Wireless radiator valves.

[Richard_C]

Coincidently I'm travelling for work at the momenty and in the US but my wife is at home and she just texted me to change the schedule for the heating in our bedroom as she is getting up earlier while I'm not there.

I'm not anti technology, but my immediate thought is that if someone who is in a house needs to text someone who is not in the house to adjust the heating settings, it's all got a bit too complicated.

The range of responses so far reflects the range of lifestyles, remote trvs will be useful to some, not all.

 

[John Brown]

I'm not anti technology, but my immediate thought is that if someone who is in a house needs to text someone who is not in the house to adjust the heating settings, it's all got a bit too complicated.

The range of responses so far reflects the range of lifestyles, remote trvs will be useful to some, not all.

It's often the case, in my experience, that one spouse, whatever the gender, tends to assume responsibility for specific functions, such as programming the CH, or paying the bills online. So it comes as no surprise to me that a spouse might text another spouse to have them adjust the heating schedule. I personally think it's great that such things are feasible. Better, surely, than having to freeze your @$$ off until your jet-setting spouse returns.

 

[Spectric]

With a new installation you have to have zones, these zones each have a thermostat / timer and control the heat source, a term known as boiler logic. A thermostatic radiator valve can only reduce a room temperature because it has no control over the boiler but in bedrooms it can keep a room cooler than the thermostat setting as some people like hot and others cool.

To have zones also requires more pipework because each zone needs to be independant from the other zones and so a wirelessly controlled thermostatic radiator valve that has been retrofitted to an existing system will not offer full control, but I cannot see any advantage to wireless thermostatic radiator valve.

 

[Ollie78]

Great.
So, without wishing to be impolite or ungrateful, you don't actually have any first hand real world experience of wirelessly controlled thermostatic radiator valves.
We, on the other hand, have crazily high heating bills, and are looking at possible ways to reduce them.

This is true, I was trying to understand the need for them, having been intrigued by the post.
I realise heating bills are about to become much worse for everyone and this could be a solution for some.
I am glad I had the woodburner put in a few years ago.

Ollie

 

[John Brown]

We have a wood burner in the living room. I confess I have no idea how the price of kiln dried firewood compares with gas or electric heating, but I doubt that it's cheaper, unless you have your own supply. It is pleasant and cheerful, however. Nice to be able to burn offcuts as well, seeing as they seem to constitute the bulk of my woodworking output.

 

[Ollie78]

Agree on the price of the wood probably not being cheaper than gas, I have access to quite a few pallets which I cut up through the year and my joinery offcuts. I buy one big load of proper kiln dried logs a year. which works out about right.
There is something different about the radiant heat of a fire, even if its actually colder in the room than if we had the radiators on it "feels" warmer.
I was surprised by the difference a little peltier stove top fan made, it really creates an effective convection and warms the rest of the downstairs much better now.

 

[John Brown]

It

A thermostatic radiator valve can only reduce a room temperature because it has no control over the boiler

How about a thermostatic radiator valve communicating wirelessly with a controller? Why couldn't that have any control over the boiler?
I'm not stating that it does, or doesn't, but it could, obviously. And the subject under discussion here is wirelessly controlled thermostatic radiator valves. Do you have any personal experience of them?
I mean, really.. that was the question in the OP. If someone asked about the best way to cut dovetails, I wouldn't steam in asking why bother, when pocket hole screws would do the job.

 

[John Brown]

Agree on the price of the wood probably not being cheaper than gas, I have access to quite a few pallets which I cut up through the year and my joinery offcuts. I buy one big load of proper kiln dried logs a year. which works out about right.
There is something different about the radiant heat of a fire, even if its actually colder in the room than if we had the radiators on it "feels" warmer.
I was surprised by the difference a little peltier stove top fan made, it really creates an effective convection and warms the rest of the downstairs much better now.

Interesting. I'll look that up.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I'm not anti technology, but my immediate thought is that if someone who is in a house needs to text someone who is not in the house to adjust the heating settings, it's all got a bit too complicated.

The range of responses so far reflects the range of lifestyles, remote trvs will be useful to some, not all.

