[Released with tado° X] Make the Smart Radiator Valves quieter
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@GrayDav4276 That doesn't sound correct in my experience. Try this:
In a room with the heating off, take note of the current temperature in Tado, e.g. 20.5ºC.
Manually set Tado in that room to be about 0.3ºC higher, so 20.8ºC in this case, you will hear the SRV motor operate for a split second, i.e. not fully opening the valve. If you then increase the setpoint by several degrees, e.g. to 25ºC, you'll then hear the motor operate for much longer, e.g. fully opening the valve.
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@GrayDav4276 I've just read your email from Tado, and I do think whoever wrote that response is wrong when they say "It does not "partially open" the valve".
Another scenario:
Imagine room A is calling for a high heat demand (maybe the heating has only just been turned on in that room), and room B is calling for a light heat demand (as the heating has been on for a while and it is just maintaining the current temp).
Without the SRTs being able to partially open the valve in room B, it would need to be fully opening and closing the valve every few seconds so that the radiator stays warm and not hot, or it would need to modulate the boiler but this would then cause room A to heat up too slowly. In my experience, neither of these occur, so it must be opening the valve partially.
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Isn't the noise you are hearing more to do with the noise of the water flowing through the radiators rather than the valve itself ? The problem i have is that the circulating pump in my combi boiler runs at the same speed whether one radiator valve is open or all 12 of them . If only one is open the water is being circulated at high speed which results in a lot of noise.1
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A couple of months ago I fitted a Tado system in my home together with over a dozen Tado TRV's. Personally I am very pleased with the system overall (significant savings already apparent), but would be very keen to see further technical developments.
The majority of my Tado valve actuators were installed in the horizontal plane. I did fit all new valves in addition to the new Tado actuators for the sake of reliability. I have noted that the few that I have installed vertically are significantly affected by radiant heat from the radiator. This results in false high temperature indication and with specific reference to this post - more active valve actuators - which are responding to the temperature of the air immediately adjacent to the radiator.
Based on observation; in order to minimise the frequent control actions of the Tado valves I would agree that fitting a separate wireless temperature sensor (available from Tado - at a price) to those rooms (such as bedrooms) where the noise made by the actuators is an issue or fitting the valves in the horizontal plane so that they are much less affected by the radiant heat from the radiator. I have only one room that is controlled only by a separate sensor and the Tado valve actuators in that room are a lot less active. Personally I don't find the noise made by the actuators an issue, but appreciate that there are those who do.
Setting the bedroom temperature set point to drop a couple of degrees at bedtime might also help if actuator noise is mainly an issue when trying to get to sleep. The valve(s) in that room will immediately close and you will hopefully be fast asleep by the time they decide to open again.
Finally, there seems to be some debate on this post as to whether or not the valve actuators can open partially. They do indeed. The percentage that they are open (for only those that are open to any degree) can be seen by clicking on the "Care & Protect" tile on the home page.
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Personally the noise isn’t noticeable for me whilst asleep, but I am quite a heavy sleeper. Sure this is something all smart TRV manufacturers are working on.0
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Do your radiators have Angled TRV bodies on them? I was refitting one of my radiators yesterday and noticed the TRV body connects to the rad via an extendable pipe that twists into any position required by the pipework. Seems this is called an Angled TRV. The Tado motor is much noisier on this rad than my other one which has regular solid TRV pipework. Everything else about these rads is the same, so I think that pipework is vibrating loudly every time the valve adjusts. Will be swapping it for the fixed fitting and see if it improves things.0
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Deleted - error my part
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Yes.... to noisy! For Bedrooms not acceptable!
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I suppose a work around would be to fit a standard trv on the opposite end of the radiator instead of the lock shield and set it to the preferred bedroom temperature and only use the Tado valve as a simple on of valve to turn off the heating during the day by setting the bedtime temperature very high and the daytime temperature down to your preferred set back level.
But this does seem to be a terribly wasteful use of the Tado valve by limiting it's functions.
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I just thought of a possible workround for the noise problem; the aim is to have the valves remain fully opened during the night so that there is no noise during the morning when the radiator starts to heat up
There is an option to select a zone controller for each room
If you select "no zone controller" and set the schedule for that room to be a warm temperature from a few minutes before your bed time till the time after you wake up, the valve will be opened for the entire night; now, if you have at least another room calling for heat in the morning, that will make the boiler turn on and also heat your bedroom because the trv is already open
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@GrayDav4276 yes, when I set the TRV in the bedroom to the temperature I want it to reach the next morning, it opens fully, then when some other radiator calls for heat, water starts circulating in the radiator and there isn't any noise coming from the valve itself (as it's already open)
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@Jacopo2 Exactly how I have mine setup. Bedroom valves open up at about 19:00 when the heating is off for the day anyway, then the main thermostat kicks in in the morning before we get up and warms the bedrooms and the rest of the house together. No noise as they are open before we go to sleep and are already open in the morning.
Not that I find them loud to be honest but I have had it setup this way from the beginning.
