TRV too far from Bridge? Eccentric boiler activity - any solutions?
Our system has just been installed by a professional.
He recommended it to solve the problem of having the centre of the house as hot as Hades and the two ends as cold as the Arctic. It isn't working - the bridge is in the middle and there isn't an option to move it. We rely on well-functioning Wifi extenders to provide wifi coverage throughout.
One end of the house is served by a wired satellite router, the other is served by a mesh. The TRVs function in the central hot section but not in the arctic ends.
Sometimes, it seems, the TRVs connect in the arctic ends - the Tado app responds to command - so if we switch zones in the arctic ends to frost setting, the app confirms frost but still shows 3 bars of heat, the boiler goes on, and the radiators are hot - it seems that the TRVs call for maximum heat at when set to frost / off.
We've now taken the Tado TRVs off the radiators in the Arctic (admins - if you see this, they are the rooms called Master's Chamber, Ghost, and Sitting). We've replaced them with the old pre-Tado TRVs and are considerably worse off than we were before we installed the Tado because we have less control over the heating throughout the house.
Yesterday, we switched off all zones and hot water but still the boiler kept firing up.
Far from saving fuel, we are helplessly watching the gauge on our oil tank plummet.
Please help !!!
Answers
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Welcome to tado!
From what I have read previously in these forums there is no official fix for your Bridge problem. You cannot add more Bridges and all tado will tell you is to reposition the Bridge. There are unofficial fixes, but none are supported by tado and there is no categorical proof they work, or, if they do, will continue to do so.
Sadly I am having to ditch tado in favour of an alternative for the reasons you state and more. It may be of some use for you to know that Drayton Wiser offer a system that works not unlike like tado but has extenders in the form of smart plugs which would solve your signal problems, but of course they don't work with tado. You plug one in equidistant between the Wiser HubR and the problem TRV and that "repeats" the signal. I'm guessing that could solve your issue.
Edit: The delays of turning the boiler on and off is also a tado known issue. You could have a search on the forums for that too, but from what I recall there's no fix beyond not using schedules that start at obvious times (on the hour etc.) better to use 5 to, or 5 past for example. I have tried this, but it makes no appreciable difference, it takes my system up to 5 minutes to react to the schedule I've set. From what I can recall its a server lag tado's end and I haven;'t read anything about them fixing this any time soon.
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Hello @Katharine Sorry to hear your installation does not cover the extremities of your home. There are a lot of factors at play. E.g. the size of your home and construction (stone, brick/block, wood, foil-backed plasterboard)? Have you installed Tado V3+ devices or Tado 'X'?
With V3+, the single Internet dongle can be problematic for radio coverage in larger homes. We have one radiator in the conservatory with a dumb TRV for this reason. The dongle can be moved to an optimum location using wires, or powerline devices, or wifi extenders with an ethernet port. Raising the height of the dongle (longer ethernet and usb power cables), and mounting the dongle vertically improves coverage for some users.
With 'X', this version is designed for larger homes. You can use multiple 'Thread border routers' with Tado or Apple devices.
Edit: Whilst we had only one room with radio coverage issues, it took three months of 2022 to figure out which settings/schedules worked well for us (the grey line on this chart). No promises that every user can achieve these savings.
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Thank you for this advice!
We have installed a V3 and are going to exchange it for an X, which I've just bought. Tado thread border routers aren't available in any Screwfix / Toolstation near us. Any idea where else we could get some, near SN16 or SN3 or BS6?0 -
@Katharine . A question, what boiler do you have in place right now and is it managed query dry switching, ie just on- off switching or through a digital control?
One can purchase Tado stuff online at screwfix for them to deliver to their closest branch, which seems to be Tetbury for you.1
