Underfloor heating compatibility list
Does anyone know of a tado compatibility list?
I have an underfloor heating system that does not work with tado so I am looking into replacing the wiring units etc to something that does as the existing room stats are dumb, ugly and well just awful!
Can't seem to find any kind of compatibility list so that I know what not to buy when replacing it and its like getting blood out of a stone with tado these days - not heard anything back from them yet.
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Just in case this is useful to anyone, I thought I would share...
I did successfully convert my existing underfloor heating system to work with tado. Mostly due to my own research and a bit of a punt! Therefore, hopefully sharing this makes it easier for anyone else.
I had a Uponor UFH system - this does NOT work with tado (uses resistive network on the stats). This applies even to the newer ones - mine was about 10yrs old.
I managed however to replace just the UFH wiring centre from the existing Uponor one to use a John Guest wiring centre (specifically the "JG Aura - 230V 8 Zone Wiring Centre").
This DOES work with tado - though tado refused to specifically confirm that! Basically, this one works using a switched live 230v relay - so is fine.
It also works with my existing Uponor values etc, so no need to replace anything else.
Requires 2-core cable to run to each stat on the wall, that I already had in place for the old stats. I actually had 3-core plus earth for some reason, even though neither the old Uponor or tado required more than 2 wires - you can ignore the neutral connector in the wiring centre, its not needed. It is decent rated cable, that's the main thing.
The tado stats are pre-configured to work in a switched live config, so just a case of wiring the NO and COM terminals in the tado smart stat and pairing. I did have a friendly professional heating engineer help wire up the wiring centre though - as it has to hook into to all the other components - that took a bit of time!
I found it very frustrating that neither tado or any of the UFH suppliers would provide any clear definitive information as to compatibility - many had never even heard of or used tado - guess they possibly see tado as a competitor to their own thermostats
For completeness then my setup is...
I have an 8 zones water based UFH systems downstairs connected to 5 tado smart thermostats (3 are linked to grouped zones).
Upstairs I have radiators, all on tado Smart radiator valves linked to tado wireless temp sensors (not needed - just for ease).
I've not bothered with the tado programmer / hot water - primarily because I have a 3 channel unit that tado does not support. That said, I've disconnected the UFH channel as its pointless - tado controls the zones independently, same for the upstairs radiators really. So I might look into tado to control the hot water too - though not too much use tbh, I guess it saves manually turning it off when I go on holiday to save a a few quid!
tado controlled UFH is soo much better than the old system I had! Shame tado doesn't seem to work with UFH suppliers to promote it.
Hope this is useful to someone.
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Thanks for the info @TtT, I have the JG aura 230v stats so this gives me confidence the Tado wired smart stats will work with my UFH. 👌👍. Like others have said zero information coming from Tado on this subject, remarkable when you consider they are pushing the product for UFH systems.0
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Hi TfT, this is exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to change the thermostats with Tado Wired ones. However, I am not sure it will work on my system.
The current system is made by Uponor. It has a wiring center model C-33 with 7 wired thermostat model T-37 connected to it. The thermostats are connected with only two wires to the wiring center. They do not have batteries.
The wiring center is then connected to actuator valves. On the wiring center it says 24VDC 220mA/actuator.
I have no idea if this system is compatible. From your message above it seems these Uponor systems are not compatible.
Would appreciate your experience. Took picture of what I have now.
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Hey maurello,
That looks very similar to the setup I had, just slightly different models. I had the C-35 unit and T-35 stats but they work in the same way.
None of the Uponor wiring centres will work with tado as they use a resistance based control and tado only supports a switched live control. So you'll need to replace that like I did with a compatible wiring centre - which I found to be the JG Aura 240v 8 zone wiring centre. The key thing is having good wiring in place - which you do.
I would highly recommend finding a good friendly heating engineer to wire up the wiring centre as ensuring all the pumps, thermostats, boiler controls etc are all wired in correctly can get quite complicated. Wiring the stats is pretty straight forward though - the tado smart stats default config is for a switched live setup, so very little to do there.
I've dug out some before and after pics of my setup below to give you some confidence! Can't seem to find a pic of the JG wiring centre open though sorry.
Been working brilliantly ever since. Though worth noting it will likely take a little time for tado to get the heating curve right, will probably overheat to start with.
Hope that helps.
