TRV call for heat but open with a delay causing my boiler to get in to an error state.
Hi,
Since I added more TRV's to my system I am having problems. When all TRV's are closed and one TRV is calling for heat I can see my boiler display working and hot water is being created. I can hear my bypass opening. After a couple of minutes my boiler gives an error(hot water returning is to high -- no radiator can remove heat from the water, they are all closed --).
My boiler recovers after a couple minutes and starts again. Now it seems that the TRV that called for heat is open and the system works as expected.
To debug this is, i removed a TRV from a radiator. Now when a TRV is calling for heat(I see 1 wave in the app) the radiator with no TRV is getting hot. Only after about 5-10 minutes the radiator with the TRV that called for heat opens up. This is an energy inefficient work around!(We need to save co2, ect:P)
I am only having this issue when maintaining a temperature( -> 1 or 2 wave lines activity). When the heating starts in the morning (full power 3 wave lines) everything seems to work.
Is there a setting I can set to make sure there TVR that is instructing the boiler to generate heat to be open before sending out the instruction?
Answers
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Yeah I seen similar issue that the SRT communicated with the controller (wired thermostat), then the thermostat ask the Zone valve and pump to turn on (I'm on district heating). When the pump turn on the pressure on the HIU spike (as there isn't any TRV/SRT open yet) then after a few seconds the SRT open and the pressure drop. I'm wondering where Tado do it in this order. Why not open the SRT that asking for heat then communicate with the thermostat and at the end thermostat ask the HIU to turn on its pump. When closing it should be there other way round that SRT will communicate with the thermostat and thermostat will turn off the HIU pump then SRT will close the TRV.
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Same question here.
I hear the boiler running for more than 10 mins, pipes are hot, but radiator not.
It mostly happens when trying to keep a constant temp at night or when the demand is low (increase the temp by max 1 degree). While if there is a big heat demand, the valves open properly at the same time as the boiler starts.
When the boiler is running and the valves are closed, the boiler goes on loop for a long time. Switching on and off continuously.
I am afraid this can damage the boiler and it is definitely not saving costs.
Anyone from tado?0 -
Same issue overhere. Bought a separate wireless tempmeter a 79 euro's! (Tado) to hopefully overcome this issue.
But it is not. Stupid me. I had the idea it was some kind of connection issue, but the demand is there in the first place, so connection is there. Any idea's? I will send a message to Tado also
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Same issue, especially within 0.5 degrees or so.
Requests heating the water but doesn't open the valve, that doesn't really make much sense.
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After quite some time, the issue was solved by customer support/engineering team.
Apparently a new Firmware update to all my valves caused the issue.
In order to improve battery lifetime, the new fw was opening less the valve and not enough water was entering the radiators.
The customer support was able to recall that firmware version and install a new one (or reinstall the previous one) by remote. The new firmware fixed the issue immediately.
I would suggest to contact customer support and push for a solution. In my case only the engineering team was able to solve the issue, while the first line of support did not know or could not help.
Good luck!0 -
@Ale500 interesting - many thanks. Do you know what the firmware versions is/was?0
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Ah, that's very interesting because it ties in with my post:
I have noticed the boiler running more and the radiators taking more time to achieve the room's target temperature recently. Could you tell us what firmware your TRVs have been put on to resolve the problem ?
Thanks and best wishes, Hugh
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I checked in old pictures and I think the same FW version is installed now (Firmware 93.1).
Sorry I took for granted (without checking) that the FW was changed, but instead only certain settings have been modified by the Tado eng. team keeping the same FW version.
This is the mail I received after the second and successful attempt:
Hi Alessandro,
Thanks again for your messages. We recently changed the behavior of the valves in order to save battery life and further improve the heating system's efficiency. The change works for almost all valves, your type of valves is an exception to that.
On wednesday we changed the settings for all your valves so they open further already at lower heat requests. Unfortunately the changes we made were not sufficient until now. Just now we again changed the behavior and I'm positive they work as intended now.
If you again have the problem of a radiator not getting hot, please let us know.
Big sorry for the inconvenience and have a great (and warm) day ;)
Florian
I hope it helps
Alessandro
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Thank you Alessandro, best wishes :^)0
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Wow finally, thank you Alessandro.
Im also on Firmware 93.1 and told the helpdesk i want the same solution they gave you
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All my TVRS where on 93.1 when i noticed the problem. Since i have now just removed 1 tvr so my heating system does not get in to error state(water returning to hot) i dont know if the problem is fixed now.
In the screenshots it visible that the tvr is calling for heat at 09:35, but the rise is registered at 10:01,
The radiator is first in the loop and is getting hot water almost directly..
on the screenshots you could also see that the delay is not fixed, it changes everytime.
