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Which smart thermostat?


pudding

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Hiya. I've just bought a commuter crash pad/2bed flat for when im at work away from home. I work a fixed pattern of 5 days on/4off/5 on/3 off. The work hours vary completely too so there's no way to schedule the heating to heat the flat when i'm actually there.

At the moment, it's got a recent (3yr old) Ideal combi-boiler, which is set to always on. This is then connected to a 7 day Horstmann Centaurstat 7, which is a simple 6 point timer for each day of the week. The always on on the boiler is fine, as the hot water is just on demand so nothing wasted there, but the heating via this thermostat is heating the flat a lot when im not there.

I could just turn the thermostat effectively off via the time setpoints, and override when im actually there, but then i'd constantly be coming back to a cold flat. Ideally I want to replace the thermostat with something smart, that I can either access remotely from my phone in advance of going to the flat, or perhaps by geolocation when i get within 5/10miles to get the heating on. And also would have some kind of away/holiday mode and a fall/setback temperature.

Any recommendations on what to replace the thermostat/timer with, as there seems to be tons out there from fairly basic simple and cheap stats that might do what i need, to the top of the range such as Nest etc which as supposed to recognise your habits/routines etc (but which would be completely wasted in my situation i guess?)

Cheers.

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HOw often are you there and how well insulated is it?

 

Is it an option to run it at a constant temperature, perhaps even a bit below what you need and boost it when you are there, at nearly zero cost rather than buying lots of control technology? COuld you improve that flat to make that a viable alternative?

 

I have known people who had 2 or 3 bedroom flats in cities, and rented out the rooms except one which they kept for their own use. IN that case you could be a live in landlord renting out a spare room or two under the spare rooms allowance i.e. tax free up to I think 7.5k, and help solve the housing crisis!

 

F

 

Edited by Ferdinand
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We use this: https://www.tado.com/gb/. AFAIK it doesn't have advanced programming options to mimic your pattern. But using a smartphone you can activate the heating remotely to your heart's content. Not cheap when combined with motorised radiator valves but quite impressed by how it works.

 

Edit to add: it can also be set up to turn on the heating when your smartphone comes within range and the range can be set to a number of tolerances.

Edited by Dreadnaught
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Hi, thanks for quick replies.

 

Journey is about 2hrs to the flat, which is actually a 2 bed coach house, so nobody above or below to help with passive heating me :( I live in Cornwall, flat is in Weston, work is Bristol. Journey to work from crash pad is about 25mins say.

 

How often am i there? Well, bit tricky, but on my 5 days or work there, either 5 are early shifts, so im out of the house from 5-6am and home 3-4pm, and the other 5 days are lates and im out of the house from 12-2pm and home 23-01 on average. Prob not going to work heating it constantly. It's 15yrs old, and i guess building regs minimum. The spare room was intended for my family to come and stay at weekend/school hols when im there, but will see how that goes with regards to renting it out.

 

Tado was one that i thought looked ok. Does it need motorised rad valves? I thought it was just a thermostat/timer replacement that will work with my current TRV's and old current thermostat/timer, and just turn on the boiler when it demands either via program/internet activation/geolocation? Was the range setting within the app, or was it via IFTTT?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by pudding
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2 minutes ago, pudding said:

Tado was one that i thought looked ok. Does it need motorised rad valves? I thought it was just a thermostat/timer replacement that will work with my current TRV's and old current thermostat/timer, and just turn on the boiler when it demands either via program/internet activation/geolocation?

 

I suspect you are right but I did not set up our system so I am not sure it needs motorised valves. We have them. They are not fully silent — you hear a distant whirr — but its impressive at fine tuning room temperatures. The biggest advantage by far is the ability to remotely monitor and change the heat state. Even changes to the on/off timer programmes can be made remotely, which might suit you well.

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Tado will work with standard rad valves and a normal boiler setup. It has the ability to be extended to do other zone control etc but sounds like in your situation it would be fine. 

 

I fitted a Hive for someone and it was pretty tidy - straight onto the backplate and the only issue was I needed a cover plate for the other side of the box as it’s only a single gang receiver. 

 

The downside was trying to get WiFi / Hub sorted - it was easier to connect the hub to the router with a longer Ethernet cable then move it back to where it was going to live as with it close to the router to start with the stat was very iffy. Also had to play around with the firewall settings on the router (TalkTalk iirc) as it kept blocking the connection. 

 

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