Smart Thermostat

BUFF

as FreeBear said your timer/programmer is almost certainly a BG-badged Drayton Lifestyle product so hopefully replacement would be easy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl-99WN4sN8

LateStarter

It does indeed look like a Drayton, badged as BG. - I've just replaced one of those with a Wiser system. The one you have is the single zone (heating only) version. I assume the hot water is controlled separately. After lots of looking I settled on the Drayton as I wanted 2 heating zones, but I was very tempted by the Netatmo - this would be a programmable replacement for the thermostat, and you'd leave the BG controller set to ON. 

Kido250

The one we have controls both the water and the heating, you just can't control them separately. When we want to heat the water but not the radiators we simply turn the thermostat down. We can't heat the radiators without the water.

FreeBear

Kido250 said: The one we have controls both the water and the heating, you just can't control them separately. When we want to heat the water but not the radiators we simply turn the thermostat down. We can't heat the radiators without the water.

You really need to get a plumber in to have a look at that. It should be possible to fit a three way valve with a little bit of wiring, and then hot water would be independent of the central heating.... Depending on how the system is plumbed in.. Might need a bit of extra pipework added.

Certainly worth doing, as it will cut gas consumption (finger in the air calculation) by 30-50% when you just want a tank of hot water.

LateStarter

Kido250 said:

The one we have controls both the water and the heating, you just can't control them separately. When we want to heat the water but not the radiators we simply turn the thermostat down. We can't heat the radiators without the water.

That sounds a bit odd - not a heating expert but it sounds as if both your control wires are wired to the same terminal (it it's a single zone controller).. Do you know where the master fuse is for your controller - you'd need to turn off the power for any changes anyhow? There'll be a couple of screws under the controller, which you can loosen to pop the plastic top off, and take a picture on the wiring - it would be useful if you could post that.

Bendy_House

Thanks for the photos, Kido (that sounds sooo bad...)

Ah, I see what they meant now by one 'wire'. It's more like one 'channel' to control two systems, the CH and the DHW.

Your plumbing would appear to be missing control valves. These are what open (and close) to direct the boiler's flow to the radiators and hot tank. Without these, you will never have individual, independent control over each.

I wonder if your system is even 'gravity' supply to the hot tank? And the pump only comes on to circulate the water around the rads?

Where is your boiler located? And where is the hot tank?

And could you take some more photos, please, of the pump and any other gubbins that you see on the pipes?!

Kido250

The boiler is in the garage. The hot tank is in the bathroom in a cupboard. The thermostat is in the hall and the timer is in the kitchen. Please see the attached photos. I couldn't get a decent picture of the front of the red and black thing but I've got what I could. Hopefully it will make sense. The pipes in the garage by the boiler go striaght up and through the ceiling. Sorry everywhere's such a mess. The rest of the house is tidy (I promise). 

powerful_Rogue

Another vote for Drayton Wiser here. Great system. If you can, I would hold out till Black Friday as Amazon normally have amazing deals on these.

Kido250

I've checked the thermostat and can't find any information on it. All I know is it's been in the house since it was built in 1975.

bob_a_builder

Quickest & simplest way to add a Smart stat here would be to use the Nest E model - Just the case it was designed for

Comes in 2 parts, a grey circular part ( heatlink) with fits where your existing Stat is - Its just a relay switch - its big advantage of the E is that this part is battery powered so no need for any other cables

Then just plug the Display/Thermostat itself in to the mains in the room you want the stat to control

As someone already said just set existing programmer to  Heating always ON and let the old programmer control the Hot Water side as it does now
Thats how its working for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qn9aWaIukI
Be sure to refer to UK based install vidoes, the US system/ Nest is more complecated