which smart thermostat

[marshian]

9 hours ago, SimonD said:

 I've always argued that it's not the heat source that's important but the control strategy and mechanism. With gas systems I always seem to have struggled with getting the system control as I like it, even in my own house where I ended up with a pragmatic solution that was okay, it was efficient, but not amazing. I think this is down to the split between heat source and controller manufacturer and how they decide to implement their control ideology and this causes problems. This is particularly the case with in the gas market.

 

I think manufacturers controls will always be better than 3rd party ones

 

I went down the Wiser route because the manufacturers controls on my old boiler wouldn't have helped - it was already massively oversized and I went down the route of overzoning (but learnt a little on the way)

 

9 hours ago, SimonD said:

I've now completed 2 full system designs and installations of heat pumps where I'm fully responsible for the systems and have to say that with using the manufacturers control packs of course, the control element is just fantastic. Both have required very little time and only small adjustments to WC and room influence, including a tweak to a couple of normal trvs. From this, I have so become a convert to heat pump systems, I really don't want to work with gas any more.

 

Good to hear - must be a nice feeling.

 

My current nice feelings are driven by last week I had 13 "Smart" TRV's on rads - This week I'm down to 5 - replaced with "dumb" TRV's set as temp limiters but not actually intervening at all the flow temps, room temps and circulation pump output are lovely and stable

 

I expect to completely remove all "Smart" TRV's by next week. (They are just remote room temp monitors now they aren't even attached to any rads!!!! )

 

I'll end up with one room stat and a hub running a schedule that is 0600 - 0600 ON.

 

I'm kinda loving the simplicity of it

 

[gaz_moose]

Blimey, Ive not even taken mine out the box and i was the one who needed it the most.

 

Center RF Wireless 7-Day 5/2 Day Programmable Room Thermostat White | eBay UK

 

this is my current one that needs to go in the bin 😁

 

I don't have nice wiring coming out of recessed boxes, i have surface mounted with trunking that goes into the side of the unit (The shame of it), On the 'universal mounting plates' it looks like i can knock the bottom out and feed the wire in from there, Is that right? or have i got to knock up some kind of adapter?

 

 

Ifound this when on my travels Drayton Wiser Room Thermostat Wall Mount by alias7113 | Download free STL model | Printables.com

[-rick-]

7 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

Blimey, Ive not even taken mine out the box and i was the one who needed it the most.

Sorry for the highjack!

 

7 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

I don't have nice wiring coming out of recessed boxes,

 

Ha! you should have seen mine. A mess of choc blocks with loose screws and exposed single insulated cables (thanks Mr Installer!)

7 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

i have surface mounted with trunking that goes into the side of the unit (The shame of it), On the 'universal mounting plates' it looks like i can knock the bottom out and feed the wire in from there, Is that right? or have i got to knock up some kind of adapter?

 

The universal plate should be compatible with the Wiser so you should just be able to slot it on (using existing wiring). To add opentherm cabling yes you can cut out a section of the mounting plate for the wire. Assuming the wire is thick enough then the installed unit should clamp down on it.

 

7 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

Ifound this when on my travels Drayton Wiser Room Thermostat Wall Mount by alias7113 | Download free STL model | Printables.com

 

The thermostat has a little plastic bracket with it. I liked Camerons idea (in the video I linked) of buying a normal blank plate to go in place of your existing thermostat (assuming its wired remote from your controller) and attach the plastic bracket to that. Having said that I've moved my thermostat to a location closer to the place I want to control the temperature.

 

As an update to my progress, I'm realising that my CH system has been badly designed and have very little hope of achieve low temperature efficient operation without spending a lot more money. My existing radiators can't dissapate enough heat to heat the room at low temp or avoid cycling with the minimum modulation of my boiler. It's likely Wiser could be doing some things differently to cope a little better with this situation but most of the issue is with my CH system.

 

The wiser does a fantastic job of maintaining a very stable temperature (within 0.2C) assuming the CH system has sufficient capacity. (In my case during the day, but it starts losing control as the temps drop at night unless I bump the flow temp up outside condensing range).