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@fbenniks i don’t think it is FW version related, but just parameter settings. I would suggest to contact tado support and ask them0
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Since the heating came back on this autumn I've been noticing this as well for low heat calls. Batteries all report fine, radiator pins are moving smoothly - but the TRVs do not appear to be budging unless the call for heat is medium or sometimes high. Most annoyingly it doesn't appear consistent. Sometimes they're working fine. Boiler currently set to a fractionally higher flow rate than I had it in december last year and I can tell from touch when the radiators are working correctly and getting 'low' heat.
I do have a support chat open and ongoing now, but it might be worth folk keeping an eye on your room charts. I'm seeing things like the boiler firing for an hour before the room temp goes up or a temp drop is arrested - then other times its on low for 15 mins and the temp is on the way back up, when its the same temp or less outside. Not good. My kwh usage has doubled from last October and we're only on the 10th, I'm going to need to take some drastic scheduling action to allow the house to get cold before it tries to heat until this is sorted out.
If anyone's got any ideas for things I could try myself I'm all ears - have checked and even replaced batteries to be on the safe side, have checked boiler pressure, flow temp, all the radiator pins are moving freely.
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The problem is the implementation tado have done doesn't work with an actual heating system in reality. The proper normal valves have more flow more of the time and aren't programmed so they are stone cold in rooms asking for heat.
To reduce the issue I have slowly unscrewed the Tado on the mount which forces a higher minimum amount of flow so it can't turn the radiator off totally. It is slightly better but it is noticeable that the rest of the house ends up being a much higher temperature than the room with the TRV as it takes so long to heat because the tado doesn't turn on the radiator valve in that room. A few years ago when I first had the TRV I'm sure it wasn't this poor.
I would think if you unscrewed more of them to allow a minimum amount of flow you would also find it actually worked as it should. In the pursuit to avoid over shoot Tado have made a system that will stay on for ages because the radiator wanting heat never gets it. When the heating is on and you know it's warm then unscrew it until some warmth is felt. Then leave it like that and see how things behave. If the radiator is stone cold when the room is below temperature then unscrew a bit more. You want a bit of an overshoot to allow for heat loss as then the heating stays off longer so it's not wasted. If you have it too tight then it's on/off on/off all the time.
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Wouldn't that just mean when on radiator calls for heat they all get some? That's defeating the point somewhat I feel.
If I don't get an actionable response out of tado soon I might do it anyway mind cos it's better than the radiator firing for an hour and only the release radiator warming up0 -
I'd only do it on radiators that ask for heat but don't get enough. Any that do get enough don't need it. I unscrewed it about half a turn at a time over days and kept checking how much heat there was. The adjusted radiator still doesn't get hot hot. It's mostly luke warm if it's close to the set temperature. It's stopped the heating being on for hours for a radiator that is getting no heat which is far worse to me than just letting through a minimum amount.
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Fair. In my case I really want Tado to get to the bottom of it: the problem is not consistent. SOMETIMES a radiator clearly does open even on low heat, you can see the temperature of the room (or the downward trajectory of the temperature start to flatten out) within 5-10 mins of low heat call. Other times it just sits there for an hour, maybe more, and when you look at the chart later you can see there's a point where the room suddenly climbs in temperature and ten mins later the TRV shuts off.
It's as if the the TRV *thinks* it's moved so it's "relaxed" but it takes a while for the water pressure to build up and force it's way through. Other times that self-same radiator will be totally fine for a number of cycles in a row.
I have:
Checked rad pins are moving freely on all the radiators - they are.
Checked boiler pressure - its fine
Checked flow rate - it's not as cool as I'd like, at 65 degreed, but I daren't go to proper low and slow till I can be confident the TRVs are working
Checked TRV batteries -all green, all good, they were replaced over the summer whilst the heating wasn't on anyway.
Done a full reset of most of the TRVs to see if it made a difference over the next couple of days (it did not, so I have not bothered to do this with the remaining radiators)
It's really annoying - the pipes near the radiator are not getting warm, but you can tell there's hot water in the system because:
A: Release radiator warms up - and if its a low heat call from somewhere else in the house it only gets warm, so I know the modulation and other stuff is working.
B: As soon as the TRV does open even a little bit, the pipe gets hot within a minute or so.
When the TRVs are working fine you can absolutely tell, because the pipe gets hot quickly whilst the radiator only warm - noting that the radiator still warms quickly.
Basically, when the TRVs are working responsively they are absolutely fantastic. But that once or twice a day when a given TRV doesn't work right... it costs me over an hour of gas use.
I've actually now been and set all the schedules into 30 min/2 hour blocks now: the 30 min blocks are set to the temp I want +1 degree, the 2 hour blocks several degrees below that to allow the house to cool, and make it more likely the TRVs will call for higher heat initially when the next 30 min block arrives, and if it doesn't work will shut off again after 30 mins to make sure I'm not wasting gas, and if it causes a problem I'll have to boost the heating in that room manually.
