Heating engineers – heating control conundrum for parent with Alzheimers

For some reason my mother has become obsessed with fiddling with the heating and hot water. There were some problems with the boiler last winter but she keeps altering the timeclock, leaving the immersion on constantly and turning down the thermostat (then trying to heat the house with a gas fire in one room).

I’ve bought a delay timer to put inline on the immersion (press the button, 2 hours hot water).

I’m trying to work out what to do with the gas boiler controls. i’d thought just buy a second set so that the current timer and thermostat were still in place but weren’t actually doing anything.

Any recommendations? I was thinking the easiest option might be to use something like a Drayton Digistat wireless and hide the stat itself behind a piece of furniture. I’m not sure there’s any benefit in using something internet connected – hot water and heating can run from 8-2200 with the stat set at a warm not hot temp (say 19C) and she can top up with gas fire if she needs to.

My Dad has had this with his Mum. Ended up with getting everything boxed in, so she couldnt fiddle with it. My Dad is 300 miles away from his Mum and did consider the wireless option, but it didnt get round the being able to switch it off at the wall issue! She does still have control of the gas fire in the lounge, though that nearly resulted in him calling 999 at the weekend after a very odd phone call!

Boxed in how? Has he literally screwed a box over the top of it?

Yes, he ended up getting a local friendly tradesman in (because it was getting such an issue last winter and he couldnt get down fast enough) who fitted a cover plate to the thermostat control and just used some wood to box in round the hot water tank controls (just with wood screws so it could be removed to service it). I think she eventually lost interest in the thermostat controls on the radiators, but I can ask him later if he did anything with that in the end as I cant remember. It isnt pretty, but she doesnt realise that and it solved the issue quickly.

It is really tricky. In our experience something bugs her for 1-3 months and then she drops it. For ages she kept calling saying we had stolen the shower curtain (we hadn’t, it just wasnt the one she remembered from the 1990s!).

Fit a wireless controler hidden somewhere then a visible dummy thermostat that she can fiddle away with to her hearts content.

Fit a wireless controler hidden somewhere then a visible dummy thermostat that she can fiddle away with to her hearts content.

That’s what I’m thinking. I was wondering about something like
http://www.honeywelluk.com/products/Temperature-Controls/Temperature-TPI-Control/DT90E/

You can alter the parameters so that the minimum temperature is, say 17C even when it’s “off” so not matter what she does with the buttons it’s not going to get too cold but proabably still too complex and the change from what she has now (a classic manual dial) will unsettle her.

I know you said no internet but nest has a really simple dial control so so as not to unsettle her and you could have the app on your phone to make sure she’s keeping the place at the right temp

I know you said no internet but nest has a really simple dial control so so as not to unsettle her and you could have the app on your phone to make sure she’s keeping the place at the right temp

What worries me is

Just change the temperature when you wake up, go to bed, leave the house and come home. The Nest Thermostat learns quickly,then programs itself.

I fear she’ll keep messing with it and mess it up. If it learns that she always wants it low its not really achieved anything.

I turned off the learning element of the Nest, I only had to turn it up on a day off and suddenly I realise that for the last month its been heating the house on that day. Or I turn it up after a freezing night ride, and then every wednesday evening it decides to overheat the house. Doesn’t seem to learn long term trends, just copies and then keeps turning the heating on/up

Fit a wireless controler hidden somewhere then a visible dummy thermostat that she can fiddle away with to her hearts content.

That’s what we did for the MIL when she got dementia which worked to a point but then she went round feeling radiators and got all worked up with herself anyway, I gave up work for two years to look after her during the daytime and we had to employ carers for overnight,
As awful as it sounds It only got better when she got worse, it’s a war of attrition and you have to just hang in there, and remember no matter how frustrating and infuriating it gets, try to be kind

Nest or Hive might be a good idea. Been considering this for the MIL – she’s physically disabled, although she can reach the light switch, but won’t step that little further through the door to the thermostat (literally on opposite side of the wall). It’s around 80-83F (27C – yes I kid you not) in her lounge (web cam tells us) but she will phone up for us to drive round to turn it up, then the next morning you get loads of phone calls at work to say it’s ‘too hot now’.

nest and control it remotely?

I wouldn’t bother Nest or any of the smart thermostats but would favour a dummy stat somewhere with another stat discretely hidden to actually control the heating, with some min and max temperature stops set. Possibly use a Honeywell frost stat cover with a real stat underneath.

Plenty of offices have dummy stats in……

this is probably the biggest issue facing heating engineers.. folks really like to play with stuff and the older they get and less able they become the more they worry and play with controls also sadly the more i have to manage ‘children’ who live such busy lives they cant spare any time for a deterioating parent and blame the heating guy..

the answer is simple.. keep it simple.. i manange customers who have everything from hive/nest to simple light switches for on and off and yes even a simple on off switch is too much for some.. so please no hives or nest.. radio frequency and hide the control or an analogue timer on half an hour off half an hour 24/7.. most elderly folks dont think oh its warm so it must be on they touch the radiator and if its not hot the central heatings broken and it must be either turned on or the engineer called.. also time is a factor.. the number of calls i get at 2 and 4 o clock in a morning asking why the heatings not on.. again.. having the controls half an hour on half an hour off is crude but gets over that hurdle.. most amusing..we once had to put the control in the freezer compartment of a fridge to hide them and so they were always on..

Firstly sorry to hear about you mum it must be a tough time for you, I know you said no internet but I have some Heatmiser units and they are connected to the internet allowing remote control of the timer and boost functions and also display the current temperature, but the key feature for you might be the lock function that stops the key pad from functioning it might stop the playing if it does not respond.

Ours are s few years old so you might want to confirm the newer units still have this function.

Thermostat box

Work use these to stop us getting at the thermostat controls.

most elderly folks dont think oh its warm so it must be on they touch the radiator and if its not hot the central heatings broken

This is absolutely true with Dad’s Mum, if the radiator doesn’t feel hot (even if the rest of us are stood in the house in t-shirts!), then it must be broken!

It’s not just elderly folk with Alzheimer’s who fiddle irrationally with the CH and HW controls; Mrs Gti will turn the room ‘stat up to 25 thinking it will somehow warm the house up faster and I come home to find the house like a sauna. She will open the TRV on the lounge rad so that even when the stove is kicking out 5 kilowatts and the room at 24c, the double rad is also pumping out heat. She then complains that the lounge is “a bit warm” so I open the door, allowing a lot of superheated air to blast upstairs then she complains that there’s a cold draft coming in the door…. and so on….

the answer is simple.. keep it simple.. i manange customers who have everything from hive/nest to simple light switches for on and off and yes even a simple on off switch is too much for some.. so please no hives or nest.. radio frequency and hide the control or an analogue timer on half an hour off half an hour 24/7..

I did a bit of searching on the Nest site and actually it looks as if that it might be the smartest answer after all.

It looks like you can lock the stat from the app so the stat only allows adjustment within a very small range. that sounds like it would be ideal.

She also either intentionally or unintentionally changing the timer controls as well. the nest box would eliminate that.