Hive Heating – doesn’t allow true multi-zone heating

We’ve got Hive and their smart TRVs. It seems ok, but has a fundamental flaw. The smart TRVs can’t turn the boiler on if the main thermostat is already at the requested temperature. E.g. thermostat in hallway is at 21C and lounge is 18C. If you want the lounge to be 21C then you actually have to set it higher than 21C, because the main thermostat is at 21C. All the TRVs do is boost the main thermostat.

Is this true of other smart heating systems?

Surely thethermostat should be in the lounge? Most occupied room? More likely to want other areascooler than the lounge?

irc
Free Member

Surely thethermostat should be in the lounge? Most occupied room? More likely to want other areascooler than the lounge?

That’s what I thought too, but my parents were told to put theres in the hall when getting Hive kit installed recently

The lounge has TRVs, so not ideally. These could be removed and turned to be fully on.

Also the other day we had an issue where my son’s room was cold but the boost from the TRV did nothing as the hallway was already at temperature.

Is this true of other smart heating systems?

evohome doesn’t work like that; any trv can trigger the call for heat.

Yep, Evohome works truly independently. If you put valves on all the rads, you can control each room.

Works great for those working at home in a little office in a big house!

any trv can trigger the call for heat

Hive seems essentially capped by the thermostat. Is evohome not then?

Is this true of other smart heating systems?

Nope. Tado – any TRV cann call for heat and all TRVs can de set to whatever independent heat you want.

Hive’s website doesn’t seem to think it should work like that:

“Hive Radiator Valves work best with Hive Active Heating. Your radiator valves can automatically turn the heating on when they need to in order to keep that special room warm, even when your Hive thermostat is set low.”

https://www.hivehome.com/shop/smart-heating/hive-radiator-valve

Hive seems essentially capped by the thermostat. Is evohome not then?

Basically each TRV is it’s own thermostat. There’s no central thermostat. If any TRV needs heat, it triggers the boiler relay.

That’s what I thought too, but my parents were told to put theres in the hall when getting Hive kit installed recently

Might be because there are TRVs in the other rooms? If the thermostat is in a room with TRVs it can potentially lead to the heating running constantly, if the TRV temperature is set lower than the thermostat.

Hive Radiator Valves work best with Hive Active Heating. Your radiator valves can automatically turn the heating on when they need to in order to keep that special room warm, even when your Hive thermostat is set low.

Yeah that works, but if the thermostat is set high it doesn’t. You have to overshoot

Hive Heat on Demand can call for heat to a TRV and override the main thermostat, but only up to 22deg (currently). but you have to set it to Heat on Demand and not have Ready By on in the settings.

Drayton Wiser TRV’s can call for heat, in fact there doesn’t seem much point in a thermostat as the TRV can control the room

override the main thermostat, but only up to 22deg

The main thermostat does seem to hover at 22C. I have it set for Heat on Demand and don’t use Ready By.

I think the only way to do it is a system with TRVs on every radiator. Otherwise the rooms without TRVs will get super warm

I think the only way to do it is a system with TRVs on every radiator. Otherwise the rooms without TRVs will get super warm

Not really. We’ve got evohome with TRVs on radiators in all rooms (8 rooms plus hallway) with the exception of main bathroom and the downstairs toilet. Those rooms don’t get super-toasty. Works well to dry off towels after showering in main bathroom, and quite pleasant not to have a stone-cold rim to sit on in the WC this time of year.

dmorts
Full Member
Might be because there are TRVs in the other rooms?

Nope, only thing checking/controlling the temperature is the thermostat

Do you have to link the thermostat with the TRVs in the room? We’ve got Tado and have a stat and TRV in the living room because we want the temperature measured near where we’re sitting, so it takes the temp for the room from the wall stat and still controls the radiator with the TRV.

we’ve got hive heating and TRVs all across one of our boiler zone. Works fine, uses heat on demand to set the upstairs stat to 22 (which is way warmer than it ever is) but it was a little finikity when first installed, took maybe a week to settle down.

They do go through a calibration which can take a week to sort out.

I am thinking of getting some Hive TRVs but making them a bit “dumb” by only using them to turn rooms off and on altogether. There’s only 2 of us in the house and we don’t need the lounge and our bedroom heating during the day, only the bathroom (maybe) and the 2 spare rooms where we work and the kitchen. I’m going to try 2 to start off with.

I am thinking of getting some Hive TRVs but making them a bit “dumb” by only using them to turn rooms off and on altogether

Thats how we use them. use the schedule to control rads upstairs on/off. heat up in the evening ready for bed, then off after we leave for work in the morning. Either fully open or closed, then the main thermostat downstairs controls the overall temperature.

in fact there doesn’t seem much point in a thermostat as the TRV can control the room

What’s the point in a Thermostat anyway if all your rads have TRVs (smart or not)?