This should - we'll see after a day or so - mean that the valves kick in properly and that whilst the boiler will then fire on full for a bit, at least all the rads will kick in at the same time so I'll get most efficient use out of it.
But it's no longer a smart system at all: just a very granular timer for each radiator, I can't rely on the smart features until Vinny from customer services picks up my chat again - he's not responded since Monday (during which time my problem persisted - that's why this morning I've re-granulated my schedule. Yowza what a pain. 2022 and we can't even get radiator orchestration right).
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Mine is similar. The pipe to the radiator is cold but all the others without Tados are warm. Also sometimes you can feel the pipe is warm the CH side but it's then much cooler on the radiator side as the valve is reducing the flow.
I have a bigger radiator where the TRV is and the main house is having to heat well over the target temperature to get that room warm when it should actually be heating up first and would do if the valve opened properly.
Undone it a bit more.
I'm probably going to take the TRV off and go back to a normal one as I'm fed up of it not working sensibly.
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Last chance saloon. Still doing the stone cold radiator thing while demanding heat so I have turned off the zone controller for it so it's independent. Going to see if that makes it behave differently. It also gives the option of turning up the temperature to allow the room to get warmer but not allowing it to keep turning the heating on and off so much.
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Have you tried the solution that Alessandro suggested back in January in this thread?
I would be interested to know if it had any effect.0 -
Undoing it on the base so more flow is the minimum is close to having the valves set differently. It rings vague bells as something that might have been changed but possibly within an original TRV and not a replacement.
I have a vague idea Tado support suggested undoing it on the mount to set a higher minimum open level as well. It's crude but easy and lets you experiment.
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I have the same issue as yours, 5 out of 5 TRVs show they are heating on low heat but in reality they are still shut, and the radiators are freezing cold, which I would understand if the difference between rooms temperature and set temperature was 0.1-0.2 degrees, but the difference was a whole 2 degrees.
I messaged support and got the following response:
"Hi,
There is not much we can do about this unfortunately.
Since it is all your devices, it means that this is just how tado works. Not a hardware issue that we can replace a single device.
What have I done? I have now re-calibrated all your devices. You can do this yourself by taking out and putting back the batteries. Maybe this helps.
Otherwise, there is not much we can do."
Not sure what to do now! basically I paid £520 for a system that is designed to not work...
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@johnbur "Have you tried the solution that Alessandro suggested back in January in this thread?
I would be interested to know if it had any effect."
I have asked the support person I'm chatting with if the % the valve in the smart TRV moved for low heat can be adjusted. I await a response. They did suggest they could set it so the central system ignores calls for low heat but I mean... without knowing what will cause the thing to call for moderate heat that just means the room waits an hour longer for heat - which is more or less what my schedules have now had to be set at, so the temperatures now osscilate between 17 and 19-20 (cos it always overshoots) during 'heating periods', in truth its only set to 19 for 30 mins, then there's a 2 hour break set to 17 before another half hour at 19 - basically dumping heat and letting it cool, dumping heat and letting it cool.
Not the 'low and slow' heating I envisaged being able to acheive, I must say. If they can't sort this, I'll be going back to standard TRVs for all the radiators that heat the most used parts of the house.
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I've turned my TRV onto the independent mode. It now gets stinking hot and over shoots instead of being stone cold and the heating never going off!
I didn't move the TRV from the 4 or more turns up ie more open position. It did recalibrate itself. I suspect if I turn it back down it will find a gentle equilibrium like the normal cheap TRVs manage 🙄 Because it doesn't get heat when it first asks it ramps up the request even though when it has the power to request heat and turns the heating on and still doesn't get heat it's too thick to open further. It just sits there closed. It's bizarre.
No sensible person can defend a radiator that stays cold when it is requesting heat.
There is clearly something very wrong with the way these TRVs work.
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Hi @srichards
Could you post a pic of your "rogue TRV" on the radiator ?? 🤔0 -
You can't really tell by looking that it is any different. Depends on how long the mounting thread is. It could just be the case that Tado assumes so many turns and that in reality there are variations but the normal TRVs don't care as much.
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It does not sound like a tado° SRT to me, so can you post a pic please ?? 🤔0
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I'd think Tado themselves would be selling real Tado SRTs...
All reference to smart TRV is the tado one. I have only the one installed. The rest of the house as normal non smart TRVs. This Tado SRT is the one I've been meddling with. It's the rogue one. The normal dumb TRVs function properly. This Tado SRT is hopeless in comparison.
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OK @srichards
I didn't mean to get you annoyed.....I will "get me coat" and bow out of this conversation....sorry if I wasted your time.0 -
I did think you initially meant whether there was something odd about the way it sat on the pipework which was a reasonable thing to ask about!
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