[Closed] Central heating boiler / thermostat question

Wireleess stat can be installed nearly anywhere, hallways are not the best location for the stat. Should be installed in a living area.

the thermostat can be placed anywhere. with a caveat..

any radiators in the room including the stat must have. all the trvs removed

the hall was the traditional 'home' of the thermostat as it was often the coldest room as doors were draughty or open.

today however i always reccommend having the thermostat in the room you live in. let that be 'driven' to a living temperature and let all the other feed off that.

todays wireless/ radio frequency units lend them selves perfectly to this.

If you set the TRV in the hallway lower than the others in the house, this will allow the living room and all the others to get warmer before the hallway comes up to the required temperature.
Also, the new boiler thats been fitted will be much more energy efficient that the old one, so they'll be saving money anyway.

Are you sure there is no timer on the boiler? Usually there is one you can set to come on as & when required, in addition to the thermostat.

We have no TRV on the radiator in the bathroom, but no thermostat anywhere. What's the deal with that?

In our old house we had the same boiler, but TRVs everywhere - again no thermostat.

EDIT: Boiler is a Range Powermax 185

Their is a timer. But when the temp is reached in the hall, the system switches off and cannot be over ridden.............

Sonic.. I ll have to come back to your explanation when i ve had as much to drink as you have..

troutwrestler.. all a question of the appropriate building regs at the time yours was installed.. its not uncommon especially during these constrained financial times and as many boilers are installed in 'distress' circumstances... ie the others just been condemned.. for customers to simply not have the money to pay for a boiler trvs new controls, so we ve had disclaimers drawn up explaining the regs and that failure to comply will be in contravention etc etc

Just set the thermostat in the hall to switch on at a lower temperature and set the radiator valves to the temperature you want in the rooms. Then lower the water temperature setting at the boiler as far as you can and still feel comfortabale in the livivng room.

Edukator - Not sure I follow. It's the max temp setting that causes the problem. The hall is toasty but the living room coools quickly, the fitter suggested leaving the door open...............

Sorry, I obviously haven't followed you, Flashes. Why is the hall getting so much hotter than the living rooom? Is there a radiator in there (I assume not as they'd just turn that off) or some other reason. Halls normally cool fast due heat loss to the upper floors.

Just move the thermostat to the living room, a very simple DIY job....

Wee hijack and another Q for footflaps if you care to answer?
My system is 25yrs old and in need of a new boiler. Current boiler is wall mounted, hot water tank and 8 radiators. Bungalow with 3 bedrooms. Living room & dining room combined are 4mtrsx8mtrs, 2 windows & currently 2 radiators(under windows as all radiators are). Bedrooms approx 4x4 x 2 and 1 @ 3x3mtrs. Control unit is an old mechanical Honeywell(?) and thermostat is in hall, 1 radiator.
It was a new build and we had the better quality radiators by Stellrad fitted(made at the time not far from where I live! )

Your thoughts much appreciated.

First of all get the company back that fitted the new system as they havn't gave your parents a system that works.
If the thermostat is hard wired they probably don't want the greif of rerouting the cable. if its wireless just take it off the wall and try it in the coldest room if it works just fit it there. The radiator in the hall could be throttled right down to say No1 or 2. A house should never be fitted fully with Thermostatic heads as if all the heads close at once the boiler pump will be pumping against a closed head.
Get the cowboys back first if they don't come back get a wireless stat.

Worcester Bosch combi boiler with Danfoss wireless stat/timer. Its flippin brilliant. Fitted last year with TRVs everywhere but the bathroom at the same time.
Thermostat is in living room. downstairs is openplan so we have all the trvs set to 5 (max) and let the danfoss unit control the temp. Then the bedroom trvs we set to 2-4 depending on preference.
The whole thing runs on a tiimer a is very easy to set. It has an intelligent feature where it learns the thermal curve of the house, so turns the boiler off just before desired temp is reached, meaning that the radiators are still hot enough to take you that extra degree or so to the set point....very clever!

Just keep the doors into the hall and the other rooms open.

and watch the heating bills rise..................

trekster.. like many you have the wrong end of the stick.. no of rooms etc is secondary when installing combi's. the issues is how much hot water do you need.. measured in litres per minute.

24kw will deliver 8-9 ( depending on make and model) 40kw will deliver 15( again depending on make and model..

might not sound a lot but the difference is MASSIVE (30kw would be more than ample for 70% of homes)

the rad number and sizes..?? worcester bosch now include low nox chips which reduce the central heating useage to 15kw..

It has already been mentioned, but turn the radiator in the hall right down to 1 or 2, this will reduce its heat output so the hall doesn't overheat. Don't turn it off completely as this will mean the boiler is pumping with nowhere for the water to circulate.

Once the other rooms are comfortable (by adjusting the TRV's) you can go back to the hallway and fine tune the radiator setting in there so it is comfortable but doesn't cause the thermostat to turn off before the living room is comfortable.