What’s the point in a Thermostat anyway if all your rads have TRVs (smart or not)?

you need something to ‘call’ the boiler to tell it to send heat to the rads. You also need one radiator to not have a smart valve on it (or a TRV of any sort) so that whenever the boiler sends heat theres somewhere for it to go. In our case, we have that as a towel rail that’s barely cracked open, but I guess you could have that in a room with the thermostat in it too

you need something to ‘call’ the boiler to tell it to send heat to the rads.

Oh yeah, duh *slaps forehead*

@b230ftw We went with a full install of Hive TRV’s when the boiler was replaced recently. Once the valves were all calibrated we changed to heat on demand and set a schedule and temperature for each room (default is 4 on and off periods but more can be added). Herself has a lovely toasty home office and upstairs loo during office hours. A brief spurt of heat downstairs in the kitchen and downstairs loo for lunchtime. The house is heated from around 5pm ready for me getting home lounge kitchen and dining, with bedroom and bathroom heated later for bedtime. We end up with individual rooms being heated by a 24kw boiler. So far it seems to be saving money but only a full years running will confirm this.

You also need one radiator to not have a smart valve on it (or a TRV of any sort) so that whenever the boiler sends heat theres somewhere for it to go.

Technically yes but there’s no reason for that now other than a hangover from the past – if you were designing a smart heating system from scratch you’d just have a controller beside the boiler that each TRV connects to and if the room temp in any room fell below the set point for that TRV it would call for heat and open simultaneously to allow the hot water to flow through that radiator.

Having to have a thermostat in one room and a bunch of smart TRVs in the rest seems old fashioned.

@IHN The thermostat in our system effectively controls the hot water supply as we have an indirect tank feed for the house. TRV’s do the rest.

Thermostat is set for 20C while herself has the office at 21.5C. Last night we had heating running overnight to heat the bathroom as it gets cold and had dipped below 15C.

Hive Heat on Demand can call for heat to a TRV and override the main thermostat, but only up to 22deg

@fettlin had a look in the app, you can adjust the max temp now. Will move it up and see if that works for us.

Due to increase energy costs now being a proper thing, I’m thinking of getting these as we have a Hive stat.

Stupid question : If you set the lounge TRV to say 18 and the stat is in another room (say the office) at  21, will the room set to 18 come on as temp drops below 18 but not heat up any more – i.e keep at 18 and not increase to 21?

Also alternatively if the stat is in the lounge or dining room set to ‘off’ on the schedule, can the person in the office use the office TRV as a stat to control just the temp in there to say 21?

Simple answer Winston is that the TRV does all the work once everything is set to on-demand via the app.
Individual radiators call for heat in our house at odd times of the day when the ‘stat is nominally off. You can set a schedule of on/off times and temperatures for each radiator once the valves have calibrated. Each radiator will need a valve though and we get some overheating due to over-sized radiators in some rooms.

I installed a Tado system the other month and I think I encountered the same issue.

Is your Hive thermostat wired? If so when it reaches the demanded temperature the relay switch is going to open, breaking the circuit and will never allow your trvs to demand heat.

The solution is to decommission your wired thermostat by closing the circuit permanently by joining the wires that are controlled by the relay together and then let your thermostat and trvs demand heat wirelessly.

you need something to ‘call’ the boiler to tell it to send heat to the rads

This can be as simple as a timer. The really simple system in my house is manual TRVs on all but one rad and a timer on the boiler. We only turn the heating on when it’s cold, and then the timer is set for only an hour or 2 in the morning and evening.

I get that if I left this running all year it’d be wasteful as without a thermostat the boiler will run any time the timer demands, but it works well for us. Gas bill is small, even now on a variable rate. We do have the benifit of a reasionably well insulated house, modern windows, no drafts etc.

@blahblahblah Hive thermostats seem to be all wireless using 2 AA batteries for a years power. There is a control unit hidden away for boiler and hot water control (water is set through the thermostat or via the app). Heating is controlled by the TRV’s only in our install.

Yes Hive is wireless. Our stat is on an overpriced little stand that can be moved around from room to room.

At the moment my wife works from home most days and she has the thermostat in our little study/office room at the front of the house which gets really cold unless you wack the thermostat right up. This means unless she manually turns all the other rads off or down the whole house gets red hot. In addition we have a large open plan dining kitchen which has just enough rads to keep it comfortably warm but having the stat in there (best place as we are mostly in there) mmeans the office is too cold and the lounge with its large radiators is too warm. We have TRV valves but they always seem to be ‘on’ or ‘off’ with very little gradation. My thought was to get Hive valves fitted downstairs on all rads and then this would allow the stat to remain in the kitchen diner and my wife to use the smart trv in the study to control her temperature – in addition we could set schedules for the rest of the downstairs etc

This would hopefully save money in the long run as we wouldn’t be heating the lounge all the time and also allow the main stat to ‘learn’ a bit more efficiently as its not constantly moved

Or not?