Heating thermostat in the hallway

[NewbieRaf]

Hey All

I’ve never really understood why my Thermostat was originally placed in the ground floor (uk town house - new build 2009) not far from the front door where it’s cold. Many years ago I changed the my myson thermostat to next and whilst I was as it I wired in the living room away from the coldness of the hallway.

Now with gas prices etc I’m wondering if I’m better off moving it back?

Thoughts?

 

[sammy.se]

Why would it be better back in the hallway?
I did exactly what you did, moved from halfway to living room where we spend most of our time

 

[NewbieRaf]

Great question. The hallway and landings are purposely cold since I switch off all the radiators there, but then have rads on only in the rooms that we need them. I guess I just wanted to confirm it’s an efficient way to heat

 

[sammy.se]

My logic is the same as yours, but would love to hear if anyone thinks we are wrong! Ha

 

[Spectric]

This is basic control system stuff, your thermostat is the point which determines the setpoint so if you place it above a radiator then it will turn off as soon as that radiator emits sufficient heat whether the room itself is at that temperature, the other extreme would be placing it outside in which case it will never turn off. This has always been the problem with a single zone system in that it will always be a compromise. The better option is a zoned system where each zone is controlled by it's own thermostat and you get what you want where you want. But with a single zone and the thermostrat in a cold area then when that area reaches temperature other areas may be far to hot and hence where the TRV originated, with these you allow the coldest area to reach it's required temperature and use the TRV's to shut off individual radiators to prevent excess heat. Turning off radiators might seem a good way of saving energy but only if the area they are in is isolated from the rest of the house otherwise the other radiators will just work harder to heat up the colder areas so keeping hallways and landings on a lower heat is better than no heat and it helps with heat distriibution. The hallway has always been the normal place for the stat with a single zone, it is a common area that links rooms whereas putting it in the living room will give control in that room but probably keep the rest of the house colder as the smaller living room gets upto temperature faster and then the boiler cuts out, providing the door is closed !

 

[Fitzroy]

As Spectric said it's a control issue and I doubt it makes any real difference to overall heat usage, assuming you get it working such that each room is at the temperature you want. If you have rooms hotter than you need then you are wasting energy.

Our thermostat is in the hallway set at a relatively low temperature, 17°C most of the time. The snug has a largish radiator with the thermostatic valve set at a higher setting and the room is warmer than the hallway, if it's too warm I turn the radiator down. If it's really cold I get a blanket or if feeling flush bump the setpoint up a little for an hour or so. Our boys bedroom was renovated and well insulated a few years ago, he has discovered he can turn it into a sauna by turning the radiator valve up, I'm currently looking for a valve I can lock!

 

[Spectric]

Another issue we have is that rather than correctly sizing radiators for a given room people are opting for so called " designer rads " for there look rather than functionality and ability to heat the room.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

We have a hall thermostat set to ~25C.

Room radiators have TRVs which are set to deliver the temperature required in each room - unused rooms 0, living room ~20C etc.

This means the boiler will always fire up to deliver the room temperature set.

As noted by others single zone temperature controls are completely unresponsive. TRVs effectively divide the house such that number of zones = number of radiators.

 

[Bingy man]

It’s the difference between old school 1970,s heating controls , huge floor standing boilers, even bigger cast iron or heavy steel radiators, and probably the most important point spectric made is the system was generic and not sized to the design of the house, older properties were poorly insulated and heat loss was a huge factor so most systems were inefficient as a result. Jump forward to modern days and everything has changed -the materials used to build modern day homes have a much higher thermal standard, radiator sizes as a result have got smaller and due to the cavity wall loft insulation etc homes generally warm up quicker and the heat has less places to escape from ( heat loss) . A modern day 3 storey town house has 3 heating zones t/stat on each floor and can be used independently so you only heat the area(s) that you occupy. Now with smart controls you can control the heating from your smartphone, set a maximum temperature, and lock it so kids can turn the heating up as much as they want but it will only get as hot as you’ve set it on the app.

 

[Pedronicus]

I'm currently looking for a valve I can lock!

We used to use these in public accessible areas on Drayton TRVs.

 

[Sideways]

I fitted a nest wireless thermostat.
The sensor lives in the living room where it matters.
We let the most used room control the house. Bedrooms are heated, the hallway and landing are not. They run a couple of degrees cooler heated by leakage from the other rooms.
The main ventilation of the house is a velux above the bath / shower which is the highest point in the centre of the house. There's a natural ventilation from draughts into the living spaces, out into the hall, upstairs and out. We put catflaps in a couple of internal doors to stop the little beggars opening the doors as they come and go

Back in the old days, you had a fire in the living room. You never heated the hall way. I don't have a problem with that principle, though it does mean you're always shouting at the kids to "shut the door !"

