Can smart radiator valves override fixed wireless thermostat.

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Starter kits include wireless thermostat. If thermostat is installed, say in hallway where required temp may be 18 deg C generally throughout the heat on period, then any smart rad valves in sitting room or kitchen could be calling for 20 deg C at some time during that period, during evening or breakfast. There appears to be a conflict here as hallway cannot be held to 18 deg C if boiler fires up to make sitting room cosy!

Is the answer to ditch fixed [mains powered] wireless thermostat and have 3 smart rad valves in the 3 key rooms and accept occasional manual control of any other rads , eg in bed rooms/spare rooms. This scheme does not seem to be referenced anywhere.

This must be a common situation where one is trying to avoid heating spaces unnecessarily and currently achieved by carrying portable thermostat around to desired room and manually adjusting stats on other rads. Was hoping TADO system could avoid this tiresome arrangement Will the suggested option work?

House setup is gravity fed modern Worcester gas boiler on Y plan scheme with hot water.

In hope, Eric Orger, Nottingham, UK

Answers

  • johnnyp78
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    I’m pretty certain you don’t have a gravity fed system - search the forum for previous posts on that.

    What you’re suggesting is correct, three tado srvs would be fine. You can add more later if needed, and a wireless temp sensor if you want more accurate temperature reading. If you want to control your hot water you’ll need a wireless starter kit, which comes with a wireless temp sensor anyway.
  • Ramzez
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    Not sure if that helps but for each zone you can only have one sensor acting as control. So in our living space with kitchen we have 3 radiators I put all smart TPVs but tado doesn’t average them if I say i want the furtherst be controlling as it is next to the radiator it gets warmed up too fast and the difference between the room temperature and tpv is like 2 degrees. The solution I am currently experimenting and tado recommends is that I have wireless thermostat which controls that room basically as an overall. It seems to work so far. Although I did need to set offset even for wireless thermostat of about 0.5c
  • wasteheat
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    Thanks for your comments Johnnyp78 and Ramzez. Useful few more snippets of information. It seems just popping in a few smart TRV's and thermostat is not a magic solution and needs fine tuning! I will give a bit more detail of layout and what I still see as the problem or unknowns without a Tado kit or similar in my hands to play with, for days/weeks no doubt!

    We have a 2 story house with central ground floor hallway with doors each end to outside. Off the hall is kitchen and living room with doors. Each room only has 1 rad with TRV . Current issue is energy wastage by heating rooms unnecessarily or excessively.

    Example 1.

    Existing mobile wireless thermostat is left at 20C and in sitting room overnight, we will come down in the morning to a warm hall and kitchen AND living room, but we may be going out for the day or baking, so heating the sitting room to 20 C is a complete waste, maybe 15 C just to take chill off?

    Example 2

    Mobile wireless thermostat is left in hallway, [conventional place for fixed wired thermostats], but set to 18C. No point setting it higher as with 2 external doors it would take all day to get much higher. BUT if it gets to 18C before we descend for breakfast, system will shut down and kitchen will be a bit on the cool side maybe. So, pick up thermostat on route to kitchen and crank it up 2 deg to restart boiler.......then also trying to increase hall temp unnecessarily as TRV there has been set to 80-100% of max open "just in case"!

    Example 3

    Mobile wireless thermostat is left accidently in kitchen. Nice and cosy for breakfast but big cooking session planned so room temp is 22-23 C for few hours BUT boiler is shut down all that time so you exit to a freezing hall or sitting room on a cold day!!

    My hoped for solution is to have these three rooms [= 3 rads] on my NEW system App and I can set ANY one room to be at higher temp than other rooms. Whether this means each rad/room has to be its own "zone" or I have to manually select the room with highest temp to be the "control" I do not know with scant knowledge of the setup options. N.B. the pipework system only has one 3 way motorised valve.

    Sorry to drag on but is there a workable solution out there? This cannot be a unique situation. Could it be one wired or wireless thermostat plus 2 smart rad valves, OR just 3 smart rad valves , one on each rad? Thanks folks.