Sometimes the bathroom is a bit chilly and the towels would be nicer warm., The downstairs wireless room stat has kept the boiler off and some of the TRVs should be closed. However, it would be nice to give the CH a shot for about 30 mins just before going in. Other than fiddling with the downstairs room stat, any ideas on how I could trigger the boiler separately? Could I wire some sort of switch to the boiler?
John laid this down on his screen :
If your heating system controls are basic ones, you could add a one shot timer, such as is used for immersion heaters, across (in parallel) with the room thermostat.
Fit an electric element to the towel rail?
Depends on how your boiler is wired to the thermostat. If it's a 'standard' 240V mains call-for-heat you could wire a 30 minute runback timer into the wiring centre across existing L, N and call-for-heat terminals.
In most systems the thermostat/programmer controls the motorised valve, and a microswitch in the valve actually operates the boiler. Presumably you need to operate any valves in the same way as an ordinary call for heat would.
Owain
You would need to make the bathroom a separate heating zone with its own stat, and additional 2 port valve etc, and possibly some extra pipework. That way it could call for heat and run the boiler, without also heating the rest of the house.
Failing that a wall mounted fan heater or radiant bar heater might be less upheaval to install.
Or everyone's favourite, the heat-n-light :-)
Owain
snipped-for-privacy@gowanhill.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
Towl rail type not suited and we took ages choosing it - and I didn't want to do the wiring.
We had an paraffin heater in the bathroom until we got our Wilson Wallflame oil CH boiler.
I had an oil lamp as a nightlight in my room when I was a toddler, it's not that there wasn't mains socket in there, and 15W pigmy bulbs were common enough.
if it's an add-on type bathroom, insulation might be a better investment
NT
If you upgrade to smart heating controls you will be able to use Alexa or Google Assistant Or an app to boost the heating and if you use smart TRVs you can literally heat individual rooms.
Richard
To what extent do wireless thermostats connected to a smart hub (Hive etc) take away the need for a multi zoned system? For example, a timed preset that shuts down all radiators except for the bathroom/lockshield?
I've just fitted a few of these thermostats, and have (I think) effectively zoned parts of my house.
Hi Rob
We have Hive and have fitted Hive TRVs on every radiator except the bathroom which is the bypass. If you set the valves to heat on demand each valve will independently switch the heating on through the Hive thermostat with each valve being timed independently and different temperatures set you can heat each room independently. Currently we are mainly using our back reception room so only tend to heat it leaving the rest of the house unheated with the exception of the bathroom radiator because it is the official bypass is always on if heat is called for by any of the other radiators it will heat up too. It is PITA to program unlike adjusting a single programmer you have to set the valves independently but that is done in the app. We have a basic timed sequence for all the valves and simply tell Alexa if we want to change any setting for any particular room.
Richard
I'd be surprised if a towel rail is meaty enough to heat a bathroom. Especially if covered in towels.
Traditional wireless stats on their own can create independent zoned demands, but not zoned response. If you have wireless TRVs alongside each of the wireless stats (either separate devices, or combined with the TRV), then yes you can create a fully zoned response.
However ISTM you would need to take some care with the programming and setup to avoid creating circumstances where the system routinely has heating loads that are consistently below the lower modulation limit of the boiler. If you do, then that means lots of short cycling, and a reduction in the overall system efficiency.
With a modern condenser, pump overrun, low water content, and anti cycling timer, then that efficiency hit would be smaller. With a older fixed output boiler, no overrun etc, then it could be quite significant.
(a fully one zone per rad system would probably be a very good match for a system using a thermal store or heat bank between the rads and the boiler)
Yes. Plenty of answers already. One feature of my system is a switch by the back door in what would be a room stat circuit if I had one, so that it is easy to knock the heating off when leaving the house if it is empty, and back on when we get in. I'm not quite ready to start adding mobile phone sensors although I realise that is easy, now.
One useful feature of the Blink XT camera on the front door is that the phone now gives me a ping when a delivery driver calls and leaves something in full view from the road. At the moment none of the delivery drivers are bothering with doorbells.
Yup, a common problem on many of them. I used to be a bit wary of the towel rail with inset radiator style (being a tad fugly to my eye!), but I went for one on my last bathroom refit as it fitted the somewhat Victorian style of the rest of the room. In practice its turned out to actually work much better than the modern ladder style designs since the towels don't end up eliminating all the heat output into the room (since they hang down in front of the rad part).
Vis:
My boiler is in the bathroom. The old cast iron BF type kept it toasty warm. The was a rad in there too, but the TRV kept it off.
When it was new boiler time, did a complete refurkle of the bathroom including changing the rad for a towel rail. And all walls tiled top to bottom. And a solid oak floor. All done in the summer. Come winter, the room was freezing - virtually no waste heat from the new Viessmann condenser. So had to add a rad. Managed to fish pipes for it through a cavity wall, and couple into the feeds in the landing outside.
I have a vertical radiator as well as the towel rail.
Well, yes, agreed, somebody with more care than me, anyway ;-)
I've just got some button presets on the app - 'study only', lounge only', 'full monty' sort of thing. And the main stat is the override. An issue with my setup is that the main stat has to work in a meaningful way if the 'zoning' principle is going to work properly. As it happens, that's not a major issue now that I've tweaked it.
But on a couple of occasions I've forgotten about it all, and the system's merrily heated an area of the house all night . . . but I can't budget for an idiot user :-)
And yes, I've noticed the short cycling when using a 'small' zone especially.
Mmmm, good points, thanks.
I've only got 3 Hive TRVs on a 12 rad system. I bought them on a 'special', and have been very pleased with the way they do actually work.
I've replied to John with a more detailed reply. The bit that confuses me is where the overall control sits. I like to use the main stat, but if that's not in a zoned (using the word loosely here) room, then it all falls on the TRVs. I've got it set so that non-zoned rooms tick over at say 16C, and the TRVs do their bit - as I say, very well for my purposes (which is essentially shutting down the top 2 floors in the evening).
I'll get a few more when they're on special again, on the loose assumption that the ones in place are reliable and don't chew through batteries (all good so far - about 6 months I think).
While I manage, I don't feel as if I'm ever going to find a smartphone/tablet app as intuitive as a wall mounted control, but hey.
Hi Rob
I do not think there is need for overall control from the thermostat, when you paired the TRVs you paired them to the receiver not the thermostat so I think the TRVs communicate directly with the receiver and bypass the thermostat. We still have the thermostat in the lounge off the wall on a stand it still has all its settings but the lounge radiator is one fitted with a TRV ( I know it is not best practice) but I could not say for certain which device really controls the lounge heating. I keep meaning to disable the thermostat and see what happens or might pose the question on the Hive forum.
Richard
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