 

[Spectric]

Back in the old days, you had a fire in the living room.

With the sofa infront of the fire and no one wanting to venture out into the rest of the house, waking up with ice on the inside of windows and going to bed nearly fully dressed and now they want to walk around naked in tropical temperatures whilst complaining about their energy bill so lets back off and find the middle ground.

A modern day 3 storey town house has 3 heating zones t/stat on each floor and can be used independently so you only heat the area(s) that you occupy.

Yes takes me back to when the old Y plan was the norm with an expansion / header tank in the loft but with heavy cast iron boilers that just ran forever. Now with the rules insisting on " boiler logic " where the boiler can only run when there is a demand we have the S plan with umpteen zones and a lot more input to design and layout that delivers way better control especially with the newer PID timer / thermostats so you decide on the temperature at different times of the day. The biggest problem with zones in a very large property is heat loss in the pipework if you have long runs and I have seen instals using more than one boiler to reduce these loses but with the price of copper not going to be a cheap job.

 

[Bingy man]

Totally, and I’m often amazed at customers that spend thousands of pounds on designer rads and them complain it’s always cold and sit there running electric heaters to compensate. I recall the pain of measuring room sizes and windows to determine the btu,s reqd to heat the room and selecting the appropriate sized rad . As far as I recall as condensing boilers are pretty much useless if the system isn’t sized correctly to the boiler being fitted. But how many so called heating engineers just fit a new boiler without any thought of the radiator sizes on the system and walk away .

 

[frogesque]

I argued with the guy installing the new boiler and system about putting it in the hallway instead of through the wall in the living room. Would have none of it. Council House, council heating!

Pity the council don't pay the bills. Herself is disabled so the living room needs to be warm, not a sauna!

 

[Stuart Moffat]

For me, having the thermostat in the living room wouldn’t make sense. We have a log burner and are self sufficient in logs. This would simply turn off CH to the rest of the house.

 

[NewbieRaf]

Thanks all, I know that I’m not going. I suppose my only stickler is all landings are cold because I’ve got the rads set to very low. This means that the there is no hot air to rise and naturally heat the rooms but I’m good with that as we only heat the rooms that we need.

On another not for people who have Nest. - how many of you have auto schedule switch on. I have it off as I want to be in total control when things are on and off. In addition i she. tado TRVs which act as nothing more than a dumb valve since I’m using nest however it means that I don’t have to run up and down my town house every time.

 

[Pedronicus]

For me, having the thermostat in the living room wouldn’t make sense. We have a log burner and are self sufficient in logs. This would simply turn off CH to the rest of the house.

Indeed. It has always been best practice to put the 'stat in the hall which is classed as a 'transient area' so the obvious place for situations such as your.

 

[NormanB]

If you really are interested in boiler efficiency I can do no better than recommend the Heat Geek channel on You Tube.

Many homes with condensing boilers are probably not condensing at all losing a significant wedge of efficiency.

Heat Geek is well founded from a perspective of the science and will dispel a few myths for you.

 

[rajsol3000]

Hey All

I’ve never really understood why my Thermostat was originally placed in the ground floor (uk town house - new build 2009) not far from the front door where it’s cold. Many years ago I changed the my myson thermostat to next and whilst I was as it I wired in the living room away from the coldness of the hallway.

Now with gas prices etc I’m wondering if I’m better off moving it back?

Thoughts?

Hey All

I’ve never really understood why my Thermostat was originally placed in the ground floor (uk town house - new build 2009) not far from the front door where it’s cold. Many years ago I changed the my myson thermostat to next and whilst I was as it I wired in the living room away from the coldness of the hallway.

Now with gas prices etc I’m wondering if I’m better off moving it back?

Thoughts?

Hi, I'm a ex British gas heating engineer. From what I remember from my days back at heating school, the thermostat was traditionally positioned in the coldest part of the house, the thinking was that if the coldest part of the house is warm then the rest should be ok. This was how things were done back in the days of back boilers and before smart controls came to be. There are much better ways to control the heating in your home nowadays using smart thermostatic radiator valves etc the downside of all this additional control is the added complications and setup. I've fitted a condensing combi boiler with smart trvs on all the rads in my house which is great because I can have some rooms that are rarely used with the heat on minimally to keep the chill away and I can have some rooms warmer if we are using them. The downside is I came home the other day and the missus had turned the heating up to 28 in the bedroom because it was a bit chilly when she was putting away some clothes but forgot to turn it off! So all of my energy saving attempts were just chucked out the window

 

[Pedronicus]

If you really are interested in boiler efficiency I can do no better than recommend the Heat Geek channel on You Tube.

Having watched a couple of his videos I think I will stick to my 50+ years experience in the heating industry thanks.