MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Anyone find the thermostat a bit funky? I've got the house set to 19 degrees in the day and I keep getting cold hands then getting hot spells as if it's surging the boiler to get it up to heat then killing the boiler.. it keeps reading 19 on the display though so maybe I'm just being odd?
Or have I just been a muppet and set the house far too cold when my only activity is typing?
Could you be going through the menopause?
I work from home and find 19 is the lowest I can cope with, 20 is a lot more comfortable if you're in the same room. The Nest will only kick on if it drops 0.5 degrees below so if you set it to 19 it won't do anything until it drops to 18.5.
Despite all the clever stuff it still varies a bit during the day. It definitely can't work out how long my house takes to warm up, I suspect it is highly weather dependent and the Nest algorithm doesn't factor this highly enough.
Good info - thanks V8 - I'll up it to 20 and see how we get on 🙂
Hawaii all over the house...
I'd be mildly interested to see someone strip down and test the most common thermostats (I can't be bothered myself), eevblog or the likes, to see how cost compromised the thermistor and temperature control circuits are. I've noticed some of the cheap ones are no worse than much more expensive units (there's a lot of rebranding going on) in terms of temperature sensitivity/thermistor choice. Obviously in the real world there is a compromise to be reached, too sensitive and it would be like a child with a light switch strobe light!
If you have a remote transmitter unit (in a cold room colder than your body temp) hold it in your hand until the temperature goes up from your body heat, then watch how slow it is to get back down to room temperature after you let go of it. Not all are equal! Multimeters with temperature testers suffer from the same problem, they respond well to increases in temperature but slowly to decreases, especially at the lower end of the operating range.
The workaround for slow response is to have the temperature higher so you don't notice the changes as much. With the downside of the boiler being on more often and it will feel warmer, which may or may not be desirable.
Check the basics...is the thermostat in a sensible location such as out of direct sunlight, not near a radiator or cold spot, and isn't in a room where the radiator is fitted with a thermostatic valve (unless its set to 5 so it doesn't cut out before the stat turns the boiler off).
If the boiler is modern it should be able to vary its output (modulation) so it can go flat out to heat the house, and then reduce gas consumption and tick over to maintain the rad temperature. The condensing function is more efficient when the boiler is modulating. This also reduces the heat fluctuations when you have a boiler that cycles on and off two or three times an hour.