Setting schedule (and 'off' times!) on Nest thermostat

pinkteapot

Got a new house. I'm used to good old-fashioned boiler programmers where you set on/off times for the heating. New house has a Nest system.

I've set the hot water schedule on the Nest (on/off a couple of times a day), but the heating schedule completely baffles me. Note: I'm not using the app as we don't have internet yet so am setting it on the thermostat itself.

We don't want to use the auto-schedule learning thing. I just want to set on/off times for heating - couple of hours in the morning, few hours in the evening.

I found this old thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5751461/nest-heating-schedule

I now understand that when you set a temperature at a specific time, the system will get the heating to that temperature by that time, and maintain that temperature until next told to change temperature.

That's fine, but how do I tell it to turn the heating off? Or do I just set the temperature to 2 degrees or something when I want the heating off?

We do NOT want the heating running all day. We're out most of the day, and our house is on LPG rather than mains gas which is expensive.

I would just get a heating engineer in to replace the Nest with a normal system, but it's a new-build house so that seems a bit wasteful. :rotfl:

neilmcl

Like most timers you set the times and the maximum temperature you want it to be, so when you want the CH to be "off" just set it to a low, minimum temp, 14 degrees for example.

pinkteapot

neilmcl wrote: »

Like most timers you set the times and the maximum temperature you want it to be, so when you want the CH to be "off" just set it to a low, minimum temp, 14 degrees for example.

We live in the deep north though - it's below 14 degrees here 24/7 for most of winter. :rotfl:

I'll have another fiddle and see what the lowest temp it'll let me set is and use that. Just makes me nervous that you can't just say "off"! Bizarre omission on a £200 thermostat/programmer.

Takmon

pinkteapot wrote: »

We don't want to use the auto-schedule learning thing. I just want to set on/off times for heating - couple of hours in the morning, few hours in the evening.

What is the reason you don't want to use this feature? This is the most efficient way to control your heating because it will learn what temperature you like at certain times of the day and learn how long it takes to heat to this temperature so will use the least amount of gas to keep the house at the temperature you want.

pinkteapot wrote: »

We live in the deep north though - it's below 14 degrees here 24/7 for most of winter. :rotfl:

I'll have another fiddle and see what the lowest temp it'll let me set is and use that. Just makes me nervous that you can't just say "off"! Bizarre omission on a £200 thermostat/programmer.

If you set the safety temperature to "off" and the eco temperature to "off" then this will allow you to specify periods of it being off in the schedule.

bouicca21

Mine is set to 15 most of the day when I’m at home, going up to 19 when that isn’t enough. Overnight or when I’m out it is set to eco (which is 9).

I love my Nest. Using it via the app on my phone makes life so simple.

pinkteapot

Takmon wrote: »

What is the reason you don't want to use this feature? This is the most efficient way to control your heating because it will learn what temperature you like at certain times of the day and learn how long it takes to heat to this temperature so will use the least amount of gas to keep the house at the temperature you want.

As I understand it, it will detect when we're home (presumably based on movement?). It's been installed tucked away in the utility room so will hardly ever see us. And we've been there a few days and it's already driving us nuts constantly adjusting the temperature as it never seems to be right.

If we're going to try the auto-learning thing we probably need to clear it's history and start over as it had weeks of the builders using it.

As I said though, we only like our heating on for a few hours a day and don't want to burn more gas than that. So mostly I don't trust it to limit itself like that. :rotfl:

pinkteapot

bouicca21 wrote: »

I love my Nest. Using it via the app on my phone makes life so simple.

We only have 4G signal upstairs (no service downstairs) and will sadly only be getting 1-3Mbps internet as we can't get fibre in the village (right now - there's a cabinet but it's currently full so no new connections possible). So as much as I like the sound of the app we're not really going to be able to use it anyway!

greenbee

pinkteapot wrote: »

We only have 4G signal upstairs (no service downstairs) and will sadly only be getting 1-3Mbps internet as we can't get fibre in the village (right now - there's a cabinet but it's currently full so no new connections possible). So as much as I like the sound of the app we're not really going to be able to use it anyway!

I use the app - and therefore the geofencing so the heating doesn’t come on when we’re out. No fibre or mobile phone signal here and it works fine.

bouicca21

I’m not too sure but I thought the way it knows that you are away is done via sensing the presence or absence of the phone or iPad.

You really are missing out if you don’t/can’t use the app.

pinkteapot

bouicca21 wrote: »

You really are missing out if you don’t/can’t use the app.

But we're one of very few people in the world who have a Nest thermostat and didn't actually want one. :rotfl:

bouicca21

The thermostat i had before was so complicated and the instructions in such small type that I had to go on YouTube every time I wanted to change the schedule. I was forever heating the place at the wrong time (don’t have a regular schedule) or when on holiday. After that the Nest is a godsend.