The heating has come on now as it’s a bit nippy in the North! … also being Northern and it being my first Winter owning a house… I’m thinking if I need to look at getting some thermostatic radiator valves?

I’ll be honest though I’m not 100% sure how they work.. I get that if they reach a temp they will shut the radiator off.. but what benefit does that have as I’m guessing my boiler will still be set to “on” for the 3 hours in the morning and 3 at night?

Do I need something a little smarter like a HIVE or whatever those smart boiler gadgets are called?

Thanks!

You use a thermostatic controller sited in the centre of the house, in (hallway say) where you have a radiator installed without a TRV, just a normal lockshield/manual valve

The thermostatic controller has a powered receiver relay that you site near the boiler. (or if old school there will be a wire pair from the boiler to a mechanical thermostat in the hallway)

Most boilers will have a connection to which you can wire the controller to give a zero voltage closed circuit.

ie:

when the Thermostatic controller is set to be ON (3hrs say) AND the temperature at that location is LOW, the relay CLOSES the circuit and the boiler fires.

The boiler runs and individual radiators stay on until the room setting is achieved as measured by each radiator TRV. At which point each radiator valves shuts. Eventually you will (if planned and balanced correctly) end up with just the hallway radiator ON until it has raised the air temperature around the controller sufficiently for the controller to now shut to OFF, relay opens circuit and boiler turns OFF.

Someone will correct me probably, but here goes.
You generally have a programmable room thermostat that turns the heating on and off within the times that you want the heating on.
The thermostatic radiator valves control the temperature in their area.
You need to make sure that at least one radiator (usually in the bathroom) is fully open at all times. This is so that in the event that the thermostat is calling for heat, but the thermostatic valves are all shut as their area is up to heat there is still a route for the water to circulate. Prevents the boiler trying to pump water around a closed circuit.
Our set up has a wireless thermostat that we can move around (just stays in the hall), and thermostatic valves on all radiators apart from the two bathrooms.
Quite interested in the Honeywell evoHome system though as it’s a lot more intelligent and zone-able without having to alter the pipework.

[Edit] Crossed posts with Stoner

We’ve got TRVs on all our radiators, and a wireless thermostat. We end keeping the thermostat in the lounge and basically have that room’s radiator’s TRV set to ‘full-whack’ as it’s the coolest/biggest room in the house. Once it has got up to temp and the ‘main’ thermostat has switched the boiler off, all the other rooms are already up to temp and the radiators in those rooms have switched off. In theory…

If you have a wireless room thermostat DO NOT take it off the wall and carry it around like a television remote control.

Once had to make 7 seperate revisits to a tenant in Paisley who insisted on carrying the wireless controller about in her pocket.

Despite our repeated, one-syllable-at-a-time explanations, she couldn’t understand why her house was always freezing …. apart from the winters day she was standing outside in the street chatting to a neighbour and when she returned to the house, it was warm enough to grow tomatoes.

We eventually took it away from her and fitted a hard wired controller.

Makes perfect sense thanks both.

Sadly where the controller is at the moment it’s the least useful part of the house so it looks like a hive or some other wireless controller is the best option so I can move it move central (3 story house).

Final question.. do I need to worry about pipes freezing ect or do boilers normally have a frost safe mechanism that turns the boiler on if the outside air gets to around 0?

Thanks!

Thermostatic radiator values are designed to try and balance the heat in the house depending where the thermostat is.

For example, thermostat in livong room set to 22. If no radiator thermostats then all radiators will be same temperature, might make living room warmer than rest of house (eg as TV / people put out heat) as thermostat turms off boiler too early.

If for example you want warmer bedrooms you might put them on max (say 5) and living room on say 3 which will mean bedroom rads “hotter” than living room balancing out factors as above

TBH we only use ours for keep temp of rads down in infrequently used rooms, eg guest bedroom.

They tend to conk out after a while and need replacing, not sure they are worth the money. IMO a theronstat “remote control” is better as you move it the room you want to set the temperature too. Then just normal on/off valves

Final question.. do I need to worry about pipes freezing ect or do boilers normally have a frost safe mechanism that turns the boiler on if the outside air gets to around 0?

If any of your pipes are outside, yes, you need to think about a frost controller and lagging. If it’s all inside, no, as the chances of the temperature of your house dropping below freezing are basically nill, especially if it’s centrally heated (unless you live somewhere reeeeeeally cold).

Worth having the heating on for an half an hour to an hour a day if you’re away on hols in the winter though.

Frost safe – just leave heating on all year and turn thermostat to minimum. We used to have a “detector” thing but imo waste of time if you just leave heating on all year but set to say 10 degrees

great thanks guys, really helpful and saves me signing up to some house forum!

alexxx – Member

Makes perfect sense thanks both.

Sadly where the controller is at the moment it’s the least useful part of the house so it looks like a hive or some other wireless controller is the best option so I can move it move central (3 story house).

We were in the same boat, so bought a controller with a wireless thermostat. Our thermostat was in the middle of the hallway which never gets warm due to a variety of reasons – so the boiler was always going at maxi-chat…..
We didn’t a Nest or Hive thing as they didn’t exist then. We got a Sundial RF2 pack from Honeywell

One of these: http://www.honeywelluk.com/products/Systems/Wireless/Sundial-RF2-Pack-1/

So the controller goes near the boiler & does the timing thing, while the thermostat can go where you want it to be (living room for example).

As above, you then set all the separate TRVs in the different rooms so those rooms get to the temperatures you want them to be at, while the wireless thermostat in the chosen room ‘controls’ the boiler during it’s ‘on’ phases……

It’s not uncommon for modern boilers to have an internal bypass circuit; so you might not need to leave one “open circuit” permanently. Check first though of course !

Sadly where the controller is at the moment it’s the least useful part of the house so it looks like a hive or some other wireless controller is the best option so I can move it move central (3 story house).

Im not convinced.

The idea of rad valves is that you run the heating and then go around and adjust the radiators to get the room temp you want for each room.

Eg if the thermostat is in the hallway it may be colder than the rest of the house. So if you set at 20deg, it is more than likely other rooms will be at 22deg, so you can turn their radiators down a bit. In extreme cases the hallway may be too cold so the heating never switches off, where as if the thermostat was in your living room it may do so. However the negative of the thermostat in your living room is that the rest of your house can get cold.

Google Honeywell EvoHome for the dogs danglys when it comes to setup

There is no real advantage to a remote thermostat apart from you can have it close to hand.

Oh if you do get rad valves, get the house balanced and then leave them alone! My Dad keeps adjusting his and then wonders why he can never get parity of temp through the house.

Sadly where the controller is at the moment it’s the least useful part of the house so it looks like a hive or some other wireless controller is the best option so I can move it move central (3 story house).

It might be in the best place, it’s just not in a part of the house you use.

Imagine all your radiators are set to 3 (out of 5, about 18C in our house), and the main thermostat in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs is set to 20C (pahh, more like 16C, I’m tight), and there is no TRV on the hallway radiator.

The rooms all warm up and their respective TRV’s switch off in turn, then all the heat from the boiler is going to the hallway rad, raising the temp there, until the main thermostat on the wall switches off.

The thermostat should be somewhere central in the house, and probably cold (bottom of the stairwell then), it shouldn’t be somewhere where you’d actually be (living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom) where possible as these will always be warmer due to your body heat and other things like showers, ovens, TV’s.

I fitted them after moving into a 3 bed terrace like you.

I think they’re a waste of money.

If you properly balance your existing valves you’ll be OK.