New to Tado - advice appreciated

iant75

Hi I have spent some time looking at various radiator valves and thermostats and appears in my opinion, that Tado is better than Hive. I want build my system as I go along so looking for some advice please on best set up.

I am in a new build house built this year and have a Ideal Logic Combi esp boiler.(is open therm whatever that means) There are 2 wired thermostats - one upstairs in the main bedroom and one in the hallway.

It appears that the one in the hall operates the radiator in the lounge,kitchen,downstairs loo, hallway and the landing. The other one operates the bathroom ensuite and 4 bedrooms. I have purchased 3 radiator valves and the internet connection bridge. I bought this as the radiator in our room is i think what they call a return control valve.

I usually work from home in the bedroom and i have found that it stays warm in there but the upstairs rooms do not. The kids when back say there rooms are cool which means I have turn up the thermostat in our room to heat up the other rooms which then makes our room to warm (hope that makes sense)

So my thinking is to fit 3 of these TRVS to the other 3 bedrooms - would that work and be a success or would I need to buy more? The 2nd question is as I expand to a thermostat I would need the wired starter kit - but i dont need that extra bridge right or wrong? If I dont I cant see any item listed where i Can buy one without the extra bridge.

I also assume, that for the one upstairs I would then need an add-on thermostat but do i need a wireless one or just use another wired. The 2 zone thing slightly confuses me as on my exiting controls Danfoss TR2001 have no settings for 2 zones, rather simply there are 2 valves in the airing cupboard.

Appreciate any help with any of my questions.

policywonk

Hi. You state a couple of things. First: that one wall thermostat handles the lounge, hallway and landing; that another one handles the bathroom ensuite and 4 bedrooms.

Here's the first question. If you examine the plumbed CH supply coming from the boiler, do they route through two 2-WAY motorised valves, linked to the individual thermostats?

• One way to test this is to have two people on this: (i) find both two way valves (ii) turn both thermostats right down (iii) go the the ground floor thermostat and, with your friend helping, turn it right up - and then check on whether you can feel it open one, not both.
• Then repeat this for the other thermostat and second motorised valve. Does it prove to you that each thermostat clearly drives a valve and that valve responds?

If it does, we can assume that the motorised valves and thermostats function properly. If however those thermostats do not drive at least one motorised valve it may be that they are simply dumb triggers for heat, not actually zone controlling thermostats. You need to be sure about which mode they operate in before you do anything else.

Now, the next step is to balance the radiators so that they all heat up at the same pace, when heat is required.

• This video is easy to follow: How to Balance a Heating System - Leeds Plumber (youtube.com).
• All you need is a spanner and about an hour of time.
• Once you've balanced it once, wait for a day and then with both thermostats fully on, turn down the lockshield side of the radiators which are heating faster than the others. This will get rid of the heating imbalance between the different rooms.
• Note that so far all we are doing is ensuring that when a thermostat calls for heat, all the radiators driven by that stat warm up at the same pace.

Efficiency comes next. If there are rooms which are relatively unoccupied during the day, it is important now to fit smart TRVs on all radiators in those rooms- then it is a good idea to fit Smart TRVs on all radiators except the ones closest to the wall thermostats. You should be able to complete all this just with smart thermostats, wired or TRV and an internet bridge.

Spend time carefully setting the temperatures by time of day in your app. For about 2 months, perhaps once a fortnight, stop and see if you can improve the heating efficiency by studying the graphs and altering the settings again.

iant75

Thank you. That is really useful. I will try this tomorrow and see what happens.

I know when we moved in the first day we had an issue with one of these valves that stayed open and the heating was stuck on 23.

I assume therfore your assumption on the the 2 wall thermostats is correct. As said, I will try this tomorrow and update again

Thank.you for your reply so quickly