Hive/Hive TRV's

Riveryellowstone11

Hi,

what is your experience please?

Should I fit a Hive TRV to every radiator in the house?

Thank you.

Riveryellowstone11

Hi,

what is your experience please?

Should I fit a Hive TRV to every radiator in the house?

Thank you

Murmansk

Having read about Hive TRV's somewhere and seen the prices, I have just fitted TP Link Kasa smart thermostatic heads to my radiator valves and they cost £30 each and seem very good. 

400ixl

Certainly not to all radiators, one should be left to allow for pressure release.

Having Hive TRV's with a hive controller has the advantage they can call for heat if required.

Personally I have put Tuya smart TRV's on ours and it is all controlled by my Home Assistant smart home system. The TRV's from Aliexpress were less than £15 each and have been working faultlessly.

They would equally work with the Tuya gateway and app if you didn't have a smart home system.

ThisIsWeird

Experience? They (it...) works.

I already had a 2-zone Hive setup, so to go for a Hive TRV was a no-brainer. Coupled easily, comes up as a separate 'zone' on the App, and works as it should. Makes only a very brief zzzzp as it engages, so not disturbing.

(I have only fitted it to my main bedroom).

Can be set to be 'passive', so only opens on instruction and the boiler already needs to be running, or 'active' so it also turns the boiler on. Mine is set to the former, as I only want it on if it's cold enough for the whole CH to already be on. If I had it set to 'active' (these are my terms), then it would effectively turn on the whole house on, as the other rads have normal TRVs.

So, I'm happy with it.

However, the Hive can only turn the boiler 'on' and 'off', and has no finer control such as Opentherm.

If you are starting from scratch, then I'd look at a more advanced system, ready for the next boiler.

Bendo

I bought my Hive thermostat about 9 years ago and my TRVs about 4.

Honestly as a system I don't rate it.  Hive itself is quite clunky and lacks important features such as opentherm if you have a boiler that supports it. All Hive can do is on or off. The likes of Tado support opentherm - edit, only some Tados do opentherm.

The TRVs (and I'm not sure if this is still a problem or if theyhave changed it)  prioritise battery life over gas usage and so open stupidly slowly meaning rads take ages to get upto temp.

For my use, I work around the limitations as I have no need for opentherm (old boiler heating a thermal store) and for the TRVs I simply set them to the max temp when I want them on which makes them open fully.

If you are already using Hive, then the TRVs may make sense as an easy to use option with the heat on demand feature.

If you don't already have a hive thermostat,  I'd probably look at other options.

MikeJXE

I Have the Hive thermostat and none smart TVRs.

They have never been altered since first fitted 18 months ago

Why would they need to be adjusted constantly 

Why would anyone want that hassle

Alexa switches my heating on when I want it and off when I don’t 

Simple 

400ixl

Duplicate thread for https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6561154/hive-hive-trvs

OP, Please only start one thread on a topics, it gets confusing otherwise.

bob_a_builder

Some opinion on whether to fit to ALL your rads 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgvKoG-7T30

Riveryellowstone11

bob_a_builder said:

Some opinion on whether to fit to ALL your rads 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgvKoG-7T30

Thank you I watched this yesterday which has put my plans to deploy a Hive TRV on all my rads up in the air,

Any suggestions?

FreeBear

Mwood1 said: Any suggestions?

Not suggestions, just comments. Modulating boilers & thermostats work best by reducing the flow temperature. The amount of heat dissipated by a radiator falls as the flow temperature is reduced (going from 70°C down to 50°C reduces the heat radiated by 50%). A boiler will have a minimum heat output regardless of flow temperature before it starts to short cycle or go in to limp mode. If you fit smart TRVs, you need to be mindful of mimimum boiler output and radiator capacities at the lowest flow temperature your central heating is set to run at. Get it wrong, and the boiler will short cycle which is bad for efficiency and increases wear & tear.