Tuen on boiler when upstairs room temperature drops below threshold

AndrewBrinded

Hi All,

I have four tado trvs upstairs, one in each bedroom plus more in most rooms downstairs; including extension kit etc.

I'm finding that in the evening some of the bedrooms can get quite cold as the night progresses.

The main thermostat is downstairs in the hallway, generally I find that the hallway reaches temperature before the bedrooms and the boiler then goes off causing the upstairs temp to drop.

I've got a couple of things in mind that I thought may improve this but wanted to reach out to see if anyone had any better suggestions.

1) buy a wireless temperature sensor and extend the hallway to the upstairs landing which would keep the boiler on longer.

2) purchase an iftt Pro subscription and trigger the boiler on by kicking the hallway on and up when the kids rooms temperature goes below a threshold.

3) the hallway being the main thermostat doesnt have a tado trv so guess i could tinker with, maybe offsets or even the manual valve on the hallway to keep it on longer?

I'm OK with option 1 above, i dont like number 3 and if I have to purchase a subscription thingy, I'd much rather it be a tado one .... but I don't think the auto assist package would help me in this endeavour, is that right?

Any suggestions/thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers
Andy

cbd20

Just to double check - the extension kit is definitely the zone controller for the hall?

If it's just a configuration of the thermostat that needs changing, you may be able to change that yourself from the installers menu of the thermostat, but I have to admit I don't know much about that. Tado support will be able to tweak that remotely too if necessary.

If it's faulty, then that's another story... But it seems like a configuration issue to me.

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AndrewBrinded

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, all Tado devices are the version3 variant and there is an extension kit hooked into the boiler (I think there was a new rev of the extension kit after i bought it, therefore I don't have that)

I bought the main starter kit package plus a pack of SRTs (sorry wrong acronym in first post). I also have the bridge, I guess I summarised a bit and ommited some details, sorry.

Yes, the main thermostat in the hallway is the one which controls the boiler.

I have seven rooms setup all together, 4 bedrooms, lounge, dining room and hallway. All rooms have the SRTs excluding hallway which has the control pad/thermostat.

Does this additional info help?

Cheers
Andy

cbd20

@AndrewBrinded in your configuration the extension kit is the device that's actually telling the boiler to fire - the so called "zone controller". It sounds to me like you only have the main thermostat in the hall able to request heat - i.e it asks the extension kit to fire the boiler when it needs it.

In the app if you go into Settings - Rooms and Devices - and then click on each room name, you can check what their configured zone controller is. If it's set to none, then that room cannot ask the zone controller (extension kit) to fire the boiler. If it's set to be the extension kit, then that room can directly ask for the boiler to be fired as and when it needs it.

In your case you probably want to ensure each of the rooms are able to directly request heat.

The thing to note here is any rooms that are not equipped with tado SRTs will also heat up too, so your hallway radiator will also heat up even though its thermostat is not requesting heat, because it has no way of switching that radiator off. There's a number of solutions to this bit:

1. Leave it and accept that in this new configuration the hallway will occasionally heat up even though its thermostat is not requesting heat.

2. Move the main thermostat into another room, say the lounge, to provide a more accurate reading in there, and leave the hallway to simply heat up when another room requests heat.

3. Add an SRT to the hallway radiator, so it will close when the hall is not requesting heat. WARNING: only do this if you have another way of ensuring a bypass radiator for the boiler - i.e a towel rail in a bathroom that can't be turned off. This is to ensure that if the boiler fires and all the valves mistakenly remain shut, that the hot water has somewhere to go.

AndrewBrinded

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time for put together the detailed write up and correcting my misunderstanding of how it all worked.

It appears as though something is not working as it should, I just assumed that was by design.

I have just checked the settings on each room and the zone controller is configured with the extension kit as their controller (confirmed by checking the serial number) so no issue there.

As for why only the hallway device will fire the boiler, I'm not sure; could this indicate an issue with the jumper in the extension kit or is there something else at play?

