Hi, wondering if anyone out there can help me.

Bought a house a few months ago and it has a relatively new combi boiler but has an ancient thermostat…

There is no programmer/controller just boiler then wires to the thermostat.

So I bought a hive smart controller. Which has 3 parts a hub which connects to the router, a receiver which is wired to the boiler which then wirelessly connects to the thermostat.

I’ve removed the old thermostat and there is only three wires labelled N/o N/c and com (red, yellow and blue) I compared the diagram on the back of the old thermostat and wired them up the same on the hive receiver and nothing happens…

Most videos etc people seem to have far more than 3 wires, so I went upstairs to the boiler which has two wires coming out of it, one of which went to a junction box so I wired it all up to that so it was also connected to a live, neutral and earth in addition to the boiler wires, Boiler still turned on fine but nothing from the hive receiver… Still as if it has no power.

So there’s only the other wire out of the boiler left but I’m worried I’m just wasting my time at this point and it might just not be compatible?

I’ll try and load some pictures to go with my terrible descriptions

No offence but it sounds like it might be worth you paying someone a few quid to do this for you.

The hive controller will almost certainly work with your boiler (it sounds like a similar set up to the one we had before we upgraded to a nest controller) but you could easily damage the boiler, the controller or yourself if you connect mains wiring into the wrong thing.

My experience was that the hive controller replaces the thermostat (so ours is still on the wall but switched to max temp thus handing control over to Hive).

The receiver has just 1 green light on and went where my old controller was (80’s style Hot water and central heating on off type panel). This was easy enough to wire in. I still have an override switch which I can use to power the imersion heater (looks like the fused switch next to your boiler? I can’t control that via Hive though.

Not sure if that helps or makes any sense, their website was ok for help when I wired it in.

Without a controller before how was the heating switched other than by temperature?

I think that the bottom two pictures is the main power to the boiler and should not had anything to do with the Hive. the Hive unit is simply a replacement to your thermostat. Plain white unit with three leds, power and a button for hot water and heating. I had the exact same model of thermostat. The Hive receiver unit was wired into this part of the wiring and controls the boiler by the plumber and the new “fancy” thermostat is wireless and works with the dongle plugged into your router.

Not sure if this helps

That what I thought but wiring it into where the old thermostat was it doesn’t seem to power on there are no lights coming as of it doesn’t have power

How do you currently adjust the time of day that the CH/HW come on? What make and model boiler do you have?

Didn’t have any way of adjusting those things hence the purchase of new thermostat. Well it has a dial for 24hr timer but you can just turn that off to run it off thermostat all the time

Boiler is a baxi platinum 28

You need someone to fit the receiver/controller for you. EDIT: Didn’t see it was a combi, so it’s only the CH you have to worry about.

Basically DIYing the receiver means just swapping in for whatever Honeywell etc controller you have (which you don’t). Otherwise you need to find the various bits which call for CH and HW and sort them out to end up at the back of the receiver box. Which is sparky territory unless you know what you are doing.

So you have something like this

as a component plugged into the boiler directly?

I had a very basic digital thermostat so just up/down adjustment with the 3 wires shown coming out the wall. I have copied the labels on N/o, N/c and com and put these wires in the correct position on the hive receiver and it doesn’t power it on.

The 3 wires disappear into the wall and none of the wires at the boiler end correspond colour wise so a bit lost with where they go, otherwise I could just wire the receiver in the cupboard with the boiler where I have access to power as well.

I was told it would work fine with the 3 wires I have but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Hive has two jobs; clock and thermostat.

You’ve replaced the thermostat, but the clock has it’s own ideas. It might work if the clock is demanding heat all the time.

As you don’t seem to know this, get an expert in

I don’t think you can use your old thermostat wiring to power the receiver. Your old thermostat is basically a switch that only has power going to it (down the COM line) when the boiler is requesting the central heating to be on. There’s no permanent power supply to it. You need a permanent power supply for the Hive receiver.

Option #1 is to get someone in who knows what they’re doing.
Option #2 is to disconnect, make safe, ignore the old thermostat and wire up the Hive receiver directly from the boiler. This normally means taking the boiler case off, in which case refer to option #1.

How many cables go into the boiler? I’m guessing two? One will be the power from the fused switch you’ve taken a photo of. The other one is likely to be the boiler end of the thermostat wire. You could wire up next to the boiler using these without needing to take the case off.

You need a permanet live feed into the thermostat location as well I think. Certainly thats what I had to do to replace a thermostat with a modern wired controller.

