Smart radiator valves

[ColinJ]

Love walking into a cold bedroom during the day, thinking "glad I'm not heating this room".

Why would you heat it at night? (I hate sleeping in warm bedrooms.)

 

[Brains]

We have theromstats on every radiator. So living rooms are set to high and bedrooms set to low.
We have a central thermostat/heating timer that can be moved, in the summer it's on the hall wall. In winter its in the living room.

We have found over the years that it is cheaper (and much nicer) to heat the entire house all the time (at 15c when we are out or in bed, and 21c when we are up and about). The idea of letting the house go down to 5c when we are out and then the power and hours required to get it to 21c is a waste of time, energy and money.
Since we started to leave the heating in tickover a percistent mould issue we had in one room has now dissapeared.

 

[Jody]

I don't have any experience of said valves but I have recently installed a couple of Wifi smart switches in the house. If its anything like these then they will do exactly what you want when you want it. We can set up different programmes with a multitude of on/off times per programme, easy to switch and can be used anywhere you have an internet connection.

 

[mjr]

Why would you heat it at night? (I hate sleeping in warm bedrooms.)

Not overnight, but it's not my kind of fun trying to get dressed with ice on the walls. BTDTGT (very rigid) TS.

 

[BrumJim]

Why would you heat it at night? (I hate sleeping in warm bedrooms.)

Certainly needs warming in the morning or you won't get out of bed.

 

[lazybloke]

Not overnight, but it's not my kind of fun trying to get dressed with ice on the walls.

Mjr lives in an igloo/snowcave?

We have found over the years that it is cheaper (and much nicer) to heat the entire house all the time (at 15c when we are out or in bed, and 21c when we are up and about). The idea of letting the house go down to 5c when we are out and then the power and hours required to get it to 21c is a waste of time, energy and money.
Since we started to leave the heating in tickover a percistent mould issue we had in one room has now dissapeared.

Much nicer yes, especially in a house with poor insulation or cold spots which are prone to condensation/mould.
Cheaper? Surely that's impossible if you have the same heat source and energy tariff in both your scenarios.

 

[tony111]

Honeywell programmable thermostatic radiator valve.....

 

[mjr]

Mjr lives in an igloo/snowcave?

No, it was just a rented 1950s ex-council house with a tiny boiler that couldn't cope with a Norfolk winter. Wouldn't have been any point in thermostatic radiator valves there... it had been serviced and certificated but was definitely in the legal but useless category.

 

[BianchiVirgin]

The Honeywell range of kit is generally the best. Just don't go overboard with the automation and get carried away with apps and so forth. There's a sensible balance.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Certainly needs warming in the morning or you won't get out of bed.

I often get up in the morning, put the heating on and go back to bed with a cuppa until the house warms up.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Years ago I was staying at my brothers (he was not there). I could not work out how to get the central heating working. He had a sauna. So a spent an evening in the sauna reading a book.

 

[gaijintendo]

I have a few timer ones, which cost buttons, and it's fairly effective. Hearing the radiators turn off reminds me to go to bed.

I also have a Nest, which is good if your whole house it evenly temperate. Mine isn't, so my Nest sits in a room with the radiators off at night, and it gets cranked up and down to keep the kids bedroom within a temperature range using a "Sensepeanut". That's a Bluetooth temperature sensor and phone app, which can control the app directly or via IFTTT I have it do both because, on a few occasions one or other hasn't worked.

I'd be interested in a good valve setup. Honeywell seems to give a lot of what you want, but without any of the finesse of these apps. The valves I have say a temperature number... But they really just mean "how much of the valve is open" because they have never once adjusted themselves.

Despite all of these things, I haven't seen any massive savings, but the bedrooms get toasty quickly at night.

 

[I like Skol]

but the bedrooms get toasty quickly at night.

Which reminds me. When we had the loft conversion done 4-5 years ago we gained a new master bedroom with personal bathroom.
Now obviously, because we didn't want to be cold, we specified a reasonable sized radiator for the bedroom. The builder tried to spin us some guff about being unlikely to need it due to the highly efficient insulation he was installing and because the heat would rise to the top of the house, but we saw through his transparent ploy to avoid the cost of a radiator and running some remote plumbing and we insisted on it!
After the initial testing the expensive Drayton thermostatic valve has been turned fully off! We haven't had the need to turn it on once

 

[subaqua]

If you want to save money in heating bills just put a jumper on and turn the boiler right down .....

 

[tyred]

If you want to save money in heating bills just put a jumper on and turn the boiler right down .....

This is the 21st century. We need digitally controlled solutions...