Do I need a zone controller or can devices be independent?
Morning all. Following some issues at the weekend I realised how dependent we are on a good connection to the zone controller (which is an extension kit in the airing cupboard). We have a typical house with smart thermostats in most rooms, all on the same heating/piping boiler system. every room talks to the same zone controller. I noticed there is an option in the settings to set up each room independently. Will that still work, are the smart radiator valves able to turn the boiler on and off directly without speaking to the extension kit?
Alternatively, if we're getting a more reliable wireless connection to the wall thermostat, I assume we can use that as the zone controller instead as that has a wired connection to the boiler for on/off control.
Thanks.
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The TRV's and/or the thermostat can control the request for heat. You can have up to 10 devices that can turn the hearing on.
Initially when I setup my system I had all of my TRV's being able to call for heat. What I would say is though that this can be inefficient and will cause more wear and tear on the boiler itself (and likely take longer to warm up) as it'll come on and off much more frequently. Most boilers cannot regulate how much heat they put out very low. For example my Vaillant 938 can only go down to around 7kw. For some smaller houses that would be enough heat for the whole of the house. This means the boiler will warm up to quickly, get to it's operating temperature and then cut off before the room even gets to the temperature you ask for. This will happen many times. Each time the boiler comes on and then off you use more gas than if you could just run the boiler constantly.
In the end I just have my living room and office as controllers. I just keep the rest of the TRV's "independent" to regulate the temperature.
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I think many houses only have one heating zone (i.e. prior to installing Tado's there was only one thermostat). In that case making each SRT independant doesn't make sense, like @Paddy1983 writes.
At least one of the SRT's has to tell the Zone Controller (i.e. main thermostat) to request heated water, otherwise nothing happens. Independent really means that the SRT is directly/independantly connected direcly to the boiler, and not via the central heating zone piping controlled by the central thermostat. At least that is what I have concluded. Always best to reach out to helpdesk.
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