Heating on all the time since installing
We installed a Tado thermostat and 8 radiator TRVs in our home a couple months back. Since installing them we are finding that it is causing our boiler to be on most of the day (averaging 22 hours of the day).
The boiler is switching on to heat 1 room them once that’s up to temp, it switches off but then another room will switch it back on shortly after.
Our m3 usage has increased up to at least 10m3 per day of gas usage. We have all our radiator turned down to 12/13oC when we aren’t in them and only going as high as 18oC in the rooms we use.
I don’t think our boiler does not support opentherm, so I’m not sure if this is the issue and tado doesn’t work effectively without it but I’m really considering taking the valves off. Our bill went up by £200 gas since installing these valves.
Any help or advice would be appreciated!!!
Comments
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Sounds like you’re micro zoning. Set the rooms you use most to a comfort temperature and the ones you don’t to a slightly lower temperature. Make the setback temperature a couple of degrees lower than your comfort temperature (so about 14/16c in your case) and don’t change the temperature too much throughout the course of the day.
Increased energy use comes from turning the heat down or off in some rooms and only heating one or two. Unless you have excellent internal insulation, the rooms that are being heated just end up heating the ones where the heating’s set much lower.0 -
If the boiler is one for 22 hours, are you leaving the heating on overnight? If it's on all night, I'd be tempted say that Johnny is on the right track. You could also test the hypothesis by reducing the number of 'zones' and put the rooms as 'independent'.
December 2022 was the second coldest month in the past four years, at 3.42 deg C (mean CET). Only January 2021 was colder, at 3.23 deg C. Therefore an high usage of kWh for heating in December 2022 is not unexpected.
It's worth persevering. The first couple of months didn't make a huge difference, until we figured out what worked for our use of Tado: refining the settings/schedule, and routine use of geo-fencing. Now, Tado has helped us control and reduce our December gas consumption from a mean of 147 kWh per day (at the same mean CET) to 98 kWh. Our December billing month Tado gas usage at 3.32 deg C is equivalent to a pre-Tado usage at circa 7.5 deg C.
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Hi, thanks for your response!I think you could be right, I’ll certainly try that. I currently have all 8 working independently with no zoning…
I will try zoning some as you said that we use most of the time and then the bedrooms on a different zone for through the day.
Feels mostly pointless having them though when you zone them 😖 I’ll need to zone 5/8 probably to the same temp.
I realise it’s been cold but I don’t think your boiler should need to be on 22 hours of the day. We have ours kids bedroom set at 18.5 through the night to keep it consistent for them..so yeah I guess the heating is coming on for their room0 -
What are you hoping to achieve? It’s a lot of money to spend to end up burning more gas.
Have a look at Heat Geek where he says to stop turning off rads in unused areas. He also aims for zero zoning and I appreciate that’s an extreme, but he does show his workings.
A good start with Tado is having the thermostat and aiming for better efficiency. See if the boiler supports some kind of digital connection. If not, look at measuring flow and return temperatures with a view to dropping the flow temps for heating. These bits assume a Combi.
Having the heating system in a good state with working normal TRVs and have the rads balanced would apply to any system.
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Absolutely, my ultimate goal is to save money as they claim they do, and reduce the amount my boiler is on but it has had the reverse effect.
I don’t think my boiler will support a digital connection…it’s fairly old but a good boiler. I’ll take a look at heat geek….thank you!0