Before, Uponor C-35 wiring centre and horrible mess of wires!
After, JG 230v 8 Zone wiring centre... (had some fun trying to get the wires in - I had 4-core wiring for some reason!)
Horrible old Uponor T-35 stat...
Replaced with tado (default switched live config)...
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Thanks for responding! Indeed we have the same system. What is the actual difference between resistance based control vs switched live control?
I am asking because I cannot find this JG Aura 240v 8 zone wiring centre in Finland and none of the UK sites browsed ship it to Finland. I need to find out what method it uses and find a compatible product.
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No problem!
I'm not too sure on the technicalities of it, but basically I believe it is a differing method of electrical switching than the more common switched live or relay (on/off) method as used in light switches for example.
It was really difficult to find this information out from wiring centre vendors of which there aren't too many!
This is the information I got from tado a few years ago when I asked about compatible wiring centres:
To control underfloor heating with tado°, the following conditions have to be met:
· Only the tado° Smart Thermostat can control underfloor heating, no other tado° device
· The Smart Thermostat has to be located in the room where the underfloor heating is
· From that room, the Smart Thermostat has to be wired directly to the underfloor heating actuator/valve to control it
· If there is an internal sensor in the underfloor heating, tado° is not compatible
It is important to know that tado° control underfloor heating valves and actuators just with a simple ON/OFF functionality, over a RELAY interface.
tado° cannot control UFH with wireless connection. Just wired.
Unfortunately we cannot recommend you any valve/actuator or control center brands. We have listed the requirements above.
If you have no luck finding another compatible unit, eBay might be a good option for the JG and international delivery options.
I note the model I have is now discontinued and replaced by a new model so that would surely be compatible also.
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You are right about Tado. After contacting them, they are indeed vague and do not want to share what equipment works. It seems that having a switched live / relay method is key for Tado thermostats to work. Issue is that wiring centres do not explain what method they use towards actuator valves. Nor I understand if all actuator valves work irrespective of a wiring centre using switched live / relay method vs resistance based.
Do you know that?
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Yep, it's pretty difficult or impossible getting information out of tado and vendors on compatibility - they want you to be using all their equipment not competitors!
I think resistance based switching is very uncommon, possibly only Uponor that use it. I'm pretty sure that is only to the room stats only and not the actuator valves based on the fact my Uponor valves worked fine with the JG wiring centre.
Just need to make sure if they are 230/240v or 24v and confirm if they are NO or NC (normally open / normally closed) - though that is easy to test and just a case of shifting the wire around in the room stat if you get it wrong.
You'd think tado would be interested in putting together a compatibility list given it would result in more sales, but they are not. I fed back to them my experience in cases others asked the same question - got no acknowledgement and they clearly didn't do anything with it. Disappointing really.
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Hello,
I am after a bit of advice but firstly, thanks for sharing your experiences so far.
I am a total novice when it comes to heating, boilers and UFH so sorry if I am a bit vague in explaining my current setup. I currently have an Ideal System boiler with a hot water tank upstairs. Downstairs is John Guest UFH with two zones, controlled by John Guest Aura thermostats. There is also a thermostat upstairs (I am unsure if this is wireless or wired) which controls 4 radiators in the bedrooms (these rarely come on as the UFH warms the house sufficiently).
JG wiring centre, thermostats and UFH setup:
The thermostat which is upstairs and controls the radiators:
I am keen to upgrade to Tado smart thermostats but I am a little unsure of what I need or where to start. Initially, I definitely want to replace the two John Guest Aura thermostats with Tado ones for the UFH. Would this be as simple as replacing them with two wired Tados? Does anything need to be done with the John Guest wiring centre?
With the hot water tank, upstairs thermostat and radiators, what would I need to include them in the Tado system?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
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Hey SanjayT,
If they are wired then it's most probably a simple case of replacing them with tado stats. So you'll need to find out - which unless you have documentation will mean taking off the front of the JG stat or whatever is needed to see if it's wired or not (wired/wireless JG stats look identical from the front)
If it's wireless, it gets much more tricky or impossible.
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I've taken them off, they are wired. 230V and there are 3 wires, SL, L and N. I am assuming that means the wiring is compatible with the Tado thermostat?0
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Yep, that sounds good to go - you won't need the Neutral (tado stats have batteries) so that'll need to be capped off and the other two per the picture further up (L to COM, SL to NO/NC depending on if the actuator valves default to open or closed).
