build houses (it was relatively new), cheap knackered fittings everywhere, which the photo's didn't show. Did tell her that her carpets needed a bit of spot cleaning, as tactfully as I could.

I didn't comment on it but wouldn't go back there. I actually didn't stay the whole night. It wasn't very nice, not very comfortable. But every other review was very favourable so maybe I am a spoilt missy, I don't know.

Three times now I have lived in houses with old radiators and boilers. Lots of repairs, on one occasion six weeks with no hot water. I have also twice been lucky enough to have the whole heating system replaced. Immediately reduced my bills and house was a lot warmer, quicker. The three bed I am in now, put boost on (I only ever use the boost facility for heating) and within half an hour/40 mins the house is very warm. Usually noticeable within 20 mins. It might be a thought for you (from the sound of it your heating system is over 30 years old). Much nicer to live in, definitely saves money in running costs, and perhaps would please holiday let market more.