Hive system, multi-zone heating

Hartake

Our current heating system in our new home is installed as 'multi-zone' and we are looking to move the somewhat basic heating system over to Hive. The multi-zone bizarrely comprises of living room and then rest of house. When trying to order the Hive, it asks for how many zones you have and then wants to give you the thermostat for each of the zone as you might expect. But that doubles the cost and we are happy to just leave the living room with its current thermostat and instead transfer the rest of house zone over to the Hive thermostat.

Does anybody know if that is possible or are we forced to transfer both zones over to the Hive system? Like is that technically possible? If so, do we just tell Hive we have a one-zone system?

Vitor

You can run Hive on just one zone, but you’ll only get partial control. The living room zone will still call the boiler whenever it wants heat, and Hive won’t know about it. For proper scheduling and energy tracking, both zones need to be smart.

You might get more benefit (and less wiring hassle) with smart programmable TRVs instead. That way you can control each room’s heat independently and still keep your existing thermostats doing the boiler control.”

sausage_time

I moved from dual zone to Hive with two thermostats.  Despite the initial higher cost I have been very happy with the additional control of the two zones.  We have essentially public rooms in Zone 1 and bedrooms in Zone 2.  On the way back from sunny climes recently I was able to set both zones before we departed from the airport so we could return to a warm house.

The Hive thermostats are wireless - so no wiring and you can experiment and place them where it makes the most sense.

The app is neat - here is zone chart for today.  Blue on the axis shows boiler demand.

Desmond_Hume

I’ve seen those Hive temp charts many times now. I’d love to have been in the room when the decision was made to format them like that.

sausage_time

Probably because phones generally have portrait format screens?

Vitor

I went for a Bosch CT200 as it can finely control the burner on the Worcester Bosch combi with weather compensation not just on/off, plus smart TRV in rooms which can independently call for heat. Lots of info such as daily cost of CH and DHW to review.

EssexExile

Vitor said:

You might get more benefit (and less wiring hassle) with smart programmable TRVs instead. That way you can control each room’s heat independently and still keep your existing thermostats doing the boiler control.”

I was looking into this and found that smart TRVs will only warm a room if the main thermostat is calling for heat. To get the TRVs to control the boiler independently you need "Hive Active Heating", I haven't managed to work out what that is yet.

Vitor

- To get the TRVs to control the boiler independently you need "Hive Active Heating" -

Likely similar to Bosch system where the TRV each run a 7*24 heat profile and radio a heat demand to the main unit which will run the boiler a tad, likely keeping output flow temp down in 40C range to maximise condensing efficiency.