Nest heating

JEN22

I am looking at getting a nest heating control for the home. Is there any drilling required?


Sorry but I don't know much about technology, I am just trying to keep up so I don't miss out


I have just had a decorator and don't really want a mess


I have a wireless Honeywell thermostat at the moment and a Rhemaha boiler

googler

So I don't miss out ... on what?

bouicca21

Just had one installed. The receiver goes near the boiler and is hidden behind its housing. Had a wall mounted thermostat in the same place as the old one, so no redecoration required.

bob_a_builder

The easiest one to install is the "Nest E", most people could do it themselves (note it only controls the Heating side not the hot water. enough for most of us)

One part (grey circle) would be a direct replacement for your existing thermostat and fits in its screw holes , then normally just 2 wires to transfer

The other part can be plugged into any mains socket and just sits on a shelf/cabinet
Then is just a case of setting up the wi-fi

Takmon

It also comes with a white backplate that you can put against the wall to cover up any mismatch in the sizes between the old thermostat and the new one so you don't need to do any decorating.

tempus_fugit

With a Nest you don’t even have to fix the thermostat to the wall, you can have it on a stand if you like. It does need to be plugged in though, unless they’ve changed that since I had mine. Likewise with Hive, which is much better in my opinion, you don’t have to fix it to the wall at all, and it is battery powered so much more flexible as to where you can place it.

bouicca21

Nest comes in various colours. The guy who fitted mine commented that I was one of the few who had chosen white, and how good it looked —apparently most people choose copper. But given that, if wall fitted, the thermostat is likely to be close to light switches, it was best to match.

Personally I thought a free standing one would end up being irritating, but if you are tidier than I am, it might suit. Plus I wanted to cover the holes left by the old one.

bob_a_builder

Plus I wanted to cover the holes left by the old one.

The "Nest E" has best of both worlds, Grey circle part covers your existing thermostat location and is battery powered so no external power connections reqd

And the free standing part, the bit with the display and rotary control can be positioned anywhere / any room where it can be plugged into the mains psu has a 2m or so usb lead, of course you can buy a usb extender lead is reqd

Takmon

bob_a_builder wrote: »

The "Nest E" has best of both worlds, Grey circle part covers your existing thermostat location and is battery powered so no external power connections reqd

And the free standing part, the bit with the display and rotary control can be positioned anywhere / any room where it can be plugged into the mains psu has a 2m or so usb lead, of course you can buy a usb extender lead is reqd

You can do the same thing with the "main" version of the nest. The adapter plate on the wall will cover your existing thermostat location you can then keep the Nest thermostat on the wall or you can simply pull it off and move it to another room. It has an inbuilt battery so it doesn't go off when moving it around, but you will need to plug it in when you place it somewhere.

bob_a_builder

Ok - I didn't know that.

But my point was more about the ease of electrical installation of the Nest E version, which only requires access to the 2 wires behind your existing thermostat

The standard Nest has 2 parts too, the circular stat and the heatlink box
Because the heatlink box needs mains power its not very convenient for it to be fitted in the place of existing stat, even less so if you want it to control the hot water too, so its often fitted close to the boiler and it much more difficult for DIYer to pick up the stat connections at the point

It seems clear to me that the E version is specifically targeted at the DIY installer

They are now both the same price from Screwfix, so choice is down to ..

The Nest E is easy for DIY install, but can't control HW
Original Nest probably requires a professional install, and can also control HW

The Google videos don't help sometimes since tend to show the more complex US version

The sum total of the UK version electrical installation is shown here ..
Just 2 wires

Takmon

bob_a_builder wrote: »

Ok - I didn't know that.

But my point was more about the ease of electrical installation of the Nest E version, which only requires access to the 2 wires behind your existing thermostat

The standard Nest has 2 parts too, the circular stat and the heatlink box
Because the heatlink box needs mains power its not very convenient for it to be fitted in the place of existing stat, even less so if you want it to control the hot water too, so its often fitted close to the boiler and it much more difficult for DIYer to pick up the stat connections at the point

It seems clear to me that the E version is specifically targeted at the DIY installer

They are now both the same price from Screwfix, so choice is down to ..

The Nest E is easy for DIY install, but can't control HW
Original Nest probably requires a professional install, and can also control HW

The Google videos don't help sometimes since tend to show the more complex US version

The sum total of the UK version electrical installation is shown here ..
Just 2 wires

Yes if you have simply two wires to your thermostat and want something easy to install that is very simple (I hadn't actually considered the Nest-E because i didn't like the look of it so i didn't know how it was wired up). Which is good because it can save people a good amount of money by doing it themselves.

My thermostat had 4 wires going into it because the call for heat circuit wasn't simply a case of joining the two wires it required a live feed into it to activate so that would make it slightly more complicated. But if you take the time to understand wiring diagrams and read the instructions then i think installing either system is not too complicated it's just the Nest 3 takes longer.