Wireless thermostat to act as dumb temperature gauge

pauld888

Hi all, I am looking for a solution to monitor the temperature in the garage where my boiler and hot water tank are located. I’d like to know when there’s a risk of freezing pipework and maybe also use the temperature to run an automation and alert me to the risk. I’d like to do this through HomeKit so today I purchased an Eve Weather in the sale. However, I don’t like it because it isn’t easy to see the temp readings in the home app, and I want a really obvious view on the home page, and the Eve cannot be set up as a favourite in the home app. So, this got me thinking, could I use a Tado wireless thermostat to view the temperature in the garage, but not do anything else? If I set it up as an Independant device in a new room I call the garage, so it will display the temp in the Tado and Home app, but not call for heat? Or is it not that simple and I could mess up the rest of my Tado system?

Thanks

Paul

johnnyp78

If you were to put a wireless temperature sensor in a separate room on the app and make it zone controller independent I think it should work, unless I’m missing something.

wateroakley

First, our boiler is in an unheated storeroom in the garage. It has a hard-wired frost stat and pipe stat. Does yours? If not, I’d strongly advise to install them.

Second, yes. Set as ‘independent’, a wireless room stat could simply monitor the temperature in the garage, a tile in the app, and connect to eg HomeKit. A freestanding TRV could do the same. If you are missing the wired frost protection, a wireless stat could be set to the zone controller and used to provide some frost protection. Can’t think of any downside on the rest of a Tado system.

pauld888

Thank you for your replies, will test this out today.

@wateroakley the boiler is a few years old (Vailllant ecofit pure) so I think it has frost protection but not sure about pipe temperature monitoring? How could I tell?

wateroakley

https://www.bes.co.uk/honeywell-home-frost-protection-kit-15164/

This is an example Honeywell frost stat and pipe stat. Our frost stat is on the wall in the boiler room and the pipe stat is clamped on the pipework. Wired into the wiring centre.

pauld888

I can confirm the wireless thermostat set as Independant does work and provides a visual reference the the garage temp through the tado app.

However you have got me thinking about frost protection and there is no frost stat or pipe stat in my garage. I therefore set the tado wireless stat as linked to the controller so it would call for heat, however it doesn’t. While the stat display shows the temp and heat being called the controller does not react. Any ideas why not? So the wireless stat is in the garage (and a room called garage on the app) next to the wired controller.

wateroakley

Strange. Assuming the wireless stat has been paired successfully ... possibly a) a configuration issue? Or b) the wireless room stat is too far from the internet dongle? Try bringing it indoors, nearer the dongle, and turn up the heat from there to see what happens? c) unhook a working smart TRV and take it out ot the garage, and see what that does?

pauld888

Thank you I will try that over the weekend.

wateroakley

Ps. If your boiler and pipework is in the garage, I’d strongly recommend fitting the hard-wired frost protection and checking the pipe insulation. Coming home to a lake of freezing water is not fun in January.