Tado won't talk to boiler. I'm cold and losing the will to live...

strangegeo

It's like a loveless marriage, they've fallen out after four years and will no longer speak to each other, just sitting there will folded arms refusing to budge.

Go easy… I'm not an electrician or a plumber but have had both of these people (both trusted people who I know) out to try and fix this issue without success. Tado stopped working on 23rd December and I've not been able to control the heating since then.

And am at the end of my tether. And freezing.

Here's what's happened…

We had our Tado installed back in 2020 so have the V3 with the extension kit (which I have since learned has been discontinued and replaced with the wireless receiver). We have never had any problems with Tado until now.

We had a new boiler put in in mid December after the 20+ year old one we had give up the ghost. It's a shiny new Vaillant which when installed worked perfectly… for two weeks which is when Tado started to go wrong.

I got an alert on the app to say that the batteries were running low in the thermostat so I went to change thing. I confused the extension kit for the thermo and took that off the wall by mistake before realising it wasnt the thermo. I put the extension kit back on, and replaced the batteries in the thermo.

And since then nothing has worked - I call for heat on the app and can make changes to the temperature which are immediately reflected on the thermo display too. I can hear a clicking noise from one of the devices - either the thermo or the extension kit… but nothing happens with the boiler.

My plumber came out to look at it, checked everything and from his perspective everything seemed to be working fine. He showed me how to put the boiler into 'chimney sweep mode' which heats all the rads and water up to insane temperatures but goes off after 5 mins. I can't keep doing this obviously, but it is the only way we can currently get any sort of heat or (scorching) hot water. After checking everything it was of his opinion that the Extension kit was the problem, but he's not an electrician…

So I got my electrician out - he did all the diagnostics and again could find nothing wrong and again, it was his opinion that the problem could only be the extension kit. All the wiring and connections from his perspective looked fine. Like me, and the plumber he agreed that the extension kit was very fiddly to put back on, but he's 100% that it's connected properly, all pins connected and locked in.

As for our friend the extension kit… the app says its functioning normally. It's 'breathing' as intended with its slow pulsing light.

My electrician suggested looking for an extension kit on eBay. I found one which someone is selling new for £100 which I can't really justify, especially if it doesn't fix the issue.

I've spent hours reading the forums and found loads of articles saying what could be the issue but I am not getting any results. I have reset / restarted all of the devices. I've removed all of the devices from the app and re-added them. I've removed the app and re-added it, and re-added and reset all the devices but no joy. I also asked Tado via the support chat to reset all devices which they did but this also didn't work.

A couple of quirks which might spark off some ideas for those of you more qualified than me at this stuff…

• When I reset / restarted all of the devices, the hot water icon disappeared from my app and has never come back. The control for it on my new boiler is still there but i can't adjust the temperature for it on the boiler. I click the radiator icon and I can change the temp, but if I click the tap icon, it just says 'off' on the display.
  
• The internet bridge has all three lights on, and given that when i make changes on the app they are reflected on the thermo display, I assume this is working properly. The app also says that everything is paired, but when i did click the pairing button on the internet bridge, the light flashed for ages - like a day or so, before going off completely. Does this mean it hasn't actually paired? or is this normal behaviour? It's plugged into the back of my virgin hub with an ethernet cable. The hub was recently replaced in early December - same account and everything but we have a new internet password. I don't personally think this is part of the issue but wanted to call it out in case it might be…

As far as I see it our options are

1. Buy that extension kit off ebay for £100 and see if that works. If it doesn't, its £100 wasted and I've got 2 pieces of obsolete kit
2. Buy the new tado system with the wireless
3. Move away from Tado

Since our boiler actually works (because I can put it into Chimney Sweep mode and it heats up everything to insane temperatures for 5 mins) the boiler isn't the issue. It's something Tado related, and I'm convinced its the extension kit but I'm at a loss… and cold… please send whisky (and advice)

Part of me is hoping one of you will reply and go 'just switch this button and it will work as normal and as before'… 🙃

Thank you

Simon

wateroakley

Hello @strangegeo Sorry to hear your long story. This sounds like two potential issues in the Tado world.

First, the loss of control sounds like a problem with the thermostat. A completely flat battery will stop things working, including the hot water. I'd suggest you double check with new batteries and check that the device front is mounted successfully onto the rear plate.

Second, the loss of the 'hot water' tile in the App can be due to a 'combi mode' setting on the extension kit (wireless receiver). It may need to be reset to the default 'S/Y-plan mode'.

To see what is happening, are you happy to check the wiring and voltages on the extension kit with an electrical screwdriver or non-contact voltage detector?

Outside of Tado, a 20 year-old zone valve (faulty/siezed/sticky) would be top of my suspects list.

Sorry, sending whisky is above the pay grade of a site user/moderator.