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Thank you very much for the help. Last question, how do I check if the actuator valve default to open or closed?!
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If you've not got it documented, take a punt!
If tado does the opposite to what you'd expect you got it wrong and will need to wire it the other way. It won't do any damage.
Pretty sure Uponor valves are NO which is how I have it wired, not sure about JG.1 -
Super, I will have a go and let you know how I get on.
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Tado people tell me I need a 230V relay. They do not know if their thermostat will work with the 240v version... Meanwhile, I found out my actuator valves are 24V. So it seems now that I would need to gamble trying one of these new JG 240V wiring centre.
What Tado explained me now is that my current thermostats T-37 use a resistor network, which is capable of some sort of modulation. Does this mean that the original Uponor T-37 can actually also regulate how much actuator valves get open and not only open/close in full? Is this actually more efficient?
@TtT since you have now been running the Uponor system on Tado thermostats, what improvements have you achieved compared to the original system?
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Hey maurello,
It's pretty easy to replace actuator valves with 230v versions - they are less than £20 each in the UK and don't need to be the same brand (I've got a mixture now as some of the original ones had failed).
I don't think the resistor network extends to the valves, so I don't think it makes any difference. That was certainly the case on my system, before and after there was no obvious difference in valve behaviour and mine were 230v even though the stats were low voltage (which is odd actually thinking about it, given you have pretty much the same wiring centre). Flow rate to each zone is adjusted separately to the valves.
I'm essentially not running an Uponor system now, tado doesn't work with Uponor wiring centre, so that is now JG and most of the actuators valves I replaced too - since 2 had failed in the year before and it is a hassle to get to so just replaced them before they failed. In fact that's how I knew they were NO - as the heating just stayed on when they failed! All the small Uponor ones in the picture above are now Mohlenhoff I think. It doesn't really matter what brand components are providing they are compatible.
The primary reason for switching to tado is to replace the horrible yellowing Uponor stats and make my house entirely tado driven (upstairs is radiators). tado took a little while to settle into UFH and overheated the rooms to start with - because I guess the delay between switching on and a change in temp is long with UFH compared to radiators - but it settled down. It took a little while to settle on a good heating schedule in the tado app as well because of that UFH curve - UFH is not well suited to frequent changes in temp, it can't react quick enough.
So functionally in terms of heating rooms there is probably not too much difference, but I now get the advantage of tado smartness - so being able to see the temp, monitor & adjust via the app, geofencing etc and so forth. Plus it looks so much better!
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Ok Tado support confirmed I can use the 240v wiring centre. Did you make your 230v work with the original 24V Uponor actuator valves? The technical specifications of those actuator valves says that they need 24 VAC. The John Guest 240v wiring center by specs says "load current output: 250VAC 8(5)A".
The other big question, will this wiring centre work with existing actuator valves or do I need to change those too?
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I have to admit I'm quite confused now - your wiring and my old Uponor both clearly states 24V actuator valves. Yet I have 3 of the original Uponor actuators valves working with my JG wiring centre that also worked with my Uponor wiring centre. I'm pretty certain the JG needs 230v actuator valves - though can't find any documentation that actually 100% states that other than via the JG site for my now discontinued wiring centre it has a 'you will also need' link to 230v actuators.
Doing some googling it looks like the actuator valves I have, including the Uponor ones are 230v. Though many models also do both (I can't fins a 24v version of the ones I have though). Plus if you google dual voltage actuators they exist, but none that I recognise.
My heating engineer installed mine, I can't find any documentation that states the voltage - even the JG wiring diagram doesn't actually mention the voltage requirement to the actuator valves.
All I know is it's all working, and has been for 3 years now!
If I were you I would probably play safe and buy a set of 230v actuator valves when you replace the wiring centre. The Uponor ones I had all started failing after about 8 years, so depending on how long you've had your system might be a pro-active thing to replace anyway.
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Right, hooked up one of the Tado thermostats in place of the John Guest one. L to COM, SL to NO, N to one of the parking connections. Fired up fine but then it is constantly calling for heat, regardless of what temperature the thermostat is set at.
