UK | Tado Frost Protection + Home Insurance = Not fit for purpose
I've just discovered that Tado frost protection defaults to a 4ºC.
Most UK home insurance policies insist that a home is heated to 12ºC to avoid burst pipes (e.g. those hidden under suspended floors in older properties).
There is no way to change this setting. If you manually turn off your heating and manually set the temperature to 13ºC, it will revert to 4ºC the next time you enable/disable heating. Tado support have told me that this is 'software defined' and can't be changed (surely anything that is 'software defined' can be changed?).
That means that pretty much all UK Tado users would be left unable to claim on their home insurance if they were relying on Tado frost protection to avoid burst pipes.
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This is good to know, as a work around if I’m going to be away for several days and the temp is below freezing I will manually set all rooms to 12 degrees. Obvs this is only a work around and it would be good for the frost protection temperatures to be set by the user0
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As a work around set your "Away" min temp to 12˚c, and manually set your system to "Away", I agree this should be a user defined setting.
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@andyblac - that’s a much better work around than the one I posted above0
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When you say 'most' do you have any names to provide?
Water begins freezing at 4°C. This is why the minimum setting on any modern heating control is 5°C. The freezing process is completed if the water temperature is at 0°C. Water won't freeze @ 12ºC, at 4 °C water is still in its liquid form! therefore 12ºC limit and burst pipes don't really go hand in hand :-)
Modern boilers (example Ideal) are fitted with frost protection that operates in all modes, provided the power supply to the boiler is always turned on. If the water in the boiler falls below 5ºC (same limit as tado°) the frost protection will activate and run the boiler to avoid freezing.
Tado° is just another security layer over boiler's protection, not a standalone solution.
If you need to keep a constant temp set up one constant temp block - something similar to what @andyblac suggests.
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Tado is following the UK default Frost Protection temperature of 5c. I've just check my old Honeywell thermostat and the lowest temp is 5c. Does that mean majority of insurance policies are void.
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You won’t find that the majority of policies state this. I’d be surprised if any U.K. home policies do.
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@rafm5 I think the 12 degrees was a requirement of many home insurance policies a few years back. I certainly remember having it as part of the terms and conditions of some policies in the past.
When I first got tado a few years back I had a policy that did require 12 degrees min temp so I simply did as @andyblac suggested and set my away temp to 12 degrees.
I think it's less to do with burst pipes, but more about keeping damp etc at bay which obviously can damage a property. Obviously with the side effect that it'll definitely also protect from frozen pipes.
My current insurer has a "recommendation" to keep the property heated to a minimum of 12 degrees, but it's not a requirement of the policy. Looking online the only example I found now was AXA, which requires a minimum temperature of 10 degrees and they explicitly state this.
I think most insurers have replaced the explicit figures with a more generic sweeping "catch all" statement that the owner is required to keep the property maintained/ in a reasonable state of repair - which is woolly enough to suit an insurance company perfectly.
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@chatmandu what is even worse is that if you are away (and your heating system is not calling for any heat) and your internet goes down for whatever reason then your heating system will never call for heat even if the temperature drops below freezing with the obvious result.
If you have a tado system then YOU MUST provide an alternative method of frost protection for your house.
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@cbd20 I think the AXA 10 degrees Celsius policy is more for commercial use (residential rental)
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