3 zones heating
I have one oil boiler with radiators and my existing panel controls 3 zones. One for ground floor, one for first floor and one for water.
I want to make it smart.
From what i found i can use todo started kid with 2 thermostats.
I have one boiler so i will control the use of the zones with the app.
But the water?
Everytime i switch on the heating i will also heat the water?
Is there a system with 2 zones?
Comments
-
In the UK all new build houses must have 3 zones. 1) Hot water 2) downstairs 3) Upstairs. Tado presently only have a 2 channel (zone) capability. The way round this is to connect the two heating zones together. i.e Zone 2 and 3 work at the same time. I asked Tado about this and its only really common in the UK. I asked if they were developing a 3 channel controller. Again I was told this is a UK specific requirement. What Tado dont know or dont care about is that UK customers, for new recent built houses, cant find someone to install the 2 Channel controller as they cant get their head arount taking a 3 channel system out and replacing it with a 2 channel system. Hive appears to be benefitting from this lack foresight from Tado. I would be happy to swap my 2 channel Tado controller for a 3 channel controller (I would buy it) simply as its more efficient to sent the hot water to a single zone rather than send it everywhere.
So in the UK Tado are have a reduce share of the people swapping heating controlls to a much more effecient system nad Hive is gladly picking up these customers.
1 -
The 3 channel heating is the same in Ireland. I just kept the original EHS controller and changed everything to Tado. I still have to operate hot water manually.
0 -
If you have TRVs on every radiator upstairs and down, wiring the two together is no issue - the respective radiator will call for heat when it opens the valve, the others won't. The only reason the UK has that rule is to make heating more efficient (heat two zones rather than one). With Tado that is obsolete as you can control to the room rather than the floor.
I actually do have two heating zones. One is controlled by a wired smart thermostat that connects directly to the boiler (the boiler allows for this) and controls the relay valve for that zone (reasons for this mostly due to having one big room with three rads / controlled already by a valve and cheaper to have just one thermostat else I could just use TRVs). The other zone has multiple TRVs that connects to the 2-channel receiver with Hot water controlled separated. I spoke to my plumber who helped me.
As it happens, I also have water based UFH zones all controlled by wired Tado thermostats. I will write a post one day explaining the system... but Tado is much more flexible that I think you realise.
0 -
So, you definitely can't replace the existing controller with a Tado Extension Kit/Wireless Receiver and retain the 3 zones through that as their devices only support 2 zones - CH & HW
However, IF you have wired dumb thermostats in the zones already controlling zone valves then you could replace those with Tado smart wired thermostats to retain the control of the valves while adding Tado capabilities. You would need to replace the current controller with an Extension Kit/Wireless Receiver to switch CH and HW on/off OR, you could leave it in place and just not have the remote control of HW
I beleve you could also add individual smart TRVs in the zones and set the respective smart thermostat as the zone controller so you would then have indvidual room control
0 -
@Don___ You have a valid point about a lack of 3 channel controllers, but Hive are not benefiting over Tado. Hive do not sell a 3 channel controller. Like Tado they have a 2 channel device to do CH & HW. To replace a 3 channel controller with Hive or Tado devices is a professional installation and not a DIY task - significant change to the wiring. The DIY solution for both Hive and Tado is to use radiator thermostats for multi zone.
0 -
I agree with thefern and davidlyall comments.
There is quite a lot of flexibility with Tado, a lot of which you do need to speak to support to take advantage of. When we installed it about 6 years ago, it was only Tado that could cope with the UK setup of 3 zones (heating x2 + water).
Our setup is as follows: Zone 1 (Downstairs) and HW was wired with a normal 2 channel controller with a remote thermostat. I replaced this with the extension kit, and a tado thermostat which connects wirelessly.
Zone 2 (Upstairs) had a programmable thermostat, which I replaced with a Tado one.
Support then did some configuration behind the scenes to get it to work.
We then added programmable TRVs to most rooms. I did need to ask support to associate it to the correct zone.
Therefore if a bedroom requires heat, it triggers Zone 2. If our living room needs heat, it triggers Zone 1.
It has worked brilliantly for years. The only issue I tend to have is the rate of batteries the TRV consumes, and I had a botched upgrade moving hubs, so I think I'm still on original one, which works fine.
0