As you don’t seem to know this, get an expert in

The clock function can be turned on/off which I already said…

I tried wiring it into the other wire from the boiler (boiler turns on with this disconnected completely so the switched one is the power) but again nothing happened but it’s hard to know what wire is what, as the colours at the thermostat Don’t match what’s at the boiler end

the colours at the thermostat Don’t match what’s at the boiler end

That means 2 things:
1 – you haven’t found the thermostat wires at the boiler
2 – as you don’t know this, you don’t know what you’re doing.

Get someone in who does.

If you stick a multimeter over the wires you should be able to find out what they all do. It might be that you used to have perm live and neutral and signal, but when they replaced it with a combi you’ve only got live and signal? What boiler is it and what is wired into it?

I have found them… As there is only two wires going to the boiler so it must be in one of them it’s just hard to know which is which when the colours must change at some point along the way.

House is a 70’s build with annoyingly original wiring with only very minimal bits that have been updated over the years… So it’s a bit of a patchwork of sorts when it comes to wiring

I had a similar issue when I tried to DIY install my Tado thermostat, in the end I got a professional in, and bought a wireless bridge unit that connects to the boiler. The professional Tado installer couldn’t get it to work any other way.

If I was you, I’d get someone to do it for you that knows what they’re doing (this is not me being critical of you)

G

Right, so one of the cables goes into the boiler from the power switch. What colour wires are in the other cable?

This is the other wire that comes from the boiler

So the brown, blue and yellow/green come from the boiler

They look like the power supply to the boiler. Where do the red/black/earth wires go?
What about the other cable you said goes to the boiler?

I thought that at first but if those wires are completely disconnected the boiler still turns on…

The other wire goes to the switch and looks like this

I’m learning to not assume anything is the way you expect/it is supposed to be with this house ….

And the br/bl/yg wires go to the boiler as well?

No, the brown/blue/yellow/green go through the same style wire as the other one to the boiler.

All the other wires appear into the wall

There are a couple of ways to solve this without having to take the boiler case off. Does the boiler work with the old thermostat? As in does the thermostat control the CH correctly?

Yes it was working… Was because it cracked while being removed so isn’t much good anymore

I’m not dead set on keeping the hive if there’s an easy alternative with 7 day programming without the connectivity I’ll just take it back and swap if it makes my life easier

You need a permanet live feed into the thermostat location as well I think.

No you don’t. It’s run by a battery.

The thermostat has batterys but the receiver doesn’t

Gonna need wiring up either way, and you’re still going to need to figure out which wire does what. If the old thermostat worked there is a way you can check which of those wires is which, but if not you’re stuck with either checking with a multimeter or taking the case of the boiler, in which case you’re either playing with 240v or breaking the gas-tight seal of the boiler case. Notwithstanding the fact that you’re not legally allowed to remove the boiler case anyway, I wouldn’t be confident with my explanation of either of those methods to you being followed to the letter so I’m going to leave it here.

My honest advice, as a Gas Safe registered engineer, is to get either an electrician or a Gas Safe engineer in.

.

My honest advice, as a Gas Safe registered engineer, is to get either an electrician or a Gas Safe engineer in.

At this point, this. If you had a ‘standard’ setup, you might be able to do a self-install, but it’s clear that you’re going to have to mess with the connections inside your boiler, as from what you’ve described, it has its own clock function.

out of interest, is there a reason you can’t site the receiver right next to the boiler, instead of wherever it is now? then just run a brand new, short length of wiring from the boiler based on the pinout the manufacturer spec gives.

most programmable stats will only need 2 wires, for what its worth. You might find the third was previously for hot water anyway..

He doesn’t have a receiver/controller now, that’s the problem (or at least the programmable part of it is semi-integrated into the boiler’s own wiring), if I understand it properly. Basically he would have to find and disconnect the wires that run internally from the ‘clock’ to the boiler controls, and replace them with new wiring out to the Hive receiver. Once that’s live, the rest is a doddle, no wiring needed.

If you’re stuck with no heating while you get this sorted and the old thermostat really is knackered, connect the thermostat COM and N/O wires together. You’ll have permanent heating so will just have to use the clock function to control it.

Which makes me think…. take a photo of the clock control bit and post it up.

Ok thanks guys I’m starting to see why this is more complicated than I thought, so I’d need to mess with the “clock” (which I’m not gonna do) I thought of I have it turned to off then essentially the clock isn’t part of the system?

Looks like someone has just used normal coloured 3 core wire out of the boiler then it changes colours further down the line making it it a bit more difficult to work out what does what. So I know what red, yellow and blue do downstairs but not sure if blue turns to brown or yellow/green etc

Hot water works fine and don’t need the heating at the moment, but obviously trying to sort it now before it’s starts getting colder.

I’m thinking the clock is a separate bit of the whole system. Maybe something like this:

In which case this is what you need to be removing to wire in the Hive receiver. The Hive acts as a clock itself, you don’t need a separate clock.