I highlight the jumper specifically because when it was installed, the jumper was not available and we had to request another be shipped; in the interim though the engineer put a workaround in place and we've not had time to revisit it.

We've had it installed for over a year and the boiler was bought at the same time. it's always been that the hallway needs to be on else the boiler won't fire despite the upstairs needing it.

Cheers
Andy

cbd20

@AndrewBrinded I'm wondering if the configuration of the system is not quite correct somewhere. I'm assuming that the thermostat in the hall replaced an original wired thermostat?

A complete guess, but I'm wondering if the main thermostat has been configured with its relay active, or it's faulty. So in other words it's breaking the circuit needed to fire the boiler boiler, so the boiler will only fire if BOTH the extension kit and thermostat relay are switched.

A test to perform:

Ensure the boiler isn't currently firing. Turn on the heating for the hall and you should hear the relay in the extension kit "click". Maybe get somebody to stand by the main thermostat and check if the relay in that "clicks" too... (It shouldn't).

Then turn it off again.

Then try turning up the heating in a room with an SRT, and check if the extension kit relay "clicks" (which it should if it's the zone controller for that room).

I believe if the configuration is correct the main thermostat relay will be permanently "latched", thus handing all control to the extension kit, so you shouldn't hear the relay in the main thermostat at all.

Like I say I am speculating a bit here...

AndrewBrinded

Hi,

Its funny you should say that, because the main hallway thermostat did indeed replace an existing one, so this does sound like a very possible cause.

I remember hearing clicks when the heating comes on but I've not made a mental note as to what does the clicking.

I will run that test later on when the kids are occupied and return with the results.

Thanks again for this info, update to follow :)

Cheers
Andy

AndrewBrinded

Hi,

We have just checked for clicks and you are indeed correct, the thermostat in the hallway does click.

Thank you for solving that puzzle for us, wish i had asked that question a long time ago now lol.

I'm assuming that we are going to need a sparky to checkout the relay? or do you know if tado have material either hardcopy in-box or online that i could follow?

Cheers
Andy

AndrewBrinded

Hi,

Confirmed the hallway zone controller is definitely set to the extension kit.

We have an electrician coming to do other works shortly, I'll probably get him to do a cursory check over it but raise a ticket with Tado support aswell.

Thank you very much for this information, will post here once resolved, as may help someone else in the future.

Cheers
Andy

AndrewBrinded

Hi,

Raised a ticket with Tado over the weekend, issue has just been resolved.

Just as you said, it was a configuration issue of which they were able to correct remotely.

Happy days, the only downside is the look that my wife gave me for not raising the issue sooner doh #facepalm

Cheers
Andy

cbd20

Excellent stuff, glad it's all sorted. Now you can use tado to its full potential!

AndrewBrinded

Hmm, seemed to simple, don't suppose you have any more pearls of wisdom? :)

Strangely, all the rooms are off but the boiler is still on. Rooms have been off a good 30mins but boiler is still lit.

The lcd panel shows a radiator icon and not a hot water one.

After a few searches on the forum, this seems common with no list of common causes except to contact support; ive just updated the ticket.

Wondering if this could be related to my jumper thing further up maybe.

Cheers
Andy

cbd20

That is strange, and not what I would expect at all. I wonder if as you suggest it relates to the jumper workaround that your original installer used...

Are you still in contact with them, to understand what they did to get it working in the first place?

AndrewBrinded

I've just provided more info and photos to the next level of support; will see what comes out.

In the interim, they have configured it back to how it was so the boiler isn't running all of the time.

Update to follow

AndrewBrinded

Issue has been resolved, appears to have been a two parter change needed.

1) The lack of the jumper meant that the boiler control was overridden by the boiler eng with a couple of short cables behind the Extension Kit to provide an always on position which is why we needed to use the hallway to control it; we physically removed these cables and installed the jumper.

2) The second change needed to be made by tado support was on the smart thermostat itself to allow the extension kit to be in charge; that's my interpretation as I don't really know what they did.

Thanks again for your support
Andy

cbd20

Good news, at least it's finally sorted now.