Tado was working fine and now it's broken. Support are pointless. I need help please

Natnotgnat

My Tado system was working fine for 6 months. I have a Tado V3+ Wireless Heating and Hot Water Smart Thermostat Starter Kit on a Gloworm Flexicom cx combi boiler and 5 X basic smart thermostats.
On around 11 October all 5 thermostats no longer were working properly. When one radiator is turned on, even though the others say they are in off mode, all the radiators throughout the house are emitting heat.

I have replaced batteries and it has not fixed them. I have reset/recalibrated the devices and it has not fixed them. Again this is all 5 that all apparently broke at the exact same time. Working absolutely fine before.

I've been trying to contact Tado support for over a month. If I'm fortunate to get a reply (after multiple business days) it is not revelant to the issue (e.g. send me a photo of the boiler wiring??? I've not changed the wiring. It's clearly a software update gone wrong on your side or similar). And that will be the only message they send that day. They also even get my name and title wrong, referring to me as "Mrs".

Can anyone help me with the above issue with my Tado please? If it's not fixed by Christmas, I'm ripping the whole thing and it's going straight in the bin.

wateroakley

Hello @Natnotgnat Sorry to hear you are having issues with your Tado system and heating, It's unclear to me what is happening. I've copied @Emcee and @Rob to reach out to the support teams for you.

Rob

@Natnotgnat

I cannot comment on your interaction with out support team, as I have not read the conversation(s).

About the issues;

I looked at the tado account that shares the same email address as your forum account. In that account, I am also seeing that radiators of multiple rooms were getting hot when only one room requested heat. This means that the radiator thermostats were not closing their valves properly, so when the boiler was heating, hot water was allowed into all those radiator. As it's multiple devices at the same time and it's not a common problem with these devices, I think we can rule out a tado hardware error. So what did cause it then?

In principle it either means that the calibration of the thermostat is off OR the radiator valves themselves have issues. In the former case, when it's this many devices, this can only really be caused when the radiator thermostats were not mounted securely and they push themselves away from the valve. In the latter case, it is generally caused by a radiator valve pin that is somewhat stuck, possibly due to calcification. This, stuck valve pins due to calcification, is not entirely uncommon after a season of not using your heating (summer).

The first thing I did was re-calibrate the radiator thermostats. As that's the only real thing I can do from my side. I noticed that one failed the first time and only succeeded the second time. Which indicates it probably is one of the two scenarios I described in the previous paragraphs.

So, my advice to you is:

1. Check over the next day or so if my re-calibration helped. Is the issue solved? If yes, great! If not, go to step 2.
2. Set all rooms to OFF in the tado app. Wait at least 5 minutes and then check with your hands if the metal ring of each radiator thermostat is mounted securely on the radiator. It should not be loose.
3. If the metal ring is not securely mounted, the issue will have been the calibration. So you have to re-calibrate. Remove the entire radiator thermostat. Remove the batteries. Then, mount the mounting bracket with the metal ring securely on the radiator. Now, put the batteries back in and click the radiator thermostat on the mounting bracket. Observe your heating for a day or two. Did this solve this issue? If yes, great! If not, step 4.
4. This step is only needed if the radiator thermostats were already mounted securely before step 2 and the issue persists! If the metal ring was always secure, the issue is probably not tado but your radiator valves. Remove the radiator thermostat + mounting bracket entirely. Now, get a metal tool and gently press the metal pin of your radiator valve in as far as you can, and then let go. Repeat this a few times. Do you notice the resistance getting less after a few tries? You might also think about applying some creeping fluid (WD40? Not my expertise) to the pin of the radiator valve to help get rid of calcification. Now, remount the radiator thermostats again in the same way as described in step 3 (as in; remove batteries at first).

I hope this helps.

Rob

@wateroakley FYI (above)