General set-up question
Hi, I have just installed TRVs on all my radiators apart from the towel rail in the bathroom. Initially I turned off the zone controllers as I was finding that the heating was randomly turning itself on and off. However, I want to be able to turn on individual radiators when I want to.
My plan is this: turn on the zone controllers in the rooms I want to be able to control individually; keep it off in the rooms I don't want to control individually.
So then if my son says he's cold in his bedroom and I turn the radiator on the only other rad that will come on is the towel rail in the bathroom.
My question is, is that the right way to do things?
Answers
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Hi. The notion of controlling each room's radiators fully does work well at the charity's facility which has11 bedrooms, three kichens, four lounges. People keep moving around a lot so demand varies in each room considerably every half hour. It should work for you.
We deliberately dont use smart TRVs in bathrooms, just mechanical ones, because humidity dramatically affects everybody's Smart TRVs adversely. In addition bathrooms need towel rails to be carefully heated, Smart TRVs arent as good as mechanical ones in those settings.
It is important to arrange for heat to flow smoothly around the home and to minimise the number of motorised zones, because the more zones you have the more complicated it becomes to moderate heat through the house. It is important to adopt automatic bypass valves with each zone, so that when there is no demand your boiler isnt forced to lift heat throughout the building.
Would you describe your home more fully?
- What specific boiler in place?
- How many CH zones?
- Are these controlled by motorised zone valves?
- Are the zone valves switched individually by wired Tado thermostats?
- How many rooms with each specific zone?
- Does each zone have an automatic bypass valve in place so that as the radiators shut down they restrict flow into the zone and eventually, mechanically, close if no heat is needed?
- What specific Tado products do you have in place?
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Hi, thanks for the response.
I don't necessarily know the answer to all these questions but I will do my best!
We have a combi boiler, which is in the same room as the wireless thermostat (Utility room). I assume that means we have one CH zone?
There are 8 TRVs in place, plus the bathroom towel rail. Each one is a separate 'room' on the Tado app.
I don't want the rooms to dynamically adjust to people walking around or anything like that, it's just that some evenings we may want the heating turned on just in one or two rooms. The whole house comes on for an hour every morning to make sure we aren't getting up in the cold, but other than that it's just turned on when needed. What I have been doing until now was boosting the whole house, but that seems a waste.
I work from home, so sometimes I am the only person in the house and I may want just my room heated.
I have the Smart TRV like the attached picture, and the starter kit
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Given your response, it suggests that your home is controlled like this:
- One wired thermostat talks to your boiler. It decides whether there is a call for heat and if there is one, it wakes up the boiler on the central heating side. Is there more than one wired thermostat (smart or not) in your home?
- If there is only one Smart WIRED thermostat, if any of the Smart TRVs ask for heat, they would wirelessly instruct the WIRED Smart thermostat about that. It would, in turn, consolidate the request(s) into one authority for the boiler to fire and provide heat. Then, only the radiators which have an open TRV, will receive the heat being generated.
- If more than one thermostat is assigned to one room, the process of dragging up temperatures on the APP would apply to all smart TRVs in that room. Whereas the process of raising temps at the radiator would only apply to the specific radiator. Hope thats clear.
Does this logic make sense and help you to examine what you need to re-arrange? If you need more help, we can respond.
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@ChrisBristol Hello. Following up on the good posts from @policywonk.
Your first post is essentially correct. However, there are a lot of variables. It took three months to figure out what worked well for us.
Some pointers for Tado to do what you describe …
- A wireless starter kit will also work with a combi boiler, in relay mode. The wireless kit was a godsend when I found our rellie's wired room stat - hidden behind cycle helmets and the kitchen door.
- Tado Terminology. The 'Zone controller' is the Tado device wired to your boiler/valves/controls. Either a wired room stat or a wireless receiver. The other Tado devices talk to the 'Zone controller' and tell it to turn the boiler ON or OFF.
- Initial Room configuration. In the App settings, set all of the Rooms to the 'Zone controller'. That allows the TRV or room stat to 'call for heat' when required.
- Scheduling. Set the Room schedules according to your your routine or diary. E.g. heat the study M-F 9-5 (20 deg C) . Every other Room can be OFF. You can boost an individual room manually. The schedule has an 'away' feature too.
- Alternative Room configuration. 'Independent' Room setting (instead of 'Zone controller') will tell the TRV to act as a schedule/temperature TRV, but won't call for heat. Eg the loo is ON all day and evening (18 deg C), but doesn't call for heat.
- Some users say 'Independent' is a better configuration for their home and energy use. I could believe that for older boilers. What make/model is your boiler?
- TRVs temperature measurement accuracy can be affected behind furniture or on a large radiator. They are unlikely to notice anyone walking past!
Compared to 2018-21 gas consumption, these are our monthly results for the same outside temperature (Central England Temperature). No promises that anyone else can achieve the same.
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