Why won’t my thermostat trigger heating

JenyaGh

Hello all, new to this completely. We inherited this device when we purchased our property. So as you can imagine, none of this came with an instruction manual and we have had to figure it out ourselves. We have something connected to the boiler, a wireless thermostat and the internet bridge. When we moved in, the thermostat was connected through a cable to the old router that was connected through a cable in the wall even though there was no Wi-Fi. Through the thermostat we would control heating and water and it would work fine. Yesterday we changed the water on the device in the morning, new Wi-Fi came and I connected the bridge to the new router and did not try the heating or even look at it. All the lights were on and everything was connected ok. Towards the night, we went to turn the heating on, and Tado shows that it is on, however all the radiators are freezing. We have plenty of hot water though, to the point that it is boiling. The water tap on the thermostat has also stopped showing, so we are unable to turn the water down too.

We tried re connecting and restarting, speaking to the bot, followed by technical support which still has not got back. It is absolutely freezing in the house and non stop rain outside. We are loosing the will to live and not sure about what went wrong or how to work this device.

I see a lot of people have had similar issues but we don’t know how to fix, we are unsure who to contact to help as no clue who would have even set it up. Is it a plumber? Boiler expert? Electrician?

As mentioned, read a couple of posts but the information goes over my head as I have never heard of this devise, my last place didn’t have a boiler, and generally lost.

Please help 🙏🏻

wateroakley

@JenyaGh Yep, getting the heating system to work with smart controls can be confusing for new users. It’s a mix of old and new, 1980s central heating and 2020s tech, wires and wireless.

In order to try to help, please tell us what you have in your home. Post a description and photos of your Tado devices, thermostat, dongle, wireless receiver, trvs, etc. same question for the boiler inc make/model, S or Y plan valves. Internet provider and router model, etc.

Also kindly explain what you mean by new Wi-Fi? Have you replaced your broadband provider? or router? or something else?

JenyaGh

Apologies, but how do I add photos?

johnnyp78

Use the desktop version of the forum for photos - on an iPhone press the AA button at the top.

JenyaGh

Well, we have a development now from yesterday, I deleted all the devices appart from the bridge on the app and re added them in and then it all started to work. We put the heating on 25 to boost the house with some warmth and have tried to reduce the heating since to 17 etc and now even off, and the radiators are not turning off. There is still no water slide on the thermostat anymore just heat. Tado is a paint dip nightmare. I will upload photos shortly

jimmy68_mc

I have recently installed this Tado system on my Baxi combi boiler system and have struggled with getting heat out of my boiler system since . As it caps the max temp at 25 degrees . You would think that would be sufficient.
But being a medical electronic engineer with some knowledge of how thermostats work I decided to place my smart thermostat in the coldest place in the house this is the landing area.
And drive the heating at a higher temperature setting .
I have noticed like other users I’m getting a 2 degree discrepancy on the smart thermostat that feedback the temperature of the room it is placed in . So with it showing that higher temperature than it actually is the room is going colder as it has to get to the set temperature value before the Tado controller activates the relay to switch in the boiler system.
I am liasing with Tado support which is not Brilliant at all especially with it being a German company I expected better as the chat bot and hours of chat response is dire . No direct line of communication with a human on phone . But a lot of companies are going down this rout of support.
My advice to other users is to place the smart thermostat in the coldest area of the house or flat, set the room temperature on your phone app to 2 degrees higher than you would like it , ie, if you want your room at 21.5 degrees set the app to 23.5 this way you are most likely to get the 21.5 degrees to want this should be done on your schedule setting as night time temps can be set at a different level so set your times for your schedule and the target temps you want it at but add 2 degrees to that. If you want to boost the temp for an hire or more click the room temp on the app push the slider up or to max 25 degrees along the bottom it will show a time line for your settings made that can be set for 30 minutes or several hours and then it defaults back to your schedule settings .
If that does not work for you have it removed from your boiler system.
The app is useful for turning down the heating whilst your not there in the house saving on gas and turning it back up again either manually before returning home so your house is coast when you walk in your home. Alternatively use the geofencing which uses the GPS on your phone and will schedule it do do the later automatically. But be aware it will use your mobile data when out and about so if you don’t ant to use that use it manually or make the adjustments on open WiFi . I have not check this operation and also I don’t know if a VPN security on your phone turns on on open WiFi to encrypt your communications this may not work with the VPN . I intend to try it on my phone in near future .
Good luck everyone hope this blog helps others .
Ps I’ve checked my own system thermostat by using a calibrated temperature probe and a standard thermometer and forwarded my findings to Tado I’m awaiting their reply on the subject and will blog again when I get a respective reply .

roycruse

I'm not sure what issues jimmy is having but I have a 4 zone 6 rad valve Tado system and all the rooms in my house are kept within 0.5 of a degree Celsius of the temperature I have set in that room very little in the way of overshoot (0.5degree max) and virtually no undershoots.

So I would absolutely say do not set any thermostats 2 degrees above the temperature that you want. You've obviously designed your system incorrectly if your central heating is not hitting the exact temperature you've asked for.

For the OP... Tado is a very modular system so we would need to know what you have - there are wired and wireless thermostats, smart rad valves, a controller that connects to the boiler, the wireless bridge that lets it all talk to the internet etc.

I'm assuming you have access to the Tado account so you can log into the web page control panel or the app on your phone - its fairly obvious in there what "should" be happening.

there should be a screen in there that lists all the components you have like this

If I know what kit you have i might be able to help ???

If you just want it sorted by someone external your going to need a central heating installer not a plumber or electrician (although they may also be one or both of those) and youll need a modern one who understands smart thermostat systems not an old school mechanical thermostat guy...

kevinshepherd

Depends on how your rads are situated. If like mine they are recessed and in some cases behind a cover , then even the offset isn’t really enough as the thermostats will get an exaggerated reading of the room temp due to the fact that they are on top of the heat source (ie. in the hottest part of the room). Like many TRV users I originally disabled them from calling for heat and just used the smart thermostat which is on the wall as the only device that can actually “call for heat” but it’s not ideal as I might actually not want the hallway to be hot but the bedrooms at night and that’s the fundamental flaw of the standard Tado setup. If you’re willing to cough up £90 per room for the Tado external wall mounted wireless sensors probably the problem can be solved but I , like many users in this predicament already have a perfectly good set of thermostats from Xiaomi at 1/5th of the cost , super accurate and discreet - but Tado won’t talk to them (not even via Home hub). If you’re a techy and can program in python or whatever creating some kind of api interface between the two you might be able to get them to talk (that was beyond me). Otherwise it’s pay for the mega expensive Tado ones or do what I do which is (as was suggested earlier) compare the reading from the independent stat with the Tado one and up the temp on the TRV till you get the wall stat (real room temp) to get where you want it. Means in my case - I want the room at 19 - I have to set the TRV to 24 (even maxing out the offset to -9) to match the real room temp. Still not ideal and honestly shame on Tado for charging so much for such a simple device that Xiaomi manages to sell for 20£ (I realize they’re made in Germany and not China - but come on guys…)
Hope this helps . Kevin

roycruse

I dont agree that bodging the temps like that is a viable work around to just buying wall stats... I 100% agree that they are overpriced at £100 a pop - I want 2 more for my setup but am patiently waiting for a second hand one to appear on ebay or a sale somewhere...

The correct way to get correct control over your temps is to have 1 wall thermostat per zone and a rad valve on each radiator in that zone pointing at the wall stat for that zones temp.