Individual Room Temperature Control

dreamypuma

Grumpy_chap said:

dreamypuma said:

I'd suggest getting Dragon Wiser.
I've always worked from home, so from an energy efficiency perspective, this level of control is essential.

I saw the Drayton Wiser system last year and it seemed to be the best of the lot. 
I was put off by the battery power, and still very hesitant for the same reason.
Do you have the settings to screw the valves in / out a couple of times a day for each room?

Your driver is the same as mine, so I imagine you would be operating in a similar fashion.

Cardew said:

holiday in the Australian outback.

Why does it have to be so complicated? Is it so difficult to walk round the house and operate a TRV as required?

Holiday sadly cancelled this year because of Covid-19, especially I don't even think Australia would allow me in.
Adjusting the TRV's the way I want would be several times a day and to do that manually, well, it just won't happen.

I've set our wiser system up so that each TRV controls the temperature of each room based our family trends.

Typically the some rooms on the ground are heated in the morning. Ready for the working day. Around 4pm, the middle floor is heated and the ground naturally cools off. 

Later in the evening the top floor bedrooms are heated, whilst the ground and middle cool off. 

Some rooms that we don't typically use are never heated. 

All these individual settings can be tailored in the app. 

Equally if a boost is required to individual spaces, this can also me done as a one off. 

In summary the battery TRVs do all the leg work controlling individual radiators. Rooms can be heated just in time, so they are perfect for your schedule. Equally the dragon app can learn your trends, but I don't use this function. 

The added benefit is that we can remotely warm the rooms we need up, whilst travelling. This allows us to come back to warm bedrooms etc in late evenings. 

Similarly during holidays, we can hear up the water, o. Our way back from the airport etc. No dependency on neighbours or programming etc. 

In all the system cost me less than £300 (installed) in last year's Black Friday sales. I'm very happy with it. 

The energy savings are evident, and we can't put a price on the convenience. 

We considered systems like nest and hive, but without TRV control, these systems are just playing with smart heating. 

I can count on one hand the amount of times I've touched our installed TRVs since installation. The motors inside them do all the work. 

Worse case scenario, would be a simple annual battery replacement. (two AA Alkalines). 

Wait for a good offer and just do it. You will kick yourself for not doing it before. It's the single most useful Smart system in my house. 

Grumpy_chap

Thanks @dreamypuma - that is exactly how I want our system to work, and I did like the idea of the "learning" function - similar to Nest I suppose.

I still not happy with the idea of it all being battery, including the room thermostat.  I am surprised there is nothing out there that does the same, but properly powered.  Pretty much every TRV is inaccessible so once or twice a year I am going to have to drag all the furniture out

What happens if the batteries are flat?

I wonder whether this could be covered under the coronavirus grants scheme?

dreamypuma

matelodave said:

I guess you could get hold of a wifi TRY and see if it's possible to bypass the battery with an external power supply - it shouldn't be everso difficult to drill a small hole and solder a couple of wires onto the battery contacts and route them to a plugtop power supply.

I appreciate the OPs concern and maybe there are other contributory considerations, such as mobilty.

For me (in my mid 40's), battery power is  non-issue. I would also qualify that, by saying that I wouldn't hesitate in recommending them to my parents in their mid 70's

The effort in trying to modify the TRVs vs the inconvenience of accessing them annually to change battery seem disproportionate. Consider also the warranty issues. 

Without a smart system, there's also the hardship of having to physically access TRV's and adjust them manually. These would mitigate that effort to once a year.

Grumpy_chap

Without a smart system, the TRVs are set and never changed or touched since we moved into the house last century.

Having to pull all the furniture out a couple of times a year is, frankly, a lot of faff.  There are no mobility issues (gladly), but I have a dislike of battery things because they always fail at the worst possible time - just like a camping torch!

What happens to the smart TRVs if the battery fails?

I am surprised the products are not just offered with the choice of a plug or a battery.  I should not have to go off soldering wires in when the solution is so simple.

dreamypuma

Grumpy_chap said:

Without a smart system, the TRVs are set and never changed or touched since we moved into the house last century.

Having to pull all the furniture out a couple of times a year is, frankly, a lot of faff.  There are no mobility issues (gladly), but I have a dislike of battery things because they always fail at the worst possible time - just like a camping torch!

What happens to the smart TRVs if the battery fails?

I am surprised the products are not just offered with the choice of a plug or a battery.  I should not have to go off soldering wires in when the solution is so simple.

Fair enough. In all honesty I can't think of a hard wired consumer system that will give the level of control you'd like. You may need to consider a compromise. Look at maybe a dual / multi zone nest setup, or similar. ( I think these can still be hard wired, for power and data)

On wiser, if a TRV fails, it will simply leave the valve in the state that it failed in. Open or closed. In this instance, I personally would just unscrew the valve and put back on the old valve as manual operation (it's as simple as screwing in an Edison bulb) This could be a temp (till you can pick up a replacement) or permanent fix.  

We just need to bare in mind here, that we are now refering to the durability of the motor, as opposed to the reliability of network or power source. To this end, what's to say that the durability of a hard wired motor is any better than a battery powered?

You would still have the ability to switch the heating on or off from the app or main hub, and maintain control of all other working TRVs

Grumpy_chap

By 'fail' I had not thought about the motor failing, but had in mind the flat battery

Rodders53

Lithium AA cells would (should) offer longer life than Alkaline AA cells used in the Drayton Wiser TRVs?  (You'd need to check what battery size is used in other similar TRVs).

I know these sorts of device have a low battery warning - usually a flashing symbol on the display - so occasional checks of their screens would be necessary.  They usually work for some time before giving up entirely after such warnings appear.

To be frank, I'd not consider buying a mains-powered or power-over-ethernet connected TRV system for my heating - no rads are close enough to a socket so would have wires along skirtings for a considerable distance, and the upheaval to wire in extra circuits or ethernet cabling so it was hidden / buried is similarly unthinkable for me.

What you want is simply achievable via a system of wired actuators on a manifold plus wall thermostats but would probably require major re-plumbing and wiring work now.

Id suggest that wireless and battery operation units also allows de-skilling of the installers of such controls so is preferred by the industry?  Hence, your niche requirement is quite unlikely to ever be produced?

The_Green_Hornet

Heating Save appear to do wired thermostatic radiator valves.

Products

Emmia

dreamypuma said:

I'd suggest getting Dragon Wiser. We had this installed last year in our three floor home. It works well, allowing us to heat individual room on demand and in isolation. I've always worked from home, so from an energy efficiency perspective, this level of control is essential.

The TRVs are battery powered, and controlled wirelessly. After one year I have only changed the batteries on one of seven TRVs. So no real issue there. The TRVs are simple to install yourself.

The programmer is theoretically a DIY job, howerver we got our electrician to fit this. Literally took him 10mins.

Kits are currently on offer at Amazon starting at around £110. They are usually on offer during black Friday. Additional TRVs can be had for as little as £32 when on offer. (Reminds me, I need one more)

Do you mean Drayton Wiser?

matelodave

The_Green_Hornet said:

Heating Save appear to do wired thermostatic radiator valves.

Products

But he doesn't want wired operation, he wants externally powered ones with wifi capability.I'd do as Rodders suggests and fit Lithium cells which would probably last several years - I'm tempted to try them out in my wireless stats.

I use them in my smoke detectors and they are still OK after near enough 10 years. I used to use them in my camera and they lasted for ages