Radiator thermostats

Sterlingtimes

We have a house of a family of four adults (80s, 60s, 50s, 20s). The house is always occupied during the day. The adults tend to do different things in their rooms. We burn through 5,200 kWh of gas each year.

Getting a good balance with the 13 manual TRVs has never been possible since the house occupants fiddle with them constantly.

I have just installed a full Drayton Wiser system. I cannot commission until the weather gets colder. 

[Deleted User]

MouldyOldDough said:

How many people actually use their radiator thermostats?
We simply run our boiler for say 30 minutes at a time and the room temperature never reaches the cut off....
This is why we Ihave low bills 

Your "cut off" is set too high then.

The whole point of automating temperature control is that it kicks in when your house reaches the required temperature.

If you switch the boiler off after say 30 mins because you are warm enough, then why don't you set your thermostat and TRVs to that "warm enough" setting and save yourself the bother of manually controlling?

The same end result if you set the controls correctly.

TRVs also give the advantage of heating each room appropriately - eg on a winter morning, the sun shines on one side of the house so said rooms are a bit warmer then the TRVs will reduce the heat output to those rooms and still allow the colder rooms enough heat output to reach the desired temperature.

Having said that I don't find the TRVs that I have very accurate, the same model has a different setting in every room, but once that tweaking has been established they do mean that the temperature across the house is relatively even.

Astria

MouldyOldDough said:

How many people actually use their radiator thermostats?
We simply run our boiler for say 30 minutes at a time and the room temperature never reaches the cut off....
This is why we Ihave low bills 

Don't have any radiator thermostats, the cost outweighs the benefit.

Heating is on 24/7 in the winter, controlled by a thermostat in the lounge set to 18c when someone is in there or 12c when not. The other radiators get far less flow so naturally those rooms are cooler.

powerful_Rogue

Drayton wiser TRV's throughout the house, except for the bathroom towel rail. Does the job nicely.

FreeBear

Astria said:

MouldyOldDough said:

How many people actually use their radiator thermostats?
We simply run our boiler for say 30 minutes at a time and the room temperature never reaches the cut off....
This is why we Ihave low bills 

Don't have any radiator thermostats, the cost outweighs the benefit.

Heating is on 24/7 in the winter, controlled by a thermostat in the lounge set to 18c when someone is in there or 12c when not. The other radiators get far less flow so naturally those rooms are cooler.

Reduced flow and a failure to heat the other rooms satisfactorily suggests that the radiators are not balanced properly. If you are using the other rooms, having TRVs and a well balanced system will make more efficient use of your boiler.

A basic white angled 15mm TRV is less than £9 from somewhere like Screwfix. Unless your heating system is really old (pre metricification) the valve should be a straight swap.

BUFF

FreeBear said:

Astria said:

MouldyOldDough said:

How many people actually use their radiator thermostats?
We simply run our boiler for say 30 minutes at a time and the room temperature never reaches the cut off....
This is why we Ihave low bills 

Don't have any radiator thermostats, the cost outweighs the benefit.

Heating is on 24/7 in the winter, controlled by a thermostat in the lounge set to 18c when someone is in there or 12c when not. The other radiators get far less flow so naturally those rooms are cooler.

Reduced flow and a failure to heat the other rooms satisfactorily suggests that the radiators are not balanced properly. 

and/or system not designed properly.

Ally_E.

If I ran my heating for 30min the temperature in the winter would go from 12C to 12.5C 🙄

I use  thermostatic valves in my radiators to reduce the temp in less frequently used rooms to 15C. 

wild666

I have TRV's on all but the hall radiator and have set the temperature in most rooms to 1 except the kitchen which is set to 3 and the living room set to 6 on one radiator and 5 on the other radiator.

Sterlingtimes

I could set our bedrooms for the winter as follows:

07:45 to 10:00 21 degrees
10:00 to 20:00 OFF
20:00 to 22:30 21 degrees
22:30 to 07:45 OFF

But would it be wise to set the 10:00 to 20:00 temperature at say 15 degrees rather than switching OFF?
 

sienew

Sterlingtimes said:

I could set our bedrooms for the winter as follows:

07:45 to 10:00 21 degrees
10:00 to 20:00 OFF
20:00 to 22:30 21 degrees
22:30 to 07:45 OFF

But would it be wise to set the 10:00 to 20:00 temperature at say 15 degrees rather than switching OFF?
 

I'm not judging your use but 21 degrees is quite a lot higher than average, most set to 18 degrees.

It's said that every degree over 18 degrees increases your bill by 10%. I'm not sure this is exactly accurate but gives a rough idea of the increased cost and how it can multiply.

Presumably nobody is home between 10:00 and 20:00? If so, switching it off is the cheapest.

Rather than off at any time of day I'd still set it at a very low minimum (mine automatically selects 5 degrees) just as an additional frost protection, it shouldn't ever get below that temp but if it does the heating should really be coming on no matter what time of day it is.