Obviously the best method has already been mentioned, get the stat moved and swap the TRV in the living room to the hallway rad.

We've got a similar problem so I tried moving the thermostat from the hall to the lounge. It wasn't a magic fix unfortunately, i think because we've got 2 big radiators in the lounge, the room heats very quickly satisfying the stat so the boiler shuts down, at this time the other rooms haven't had a chance to warm up properly. The lounge does loose heat quickly so the boiler kicks back in but again the stat is satisfied before the other rooms come up. Too much capacity in the lounge and too little elsewhere. I suppose I could try throttling the lounge rads but need some constant cold weather to get into that.

One way to fudge the current system into operation as the old one did would be to turn the rad in the hall down so that the thermostat doena't trip off as quickly/at all, this may mean you need to adjust some of the other rads in the house as other rooms may become too warm.

You can get wireless thermostats for £35 and it would not take more than an hour to fit.

Have you looked in to insulating the living room more? don't know how practical it would be but if it is cooling down very quickly then it may prove to be a very wise investment.

The problem is the wireless thermostat. We're going to try putting it in the lounge and turning the lounge radiator valve down, so the house warms up (hopefully)......

We've got a similar problem so I tried moving the thermostat from the hall to the lounge. It wasn't a magic fix unfortunately, i think because we've got 2 big radiators in the lounge, the room heats very quickly satisfying the stat so the boiler shuts down, at this time the other rooms haven't had a chance to warm up properly. The lounge does loose heat quickly so the boiler kicks back in but again the stat is satisfied before the other rooms come up. Too much capacity in the lounge and too little elsewhere. I suppose I could try throttling the lounge rads but need some constant cold weather to get into that.

You should be able to fix this by balancing the radiators such that all rooms heat at the same rate. You don't use the TRVs, instead use the flow rate adjuster on the other end of the radiator. E.g. my bathroom radiator is right next to the pump, so almost shorts out the whole system (if left open), so it's throttled down to about 1/4 turn open (out of 20 turns or so). The Radiators furthest from the pump are fully open for flow and I adjust everything else to be inbetween such that the house heats evenly.

If you start playing with the balancing valves (the ones under the smooth/smaller cap) keep a record of how many turns from closed each rad is. If you start adjusting at random you could royally screw up the system with half the house getting no heat at all, so if you keep a note you can turn it all back to roughly what it was.

The basic idea is the balancing valves restrict water flow through the rads close to the boiler, so that those at the far end of the house still receive enough water flow to heat the rooms. The rads furthest from the boiler would normally have the valve fully open.

Why is this complicated? Turn down the thermostatic valve on the hall radiator whilst also turning up the valves in the living room. The heating will kick in to attempt to warm the hall, this will warm up the other rooms.

Sounds to me not like a installation problem but the customer not really understanding how thermostatic valves work.

Sounds to me not like a installation problem but the customer not really understanding how thermostatic valves work.

Yup.

You can put a thermostat anywhere you want as long as it's not directly close to a heat source or where the sun can shine on it and heat it up. If the boilers been replaced they should clean the system with a power flush, refill, re-balance and good practice would be to fit a timer.

I used to be a sales engineer for honeywell and when wireless timers came out we got loads of calls because thick installers where leaving them on the little easels that come with them, and people were placing them on mantel pieces above fires, near radiators etc so as soon as the stat warms up the whole house goes cold.

most installers put them in the hallway because they are the coldest room in the house, so the rest of the house sweats whilst the hall reaches temperature. Balancing the system would average out the temperature around the house and there is normally a 2 degree difference in rooms upstairs...

Why is this complicated?

Because altering the TRVs only works during the heating phase. Boiler comes on, heating works well using your method, lounge and hall at the correct temperatures, boiler goes off. Lounge temp starts to drop but hall doesn't loose its heat as quickly, lounge goes cold, hall doesn't therefore boiler doesn't come back on. We have 3 outside walls in our lounge, 2 1x4m cold bits to the ceiling where the (insulated) eaves are and a 3.5x2m window. The hall is all internal walls bar the front door and window to the side.

I need to move the stat to the lounge then throttle the radiators to prevent them dominating the system.

we're trying daveh's suggestion............

hijack.

i have replied to the saddle thread.

To all those saying "turn down the radiator in the hall". as long as the thermostat remains in the hall that's a really bad idea.

For a start, if all the other radiator valves close the pump isn't going to like it; and secondly, if you turn it down too much and leave the internal doors closed the heating might run non-stop during the "on" period, which kind of defeats having a thermostat in the first place.

Fit one of these:
http://tinyurl.com/c5dz73r

Stick it in your living room and turn the radiators to "max" on the TRVs. You could also buy more than one and put another in the bedroom, so either room can demand heat. I only have a one zone system so use Pegler programmable TRVs to isolate the bedroom and bathrooms during the day, and the living room at night.