[Closed] Fancy home heating systems - Hive/Nest/etc.

or will it be a total ballache and/or waste of money

From the perspective of a Tado owner - not a problem.

our hive was an easy add on to an existing combi system

internet hub(plug in), battery powered thermostat replaced old thermostat on wall (same wiring), and boiler receiver add on was bolted to the garage wall near the boiler

I **suspect** you'd just need to change the boiler receiver connections - so if you're moving the boiler ..................

Major works - insulate the place properly and your heating problems will be solved with a 3kW air-air air con unit or a couple of portable oil-filled rads - or a wood burner if you're not in a place where smoke is an issue..

If you're redoing your central heating then consider if zones would work for you - motorised zone valves are cheap to do if you're taking out the boiler anyway. The smart thermostats (Hive, Nest, etc) give you more options for turning heat on and off so are worth it if you want to switch the heating on when you're heading home for instance, but won't help control which parts of the house warm up when.

Ours was split into 3 zones (each with their own thermostat/programmer) by the previous owner when they replaced the boiler and did the loft conversion, so each floor has its own control. Can keep downstairs warm in the day if we're in, but don't need to heat bedrooms until later in the day. The loft has radiators but hardly ever needs heat.

You can go even more granular with Evohome, controlling individual radiators. However that's also the downside - it costs £60 or so per radiator to do.

You can go even more granular with Evohome, controlling individual radiators. However that's also the downside - it costs £60 or so per radiator to do.

Tado as well now, with similar cost.

I'm going to ask a stupid question, but isn't the boiler either on or off, cost-wise does it matter if you're heating one room or all the rooms? (Apart from the length of time the boiler is on)

cranberry - Member
From the perspective of a Tado owner - not a problem.

These systems look excellent.

What concerns me slightly though is that it appears to rely on a remote web service to do its thing so if the company goes bust or stops running the service then presumably the device stops doing its smart stuff?

richardkennerley - Member
I'm going to ask a stupid question, but isn't the boiler either on or off, cost-wise does it matter if you're heating one room or all the rooms? (Apart from the length of time the boiler is on)

Yes on my boiler it does. It has a little display showing how hard its working, and that drops right off if my (manual) TRV are set lower.

Retro - there is a slight risk in that.

retro, as a BG customer who has their pre-hive internet based system, which became defunct as they rebranded to hive, I realised that the ability to adjust my heating from my phone or a computer was actually a gimmick I didn't need. I declined the offer to upgrade for £200, and manage perfectly well with the wireless (not wifi) thermostat and timer which allows me to set the temperature required throughout the day for each day. Thermostatic valves in my daughters' rooms and spare room, which can be turned up when they are back from uni/visiting works as my equivalent to zoning.

Retro, the system also falls down if your internet is interrupted (at least with Tado) - no local communication between the wireless thermostat and the boiler, which does seem a little bizarre :O

Cheers, Rich

cranberry - Member
You can go even more granular with Evohome, controlling individual radiators. However that's also the downside - it costs £60 or so per radiator to do.

[b]Tado as well now, with similar cost.[/b]

I've experience of the 1st generation of Tado - which switches the boiler off/on and regulates it according to a thermostat at my mum's place and the smart radiator controls at my own place where there is a centralised boiler. I understand that if you have the TRVs and your own boiler it will control the boiler - that, after all is what the 1st gen does.

The benefits of Tado, not sure if Evohome is similar, are that location is based on everyone's mobile - if you are the last to walk out the door the heating is turned down and is turned back up again as you start to come home, as well as the weather based prediction of how much heating you need to apply to your home on a given day. With elderly parents it was fit and forget and simply doesn't need thinking about at all.

For us as as young family, the apps are a gimmick. We only use it when away to check we turned the boiler off/down!

For Lols though, 20 month old daughter used an ipad to turn Hive up to 32 degrees the other day. It was veeeeery warm before I noticed...

Ps we have amazon dot which interfaces too, that's quite fun! "Alexa, tell Hive to set temperature to 18..."

I've got Hive and, unlike headfirst, do find the ability to control the heating from from phone very useful. I only had a timer before though, no thermostat.

If both me and my housemate are away the heating schedule will be turned off, so I'm not paying to heat an empty house. It's useful to be able to check the temperature of the house and, if needed, turn on the heating in advance of getting home.

It's very easy to change the heating schedule via the app or website (much easier than on my old timer).

Hive will run as a stand alone wireless thermostat/timeclock.

I fitted hive to a combi when we moved in, didn't have broadband at the time so left that part out. In the manual it tells you how to set up just the electrical reciever/control box and the timer/stat. It will do all the timer and temp functions like that, just no smart features (once the novelty has worn off its not an issue!).

As for ball ache moving, no more than a normal timer and thermostat. The reciever/control box may even be able to stay in the same place, just extend the cable to the boiler.

I think I'll go for it then. Will surely save us some money in the run up to renovation - I think we burning through about £140 of gas every month at the moment 😯

Major works - insulate the place properly

Still waiting for the Tado I ordered from them 3.5 weeks ago even though their website says "1-2 weeks dispatch". 🙄

Once we've done all the horrendously expensive work to our new house I want to put a zoned heating system in and having been looking at this. The Hive and Nest components are individual and don't mesh in the way the Evohome or Heatgenius systems do.

