Control max temperature/valve opening of Smart Radiator

I've installed smart radiator valves throughout our entire house (7 in total). We have three radiators in the living room. One of those radiators is behind the couch.


Our child likes to play on the couch and touch the radiator (she also likes to turn the valve knob, but we've enabled child lock to solve that problem, for which we are grateful!). This is problematic because the radiator can become quite hot when the valve is fully open.

Is there any way (or can it be implemented) to control the maximum setting the valve is allowed to open per radiator to minimize the maximum heat the radiator will radiate? I realize this means it'll likely take longer for the room to get to the desired temperature, as the other two radiators will have to cover the loss of heat generated by this one, but that's a trade-off we're willing to make.

Using our previous non-smart valves, we always made sure the valve was set to 2/5 or 3/5, which solves this problem, but that's equally problematic (although perhaps less so, given that it doesn't involve someone actually getting hurt/burnt by the radiator) because it means that radiator will always heat, even if we instruct Tado to keep the radiators in the living room off.

Answers

  • Speaking as a noob to the world of heating, having installed Tado just last week and experiencing a huge learning curve, I don't think your request is the solution you need. Of course, as a noob I'm quite happy to be corrected, but here's my thinking....

    The problem is that if the radiator (thermostat) is not up to temperature then it will ask for water and that water will be supplied at the full heat of the water in the flow pipe. If your system is running at 70C, for example, and this rad is near the boiler and front of the queue, then any water it takes in will be at 70C. Lowering the thermostat target temp won't change the temperature of the water going into the radiator. It will merely reduce the time for which the thermostat remains open. Also, even if you throttle the radiator flow, you've still got 70C water coming into it via the flow feed. Is that pipe safely out of reach?

    Anyway, if you do want to reduce flow then the answer is in the lock shield valve, not the thermostat. You may need to close it almost completely - fully closed and then open it just a quarter turn and adjust from there. The thermostat cannot control the maximum temperature of the rad, only that of the thermostat.

    Alternatively, and Tado seems quite good at accomplishing this (with a smart thermostat connected to ebus to control the boiler), you might be able to run the whole system at lower temperatures entirely. Rhetorical question, but what is your central heating water temperature set to? Can it be run at lower temp? If you have a condensing boiler it might improve efficiency to do so.