[gaz_moose]

Id over specked my radiators as I've a mixture of those fashionable tall radiators that are a bit rubbish and modern radiators that cool down quickly.

 

My old control unit didn't have a universal back plate.

 

I got it all wired in this morning. I spent ages looking at all the wiring diagrams and instructions prior to starting and got myself all confused, then I actually looked at it and figured it out instantly.

 

Now i just need to dial in some killer settings so i can save tonnes of money 🤣

[gaz_moose]

The weather has been quite mild at 15 degrees so I've had it setup to be 19 degrees in the morning and evening when im Home and just off during the day time.

 

What ive noticed is when it switches on and ramps up the water temp is 55 and when its sat just cruising (condensing mode?) its 38 degree. This is looking at the water temps on the boiler display panel , The radiators only ever get warm and not hot, My old 'Dumb' controller had it heating at 65 which saw the radiators pumping out heat. 

 

Is there a way to increase these temps? As i think when it actually gets cold i will be buggered. 

[SimonD]

2 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

The weather has been quite mild at 15 degrees so I've had it setup to be 19 degrees in the morning and evening when im Home and just off during the day time.

 

What ive noticed is when it switches on and ramps up the water temp is 55 and when its sat just cruising (condensing mode?) its 38 degree. This is looking at the water temps on the boiler display panel , The radiators only ever get warm and not hot, My old 'Dumb' controller had it heating at 65 which saw the radiators pumping out heat. 

 

Is there a way to increase these temps? As i think when it actually gets cold i will be buggered. 

 

Like I have to say repeatedly to my customers, don't focus on the radiator temperature, focus on how warm you are. The controller will increase output when it gets colder just like you're experiencing when it starts up and then modulates down when it's up to temp.

[marshian]

3 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

The weather has been quite mild at 15 degrees so I've had it setup to be 19 degrees in the morning and evening when im Home and just off during the day time.

 

What ive noticed is when it switches on and ramps up the water temp is 55 and when its sat just cruising (condensing mode?) its 38 degree. This is looking at the water temps on the boiler display panel , The radiators only ever get warm and not hot, My old 'Dumb' controller had it heating at 65 which saw the radiators pumping out heat. 

 

Is there a way to increase these temps? As i think when it actually gets cold i will be buggered. 

 

Are you using opentherm and the hub is talking to the boiler?

 

Do you have any smart modes turned on ECO or Comfort?

[gaz_moose]

I have the type 1 kit, With the wireless thermostat and controller. I don't have any of their TRV's fitted. The thermostat is upstairs in the box room/office.

 

I have the opentherm wired into the boiler and it seems to be working fine apart from the low temps.

Ive the APP and that is working too.

I've not tried ECO mode as i wasn't sure what it did. 

[marshian]

2 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

I have the type 1 kit, With the wireless thermostat and controller. I don't have any of their TRV's fitted. The thermostat is upstairs in the box room/office.

 

I have the opentherm wired into the boiler and it seems to be working fine apart from the low temps.

Ive the APP and that is working too.

I've not tried ECO mode as i wasn't sure what it did. 

 

Then as @SimonD said the important question is "is the house warm enough" with the current rad temps?

 

Opentherm is talking to the boiler - as outside temps get colder it will increase the flow temps accordingly to maintain the house temp (based on the room stat feedback and set point)

 

Leave ECO and comfort modes alone for the moment.

 

Are you running heating according to a schedule or 24/7?

[-rick-]

The dynamic adjustment of temperature via opentherm is one of the reasons I went this route and Wiser is fully dynamic in this. If I set my system to regulate temperature in my cold room (starting from cold) it will set the water temp to maximum until the room temp is within about 0.5C of setpoint and will then moderate it down to whatever it needs for steady state.

 

@gaz_moose I don't know how techie you are but if feel able to I thoroughly recommend setting up HomeAssistant and installing the Wiser plugin. It lets you see what's going on and understand your system better including how often your boiler cycles.

 

I'm not sure that Wiser is great at handling cycling when using opentherm. I suspect if your heating system is well designed then it should work ok but with mine (which is badly designed) it doesn't handle things great. I'm still working through how I want to manage this but you really want to avoid frequent cycling so if that's happening in your case then you may want to take extra steps. (If Home Assistant is a step too far, then standing in front of the boiler and watching it for 20 mins while the temp is steady state will show you how much it cycles).

