Central heating - timer vs. room thermostat

droopsnoot

I have a gas central heating system here, it's been controlled for years by the "UP2" timer, which has three time-bands to bring on the heating as required. It'll do more than that - 5/2 day different programmes, every day different - but it's configured to do the same every day, which is fine. Room temperatures are controlled by the thermostatic valves on the end of each radiator.

Downstairs, however, there is a British Gas room thermostat - T4 RF - which is currently displaying the temperature and not much else. It's never been used to control the heating - my parents had the system installed, and were fairly "old school" and insisted that it was set up to work on the timer, as the previous system had been. I don't remember how that was done.

What do I need to do if I want to use the room thermostat to control the system instead of the timer? Is this something I'd have to get an engineer to configure / rewire for me, or is it nothing more than setting the timer to "on" and then doing something with the room thermostat? I'm reading that the boiler will come on and off as it needs to, so in theory it's not as if it will be running all the time - I suspect this is what concerned my parents, and they preferred to be certain when it was on or off.

I've got the manuals for each box, but while they tell me about the things that each one will do, there's no "overview" that I can see on how the system as a whole works. I don't remember whether the system was initially installed with just the room thermostat and they then had the timer added - is it normal to have both? The system was installed about 12 years ago, I believe it was installed by British Gas but I'm not at all sure. I know it's on a BG contract, and I also know I should look around for a different service contract, but it's not up for renewal yet.

I've been quite happy with the way it all works, but now the weather has got cold I'm finding that I've got to either leave it on all the time or just keep switching it on and off, and it seems that this room thermostat can deal with all that for me by just maintaining a reasonable temperature. But if I do that, does that mean it will be trying to maintain it overnight, while I'm in bed and don't need to it be all that warm everywhere else? Or do I just remember to set it to a lower temperature overnight?

Any thoughts, anyone? I'm not in a position to be replacing / upgrading anything, for a variety of reasons.

FreeBear

You can get "smart" thermostats that allow you to set different temperatures during the course of the day/week - Much more versatile than the traditional timer & thermostat combo. It also helps to reduce your gas consumption. As most of these smarter thermostats are wireless, reconfiguring your wiring is a lot less complicated than having a hard wired thermostat.

You can also get basic wireless thermostats, but they are not that much cheaper than a smart(er) one. Have a look at the Drayton Wiser system.

Presumably, this is a fairly old heating system with a hot water tank ?

If yes, do get a thermostat fitted to the tank - That will help to cut gas consumption - A 2 channel Drayton Wiser would work with this setup.

NSG666

If you take a look at the link below it's an explanation of how the T4RF works and what it can and cannot do. It's not a programmable thermostat so it will only do what you want it to do by pressing a button.
If you leave the UP2 on all of the time and use the T4 to control the temp if you use the set back mode when you go to bed it will be cold when you get up. With your current set up it's probably the best / simplest to use the UP2 to determine when the heating is on or off.
A programmable room thermostat performs both functions of the T4RF and the UP2 and might be preferable when you have the budget.

Drayton Digistat + and +RF: An overview - YouTube

droopsnoot

FreeBear said:

You can get "smart" thermostats that allow you to set different temperatures during the course of the day/week - Much more versatile than the traditional timer & thermostat combo. It also helps to reduce your gas consumption. As most of these smarter thermostats are wireless, reconfiguring your wiring is a lot less complicated than having a hard wired thermostat.

You can also get basic wireless thermostats, but they are not that much cheaper than a smart(er) one. Have a look at the Drayton Wiser system.

Presumably, this is a fairly old heating system with a hot water tank ?

If yes, do get a thermostat fitted to the tank - That will help to cut gas consumption - A 2 channel Drayton Wiser would work with this setup.

Thanks for that, for various reasons I'm not in a position to change the system or controls at the moment. It is a fairly old system - installed around 12 years ago, though I think the radiators are older than that and perhaps only the boiler was replaced at that point, maybe with the room thermostat and the timer box. It does have a hot water tank, and there's a "CS1" box on the side of it, which I believe is a thermostat, and it's pointing to just below 60. That's wired back to a box which is also wired to the timer and the receiver box for the T4.

droopsnoot

NSG666 said:

If you take a look at the link below it's an explanation of how the T4RF works and what it can and cannot do. It's not a programmable thermostat so it will only do what you want it to do by pressing a button.
If you leave the UP2 on all of the time and use the T4 to control the temp if you use the set back mode when you go to bed it will be cold when you get up. With your current set up it's probably the best / simplest to use the UP2 to determine when the heating is on or off.
A programmable room thermostat performs both functions of the T4RF and the UP2 and might be preferable when you have the budget.

Drayton Digistat + and +RF: An overview - YouTube

Thanks, as I thought about it I figured that would be the case, but it's interesting to know that while the heating is on, the T4 is also contributing to things. I'll have a look at that video later - I did have a quick search around but I tend to leave out videos for some reason. I found the box on the Drayton web site, but although they have three videos relating to it, none of them worked for me.

BUFF

FreeBear said:

You can get "smart" thermostats that allow you to set different temperatures during the course of the day/week - Much more versatile than the traditional timer & thermostat combo. 

Doesn't have to be "smart" - I have a 13 year old  "non-smart" Siemens roomstat that will do that.

droopsnoot

BUFF said:

FreeBear said:

You can get "smart" thermostats that allow you to set different temperatures during the course of the day/week - Much more versatile than the traditional timer & thermostat combo. 

Doesn't have to be "smart" - I have a 13 year old  "non-smart" Siemens roomstat that will do that.

I think FreeBear meant smarter than the one I have, rather than Smart in the "controlled by a phone" sense.

FreeBear

droopsnoot said:

BUFF said:

FreeBear said:

You can get "smart" thermostats that allow you to set different temperatures during the course of the day/week - Much more versatile than the traditional timer & thermostat combo. 

Doesn't have to be "smart" - I have a 13 year old  "non-smart" Siemens roomstat that will do that.

I think FreeBear meant smarter than the one I have, rather than Smart in the "controlled by a phone" sense.

No need for apps on a phone or connection to some web server in the cloud. Keep the smarts local and at the point of use. Really can't see the point (or need) of Hive/Nest just to keep a home warm.

Another_Level

The t4rf links to a wireless receiver,maybe the receiver is set to override. ie not controlled by the t4rf.

Take it off override (it may also have lost pairing and need's to be paired) all mentioned in the instruction pamphlet.

The batteries in the t4rf may be weak even if the low batt symbol is not displayed, its all fixable 

See how it goes 

droopsnoot

Thanks, I'm sure the batteries are OK as the chap who did the recent boiler inspection swapped them - he noticed the flashing light that signifies them being low / dead.

I'll have a look at the override thing, I did notice that it says something about that on the receiver. Certainly changing the temperature on the control doesn't seem to make any difference while the boiler is running.

I sort-of like the idea of being able to remotely control the heating, but not enough for the cost of it even if my mobile phone was capable of such things. I don't currently have the kind of lifestyle where I might suddenly need to change the settings before I get home.