I'm going to go for the Heatgenius and have 3 downstairs zones and 1 or 2 upstairs zones. I'm also considering switching to manifolds for the floors so I can control the flow from there rather than at the radiator.

I considered Evohome, heat genius and Tado, all three have the zoning option. Went with Honeywell Evohome in the end as the others were either so new that there was no user experience reviews and/or I felt happier throwing my lot in with a larger company where there is a requirement for them to facilitate the remote internet connection for the next possibly 10+ years.

Still waiting for the Tado I ordered from them 3.5 weeks ago even though their website says "1-2 weeks dispatch

They had quite a wait for orders pre-Christmas due to high demand - they were offering discounts for people who had placed orders to postpone delivery. Mine arrived a couple of days before Xmas having been ordered 6 or 7 weeks earlier.

Anyone who's had the evohome installed, how much was installation?

I've been trying to get a ballpark figure - I've tried contacting a few of the installers, but they don't seem very responsive.

I looked at Evohome and nearly went for it, but with 19 radiators the cost of just the TRVs themselves would have been pretty massive.
But then if you have 'only' half that number of rads then does a zoned system really make that much financial sense?
I'm not sure that it does.

For me, probably with about half that number of radiators, it's not really about financial savings of fuel. It's more about having different parts of the house get to comfort temperatures at the right times - like, if it can bypass the bedrooms, then the living areas should warm up faster.

Sharkbait - with 19 radiators you would be advised to group some as you can only have 10 zones i think from memory.

But with large installs like this your potential savings are quite large and I would suggest that your house is more suited to such a system.

Aidy, you could easily do it yourself. The only bit they suggest you might use a trades man is wiring the relay box to the boiler. The rest of it looks a doddle (haven't actually done it yet tho). So just get a local heating engineer in to mount the relay box and wire it, do the rest yourself, the instructions look well written.

It's got 12 zones BTW. So yes shark bait would have to group some together.

I've not bought it with expectations of recouping money, but to equalise the temp in my house as downstairs is quite a bit colder than upstairs, also convenience, of course..

with 19 radiators you would be advised to group some as you can only have 10 zones i think from memory.

Oil boilers can be kept going providing the water jacket doesn't leak.
£5K cost to replace a big boiler for arguments sake, annual cost of £2k for oil with 70% eff boiler, upgrade to 90% would maybe mean a saving of £400 which is around a 12 year payback, possibly about the life of a newer boiler. I think your boiler guy is giving you good advice, you might be able to get TRV for less than a grand. Looking at the install I did that had 28 of them!
You could consider zoning some rooms first to see how you get on with it.
Your use of the heating will have the biggest effect on your bills.

Yeah, on the Honeywell website (or maybe evohomeshop) they say that a big house with lots of radiators is a no brainer, but they would say that wouldn't they! and there's no real base point, as all people are varying degrees of tight or loose with how they currently use their existing system.
I guess it all depends on how tight/proactive you currently are regarding managing each room/rad temp manually. If you have the whole house going constantly against one thermostat, then being able to set programmes for each room will benefit you on oil heating, big house, lots of rooms, lots of rads. Honesty don't know tho, how long to get back £1K?, it's a lot of cash on a subjective maybe.

BTW I'm a tight arse, so would previously have happily keep my coat on for ten minutes whilst the house warms up. So having a 'smart' system warm my house up 10mins before I arrive home means I'm almost certainly stuffed on any payback.

I swapped out a thick salus rf thermostat for a netatmo smart thermostat recently and I've found it to be a much better control system.
The web and phone app is easy to use and the information you get back is pretty good regarding when the boiler is switched on.
Bought it online for just over £100. Well worth the money.

We've had underfloor heating installed throughout the entire downstairs as four zones. Two front rooms, dining room and kitchen.

I've found it best to leave it a constant temp through the day, and a slightly lower temp through night as it takes a while to warm up the slab. Holds heat nicely though and doesn't see the boiler kick in very often for downstairs. I don't think I'd see any benefit with a smart heating system unless it was just linked to the radiators upstairs.

Probably dumb related question. In less used room (say back bedroom) is it better to turn down / off the rad and close the door or keep the door open so you don't have warm areas and cold areas creating drafts?

You could consider zoning some rooms first to see how you get on with it.

The flys in the ointment are my three teenage girls who get home from school, raid the biscuit tin then immediately disappear to their rooms until tea time 😡

Maybe I'll just stick with what we've got 🙁

Aidy, you could easily do it yourself. The only bit they suggest you might use a trades man is wiring the relay box to the boiler.

Yeah - it's kinda only that bit that I'm looking for.

Oil boilers can be kept going providing the water jacket doesn't leak.

Maybe I should change our 25 year old boiler first, but a trusted heating engineer suggested that if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

This, the cost of replacing will take years to recoup (if at all) unless your existing one is spectacularly inefficient and even then it will take 5-10 years.

SB yes having grown up in a village with no mains gas oil was the main source of heating. Still enjoy working on oil probably more than gas. More mechanical than electronic so a lot easier to diagnose and repair, therefore usually longer lifespans.