Cannot reset who is the master thermostat as per everywhere I read!

Blithespirit

I have a wired thermostat and 9 TRV (smart radiator thermostats) plus a few wireless sensors, I have 8 rooms with the equipment distributed.

I am trying to make one of the TRV's in my living room (I have 3 in there) the master is the wired smart thermostat, it is in the hall and has to be on all the time to heat the rest of the house.

I read I can change the master and go into settings choose a TRV and set it, but I cannot, there is nowhere to make the option change. I have V3+ and a subscription.

How can I make this change please and it is costing me a fortune to heat an empty hall.

Thanks

Blithespirit

Thanks, I agree with you, I have found a cheap setup kit for V3+ I will test that first to see if it works, I will keep the Tado x for the future though, the price was too good to turn down to be honest.

Thanks for the help DavidLyall

Blithespirit

Hi, thank and I understood, my smart thermostats was registered as that and not a sensor.

I finally fixed it, well I did not fix it! I deleted my home and started from scratch and lo and behold I now have all the options you mentioned before! including calling for heat from any room to the master! so looks like in the end is was some configuration error, I hated to do it as it is a pain but I got the desired result!

Thank you all for the help and advice, I also learned a few things off you all!

eezytiger

I have quite a similar configuration, but only one device per room, so I can't advise you about picking one "master" device within a room.

However, while the wired thermostat in the hall does have to be a zone controller, it does not have to be "on". It simply has to be able to turn the boiler on when a device calls for heat. So you could set the hall to 16C or some other low value and it will not turn the boiler on unless the hall itself falls to 16C or less. But, if another device in a different room demands heat (and has not been set to independent) then the boiler will fire to service that demand.

I do exactly this in my own home, using the living room as the primary "master" that will request heat when the living room is too cold. The hall will also heat at the same time, because it has the bypass radiator, with no TRV fitted, but it is the living room that calls the shots.

All other rooms are set to independent, so they can receive heat when the boiler is turned on by the living room, but cannot force the boiler to fire themselves.

Here are my settings right now. The Hall is actually turned off, but must remain the zone controller in order to control the boiler. The living room is the "master", in charge of calling on the boiler to fire. Kitchen and Landing are fitted loosely and unable to close off the radiators, so I also have them "turned off" as a reminder that they are not controlling anything. The remaining rooms will passively receive heat when the boiler is on, but cannot force it to fire.

policywonk

@davidlyall can you chip in?

Blithespirit

Thanks eezytiger, my issue is I cannot make the front room a master, I cannot find how to do it and the docs all point me to something I do not have in my application (fully subscribed too).

Also if my hall is off (Zone master) and another valve makes a call the heating does not come on, I have to have the wired thermostat under temperature heating the hall rad or it will not warm any room.

If you see my house you see the hall is at 17 and living room at 22, no heating is on or being called out.

The boiler is asleep.

eezytiger

Check that the Living Room (the room, not the SRTs) has not been set to independent. It needs to be connected to the zone controller in the Hall. If it is set to independent it will not request the boiler to fire.

Blithespirit

Thank you for the pic, it shows me what I should see but do not in my case!

eezytiger

Hmmm! Well I'm afraid I'm stumped. Maybe that is your problem, but how to fix it, I have no idea. Maybe it is something to do with multiple devices in one room. I wouldn't know.

Maybe someone else has answers, or maybe you'll need to contact support.

One possible solution (temporarily at least) is to separate the SRTs out into fake lounges. You can have lounge 1, lounge 2, lounge 3, for example, and set any or all of them to connect to the zone controller to request heat.

Blithespirit

Thanks for trying, I get no options for that either. my rooms with singles in don't give me any options, Tado support are not any help either which is a shame!

davidlyall

Seems very odd. If you check other rooms, do they have the zone controller option? If not, i think tado support need to step up and look at this further @Emcee , can you assist?