 

An easy one that seems to work is to have the scheduler regularly adjust the set point up/down by 0.5C as the cycling seems to happen when very close to set point.

[gaz_moose]

it does heat the house to a warm temperature.

during the week its on a schedule, 2 hours in the morning then 4 hours in the evening. 

 

the house is 40 years old but the whole heating system is 3 years old.

 

I guess its just alien to me having the boiler bumbling along giving me luke warm radiators. Guess i am just used to the old method of it producing radiators hot enough to melt a Nazi's face off, then the boiler clicking off and giving me rads that slowly cool down keeping the room warm.

 

I had storage heaters once before and i was getting flashbacks of lukewarm heat sources.

 

My energy consumption seems the same as it was the start of the year with me just turning it on and off when i felt cold/hot which is what has me worried as outside temps in january/febuary are colder.

[SimonD]

1 hour ago, gaz_moose said:

My energy consumption seems the same as it was the start of the year with me just turning it on and off when i felt cold/hot which is what has me worried as outside temps in january/febuary are colder.

 

Your approach to the schedule will increase consumption as the boiler needs to run harder when it is turned on at the beginning of each heating cycle. But as long as the system is kept in the condensing zone - return below 54C - at all times, you will see a saving eventually. It's always worth experimenting with different heating approaches, like keeping it on tick over for the whole day with a night time setback and then see what happens, both to your costs and your comfort. Each house behaves differently so needs some testing.

[SteamyTea]

Bit late to this, but as I live on my own, and my home hours vary widely (and always have), I have tried most heating schedules.

For me, on E7 heating, the lowest energy usage is to just heat when I am in with a fan heater (my house is small and uses very little energy).

There is a problem with this method, and that is high relative humidity and condensation.  I manage this with ventillation, but is does need to be managed.

Until last winter I used my storage heaters (they work well as I set them up to work properly and despair at people at work who won't set theirs up properly).  This eliminated the condensation problem, and gives me an evenly heated house.  The financial cost was similar, so may go back to it after this winter.

Storage heaters, once set up correctly, deliver thermal energy in a similar way to a 'wet' heating system set to a low flow temperature.

Always remember that temperature is not energy, it is the way that it is delivered that is important.

[gaz_moose]

 

Back when it was cheap as chips i just used to leave it on low all day. I think if i did that now id be forced to just eat tap water all winter.

 

With this current Wiser setup i was just concerned with it sat ticking over at high 30's and the radiators being luke warm, As when the heating turns off im then left with cold rads and a cooling down house, Hence why i asked if there was a way to make it cruise along at a higher temp that still falls within the condensing boundaries.

 

I will watch to see what it does when the weather turns colder.

 

Maybe look into buying a Dehumidifier Mr Steamy Tea. Just watch for the operating temperatures as some only work well above 20 degrees. 

[marshian]

9 minutes ago, gaz_moose said:

 

Back when it was cheap as chips i just used to leave it on low all day. I think if i did that now id be forced to just eat tap water all winter.

 

With this current Wiser setup i was just concerned with it sat ticking over at high 30's and the radiators being luke warm, As when the heating turns off im then left with cold rads and a cooling down house, Hence why i asked if there was a way to make it cruise along at a higher temp that still falls within the condensing boundaries.

 

I will watch to see what it does when the weather turns colder.

 

It's very much house dependent and you have to find the fit that works for your needs, in harmony with the house and of course at a cost that you can afford.

 

I used to heat scheduled - there was a small benefit in terms of energy consumption but at the expense of hot period, cold period, hot period and a house that had internal temps that dropped rapidly when the hot period was stopped

 

Heating 24/7 the fabric of the house stabilises (let's say takes in a chunk of heat and that heat has a initial cost - I was seeing that during weekend heating when CH was on all day) and if the heating is stopped it gives it back and the house loses temp much slower than it previously did (without any insulation changes)

 

I've just started to play with set backs again and I'm finding that I'm getting better results.