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I'm finding Tado's whirling a bit too noisy for the bedroom too and looking for a quieter solution.
It'd be great if Tado allowed to reduce motor's speed in configuration. It's implemented in Bosch smart TRV as a "whisper mode": slower valve opening, less noise (also the rest of Bosch solution is not even close to Tado functionality).
Alternative would be to manufacture a separate model of TRV with permanently reduced motor speed. This was done to a Honeywell TRV as a DIY project by soldering diodes to the motor. It significantly reduced the noise: https://www.automatedhome.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?4110-What-would-you-like-to-see-in-evohome-(have-your-say)&p=40736&viewfull=1#post40736
Meantime a viable workaround I found in a Honeywell TRV noise discussion was to wrap TRV into soundproof foam and use a temperature sensor to measure room's temperature instead of insulated TRV.
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Just today I am actually removing the Tado TRV from my 2-year-old son's bedroom and replacing it with a standard Danfoss TRV because the noise is disturbing his sleep.
I've tried using passive ("independent") mode for a few weeks, but found it pretty much impossible to keep the room at a decent temperature, as it will sometimes just get too hot.
@Volodymyr Might actually consider trying a Bosch valve in his room only, and Tado everywhere else for a halfway solution. Would also love for someone to try "hacking" the Tado TRV in a similar way to make it quieter.
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I’ve noticed an enormous amount of noise difference between my bedroom SRV (few years old) and some newer SRV’s I had installed a few weeks ago.
I tried swapping them but for some reason the bedroom radiator just makes a lot more noise.
Haven’t yet figured out what the culprit is. My guess is resonance of the bedroom radiator itself. Either because of how it’s mounted, it’s size or maybe the thermostat valve used.
A quiet version of the SRV would be very appreciated because the current one just wakes me up every time.2 -
@patrickplaggenborg several points from another thread that might help:
- Put a ping-pong ball between TRV and a wall, that may reduce TRV vibration
- Temporary put a folded towel or wooden block between radiator pipes and wall to reduce radiator vibrations. But only for the test - not a permanent solution!
- Having plastic inserts between radiator and its brackets may reduce radiator's vibration
- Having carpets and furniture in the room can reduce overall noise. Laminate floor and bare walls increase the noise.
- It seems that radiators with fins are resonating much louder
- If TRV pin is stuck, motor may be much louder trying to push harder. I saw recommendations to use silicon spray on pin and move it with pliers to ensure it's not stuck. Other than that there were no noticeable difference between valve bodies when people were running noise comparisons.
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Thanks @Volodymyr that's very helpful. I'll give that a try.
Another difference I've noticed between the radiator that makes more noise and the other ones in the house is the height.
The resonating radiator is much higher, with a longer pipe from floor to valve.
Not sure if that's relevant, but might be some information to help debug this problem in general.
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Valves are ridiculously noisy - I have them fitted throughout the house and you can hear them when in other rooms. We get woken up by valves opening in adjacent rooms. Even worse we have 2 rads in the bedroom (linked) but they operate at different times (can be 20 seconds apart) so we get 2 bursts of whining waking us up!
As has already been suggested, surely the motors could just run slower?
If they offered a quiet one at a premium I would buy it instantly!
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Yes, if only I had known that it is so surprisingly noisy that both wife and I wake up from it, I would never have bought these.
Sadly, installation was troublesome (the control unit has still not been installed). Two electricians and one plumber has failed at the task. So by the time I realized how noisy they were, it was too late to return. Super annoying.
A friend has Honeywell, and says it uses about 30 seconds to adjust - making like a cat purring sound while operating. That sounds much more acceptable in a bedroom.
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I am quite sensitive to noise, and I was worried about smart TRV noise levels before buying. After installing Tado TRVs, I was pleasantly surprised and I find them quite quiet. I'd say:
Please don't make the motor/valve operation slower - it's nice that they react so fast!
However it would be useful to have an optional silent-mode which we could activate on bedroom TRVs, where the activation speed is not important.
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I am quite sensitive to noise, and I was worried about smart TRV noise levels before buying. After installing Tado TRVs, I was pleasantly surprised and I find them quite quiet.
Yeh, it's the pipes/radiator that amplifies the motor noise/vibrations, so it can vary between setups. But that's not to say that adjustments to the motor can't help.
If you take the TRV off the radiator and listen to the motor while not connected it is quite quiet.
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As others have said, the pipes and radiator are amplifying the noise. It is worth checking that the radiators have the plastic U pieces between radiator and bracket. They can reduce the noise quite a bit
Not much can be done with pipework other than ensuring it's securely mounted to avoid excessive vibration.
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As some here have noticed; it is not our device that is loud, but the pipes in some houses. The sound level can apparently be reduced if we were to reduce the speed of the valve pin. This, however, also has some disadvantages to other customers. So, the optimal solution would be to have the user decide.
I think the above is a fair summary.
It would not be the first time, but I will discuss the above with our developers. I see some complexity issues, especially the variable part for the firmware of the device, but I'm sure our engineers will give a well funded assessment.6