I do have one question regarding the hall. Your smart thermostat is there but are there TRVs on any radiators there too? If not, it wouldn't matter if other rooms are calling for heat as the hall would still get heat too so you'd still have the cost of heating that room even if it's already above set temp. Apologies if I've misunderstood your setup

Blithespirit

Morning, thanks for the input, none of my rooms have this option, I do have a TRV in the hall so the thermostats is king to make sure the room never gets very hot, the trouble I have with what your saying is the hall is open to upstairs and all the heat goes straight up, so the thermostats is pumping the heating like crazy to heat it, last month it cost the most amount of money and no one is there.

I have decided to upgrade and check out the Tado X wireless system now, there was a good deal and if the thermostat is in the front room then I can reduce by three smart valves plus keep the hall on minimum, I know it is still a cost but the amount it will save a year on not heating the hall and the living room will pay for itself.

I think we are all stumped but I do like the Tado system on the whole, so this looks like the simplest action

davidlyall

@Blithespirit , I would be weary of going to X right now. There seem to be teething issues with it so you might just be introducing different problems

As I read it, the hall smart thermostat will be switching the heating on/off which is why it needs to be on for other rooms to get heat. Perhaps it can't be a zone controller if it's part of a room with other devices - @Emcee , can you comment on that?

It sounds like you might just need to add a wireless receiver which would become the zone controller and take care of the switching of the heating. The wired smart thermostat could then have its wires bridged so that it effectively becomes a wireless thermostat.

Can you advise about the set up of the rest of the heating system?

• Combi or system (separate HW tank) boiler? Boiler make/model
• Do you have an existing time programmer that could be replaced by a wireless receiver?

Blithespirit

Hello davidlydall, you read correct, my hall thermostat has to be on for anything else to work. the aim was to put in Tado X as the new system updated and add the wireless but in the main living room, I looked into just upgrading to Wireless but thought my vales are a few years old now so would do the lot while its on offer and batteries seem to be an issue when you have 9 valves, with X they are rechargeable I am told and I will only need 6.

None of the other devices speak to my wired thermostat to ask for heat, they only just run on their own once it is on, if the Hall is off they still open but there is no hot flow. which is another reason for the upgrade, everyone seems to say their systems speak to the master.

My boiler is Vaillant Ecofit Pure 425, The Tado X can use Opentherm and Relay so it will use Relay to stop and start the heating and I have found the wiring to make it work. I run a separate boiler controlled by the Vaillant upstairs (did not have the pressure for combi) wired thermostat goes to a standard controller in the kitchen which controls the water.

Thanks for the help

davidlyall

In that case, I believe you could just add a wireless receiver to your current system instead of doing a complete swap to X. It would become the zone controller and allow you to run the heating in other rooms without having to have the hall heated

eezytiger

I've just had a thought, and this is a complete guess because I've never tried, but….

Has the hall now or ever been disabled as the Zone Controller? I'm wondering if this has happened and now there is no Zone Controller left in the system. Therefore there is no Zone Controller available for connection with any other device. Another guess, but the hall only still works at all to operate the heating because it still has the physical boiler connections, but nothing else can get there.

This is the dialogue for my hall (Zone Controller) if I dare consider disabling it as the Zone Controller. It looks like one of those "Here be dragons" warnings and one would be well advised not to proceed.

Blithespirit

You could be right about it being removed as a zone controller, I had an extension at one point and moved the master around then but it did not work on my old boiler so we removed it and left the wired thermostat as the only portion with a standard programable controller controlling the water.

I would love to try it but I have no9thgin at all in regard to zone controller in any of the software's (online or app)

we have a new boiler now and when the new system arrives I will be installing the wireless receiver as hot water controller

eezytiger

My point was - if your smart wired thermostat got software converted (downgraded) to become a simple wireless temperature sensor, is it possible to reverse that process and reconfigure it via the app (or via support) to restore function back to that of a smart wired thermostat?