My wife doesn’t know how to adjust a manual thermostatic valve…. She does know how to use an app to turn the heating on and off but the key point is that it is mainly an automatic system.
Changing the schedule on a lot of old school heating controllers is actually a pain in the back side.
The fact that I could do this from a few thousand miles away is actually a major plus.

 

[paulrbarnard]

It

How about a thermostatic radiator valve communicating wirelessly with a controller? Why couldn't that have any control over the boiler?
I'm not stating that it does, or doesn't, but it could, obviously. And the subject under discussion here is wirelessly controlled thermostatic radiator valves. Do you have any personal experience of them?
I mean, really.. that was the question in the OP. If someone asked about the best way to cut dovetails, I wouldn't steam in asking why bother, when pocket hole screws would do the job.

My system controls the boiler too.

 

[Steve_Scott]

A thermostatic radiator valve can only reduce a room temperature because it has no control over the boiler but in bedrooms it can keep a room cooler than the thermostat setting as some people like hot and others cool.

A thermostatic valve does have control over the boiler, but not in a direct way. In a dumb system, the boiler switches on when there is a call for heat, either on a timer, or a timer and room thermostat control. Regardless of how hot the rooms become, the boiler heats the primary circuit and heat is pumped around the house.

In a system with thermostatic rad valves, the flow through the rad slows/closes as the target temperature is reached and less heat is lost from the primary circuit as water flows through the system. As a result the boiler (which is controlled by flow temperature) will stop firing, or modulate down to match the the heat input required. The call for heat remains, but the boiler itself stops firing.

In my opinion, ‘smart’ rad valves are a poor substitute a properly designed system (which would be individual zones for each room), but you can’t expect someone to retrofit such a system into a preexisting house unless they’re fully renovating. In smaller houses with limited radiators they might be a cost viable option but equally such houses are less likely to see the benefit of smart control as heat from one space quickly leeches from room to room through uninsulated wall/floor structure and doors left open. In larger houses, that have rooms left dormant for longer periods of time, the system could provide gains, but the installation cost increases with more rooms and it’ll hurt more so in rooms with more than one radiator as you’ll be paying more than once to control the same common space.

 

[frankederveen]

We also have a Tado system and are very happy with it. It manages to keep temperature in the rooms very close to the set temperature, also with multiple radiators in a room. It has useful features like 'open window detection', where it doesn't go berserk when there is a sudden temperature drop and very easy to switch between home and away mode also after already leaving the house.

We don't pay any subscription and have full local and remote control which is very useful.

It does tie in to apple homekit or something like home-assistant for those so inclined and then it doesn't need an external service as far as I know.

One major downside of the App is that it only supports a single account/home so if you have a second place to look after, it gets a bit cumbersome. People use the web-login or 2nd phone/ipad then.

 

[Oaktree11]

I have a Hive system with wireless try’s in most rooms and it works really well. They were installed when we had a new gas boiler installed recently.

 

[George B]

We have Wiser and it works well, it was installed in February 2019, we had an issue with one valve which they replaced free of charge,I’m not sure if it has saved us money or not, we like the convenience and the ability to flex the temperatures when we want.

We have two valves in the sitting room, two in the hall one downstairs one upstairs, and then the thermostat for the kitchen dining room. All bedrooms are on standard tvr’s as we like them cooler and once set aren’t touched.

the sitting room valves are paired, the hall ones aren’t they initially were pair but we found it worked better to unlink them.

The range of settings is good, the ability to boost the whole system or just a room or the hot water is handy, there is an away mode you can turn just the heating off or everything, yes you can turn it on when you are away.

The batteries in the valves last around a year, they have just upgraded the software to make the valves a lot quieter.

We also have the plug though these are expensive and I’ve switched to Kasa for these.

There is a Charlie DIYte video on them

 

[John Brown]

As a sidenote, I find our existing conventional TRVs tend to seize up from time to time from inactivity. Someone turns one up to maximum, for example, ( because they think it'll warm up faster) and the room temperature never gets high enough for the valve to shut off. Or the reverse, the valve is turned to minimum, and the room temperature never falls low enough. Then I have to remove the head and tap the pin(very scientific, but seems to work). I'm hoping that this could become unnecessary with an automated system.
On the other hand, having spent much of my working life writing embedded firmware, I'd probably be constantly ranting about functions or facilities that the manufacturers had omitted...

 

[John Brown]

We have Wiser and it works well, it was installed in February 2019, we had an issue with one valve which they replaced free of charge,I’m not sure if it has saved us money or not, we like the convenience and the ability to flex the temperatures when we want.

We have two valves in the sitting room, two in the hall one downstairs one upstairs, and then the thermostat for the kitchen dining room. All bedrooms are on standard tvr’s as we like them cooler and once set aren’t touched.

the sitting room valves are paired, the hall ones aren’t they initially were pair but we found it worked better to unlink them.

The range of settings is good, the ability to boost the whole system or just a room or the hot water is handy, there is an away mode you can turn just the heating off or everything, yes you can turn it on when you are away.

The batteries in the valves last around a year, they have just upgraded the software to make the valves a lot quieter.

We also have the plug though these are expensive and I’ve switched to Kasa for these.

There is a Charlie DIYte video on them

Thanks for the insight. I've not heard of Charlie DIY. Will check it out.

 

[John Brown]

I was planning on self installation, as we already have manual TRVs everywhere, Danfoss in one part of the house and Drayton in the newer part, and I understand the Wiser heads come with adapters for Danfoss, amongst others.
I had to replace a broken Drayton head last year, and I did contact Drayton to ask if it was possible to use a single Wiser head in isolation, manually, pending making the jump to a complete system. I never heard back.

 

[woodieallen]

Because you can set schedules for individual rooms.
I suppose you could walk round the house twisting radiator valves twice a day. Not that I could. My stepdaughter gets cross if we venture over the the part of the house where she and the two grandchildren live...
But it would be much easier if you could set it all up to run automatically.

I can understand the theory behind that but are your daily household activities that certain that you'll know that between xx.xx hrs and yy.yy hrs you want this room to be z degrees and that room n degrees ? I'm sure I couldn't and there's only the two of us here. Still, whatever floats your boat.

Personally I'm a great believer in the principle of KISS. I have absolutely no interest in asking Siri or Alexa or Bixby or any other systems to do anything for me.

 

[woodieallen]

It's often the case, in my experience, that one spouse, whatever the gender, tends to assume responsibility for specific functions, such as programming the CH, or paying the bills online. So it comes as no surprise to me that a spouse might text another spouse to have them adjust the heating schedule. I personally think it's great that such things are feasible. Better, surely, than having to freeze your @$$ off until your jet-setting spouse returns.

No instruction manual ?

 

[Megaweasel]

I have the Honeywell system that I put in about five years ago. I have an old cottage with stone walls and a large extension with UFH. My problem was that the conventional rads were all on one zone with one thermostat and was completely overwhelmed by the UFH so I had to decide to either re-zone the rads or use something with intelligent radiator valves. Honeywell Evo Home is ok but does have its problems. It doesn't require WIFI - as earlier poster said it uses its own network and I believe it is doing a form of mesh. It eats batteries - and doesn't fail safe- when batteries fail you do get a warning but if you let them run to flat (as I do - fundamentally lazy...) it will stick in whatever position it was in. The rad valves (at least the ones I have) aren't very robust. We've killed a couple (we have nine). The link that lets you use an app to remotely control your system seemed very temperamental - I only used for a a few months and it currently doesn't work.

It does save me money as we have effectively zoned the house where it wasn't zoned before but I think its far from perfect. It doesn't seem to keep a very stable temperature but that could be because of the way we drive our UFH possibly.

I'm actually installing a Loxone replacement solution for both heating and lighting and while that will still require batteries for the valves, I will probably re-zone this time in the plumbing and put the smarts on the zone controllers. I think of the Honeywell solution as a gen-1 smart solution - It was kinda fun for a while but now I want a smart solution that really does just sit in the background and get on with it without bothering me. I'd say 70% of the time I look at the Honeywell controller it wants me to take some sort of action - usually batteries or loss of signal.

Chris