Tado said I need to set the boiler/programmer to have the central heating always on but I am not sure how to do this or if this is even needed. There is a programmer with the hot water cylinder but it looks like a single-channel one just for the hot water.
Any ideas?!
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Ok, have you tried swapping to NC instead of NO?
If the valve is actually normally closed, tado will be telling it to open when no heating is required - having the opposite effect of calling for heat.
The valves don't open/close quickly either, they can take a minute or so to kick in and the JG WC might have a delay setup too. So you'll need to leave it a few minutes at least - but you should see the valve slowly start to open/close.
Do you hear the tado stat 'click' (it's not very loud, you'd have to be close to the stat to hear it) after you change the temp to force on/off? I had a faulty tado smart stat that stuck on which caught me out - as it was the first zone I wired up (typical!).
Not sure why tado think that is anything to do with the programmer - sounds like you don't actually have a programmer for the underfloor heating (which isn't really needed) so will effectively already be 'always on' in that regard. I'd probably ignore that!
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Yeah, tried NO and NC, it didn't make a difference. I tried the 2nd Tado on the 2nd JG thermostat and had the same problem. I can hear them click when they change temperature. I think this is a heating engineer job!0
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Hi TtT. Looks like you have done a lot of very useful research, thank you. What interested me was what you were saying about the JG Aura wired vs wireless thermostats & wiring centre. What I have is actually the JG Aura wireless version - thermostats are wired but only connected to power supply but they communicate wirelessly with the JG Aura wiring centre. Do you by any chance know if these thermostats can also be replaced by Tado? And if yes how? Thank a lot.0
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Hi lukas12345,
Unforunately, tado won't work with a wireless JG Aura wiring centre. All tado kit has to talk back to the tado controller, it wont talk to the JG wireless so cant control the valves.
You would need to replace the JG wireless with a wired version. But even then as your current stats are only wired for power the only way you could control the temp for each room is to replace those with a tado wireless temp sensors to read the tempo in the actual room and then wire in a tado wired smart stat to each zone locally at the controller (linking both to the same room in the tado app). I don't know of anyone that has done that though, but in theory it would work.
I am assuming there has never been a wired version in the past in your house - if there was you might still have the wiring from each room back to the controller.
It's a real shame tado don't make a wiring centre - i guess that's because they could never market that as a DIY install!
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Hello, Firstly @TtT thank you so much for your detailed comments above. It's really helped me already. I need a bit of help with my underfloor heating.
So I had originally a Uponor wiring systems/valves/thermostats. Few months ago, wiring system failed and g ot replaced with LK wiring system. This operates on 24v (i believe old wiring centre was 12v). The Uponor thermostats work on 12v so they no longer worked once the wiring centre was changed.
After following everything above, I took the plunge to replace all my thermostats with Tado ones. Now I have 4 thermostats controlling 8 valves. Tado controls two of them perfectly. When i turn them on via Tado, I can see the manifold sight glass showing more water flowing to the pipes and equally see it reducing when turning off.
But two of them I have an issue. Even when thermostats are off, I can see that the manifold sight glass showing some water flowing to the pipes. It's not as much as if i have the thermostats on but there still is some. Which means the floors remains hot for these two zones even when the thermostats are off. I can also hear the heat pump/underfloor zone system clicking even though stats are off and the temperature for the water increasing to 55 degrees approx (even though the thermostats are all off).
So i'm not sure entire what the issue is here. is it an issue with the actuator valves? I believe I have 24v uponor valves. Or with the pins underneath the actuators. Or fault with the wiring. i'm pretty sure before the wiring centre failed, I never had this issue with these two zones. They were all working correctly via the thermostats.
@SanjayT did you manage to resolve your issue above? you said you saw heating always on after changing the thermostats.
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@mambo92 I can tell you what I did. I replaced all Uponor actuator valves with 230V ones. Then, I bought these wiring centres from Amazon.de, much cheaper than any branded product in stores where I live: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0C4TK6B7B/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&th=1
The actuator valves should be connected when the valves they control is CLOSED. If that's partially open they might not sync with it, leaving always a slight flow going through. This sounds like your problem. So I removed the actuator valves, closed the pin by hand, re-installed them, and it worked for me.
My system now works like a charm.
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hello
just to add, the two zones that are not working too well. I can see that when i turn tado thermostat one, more water flows to the sytem and equally reduces when i turn it off. Just that it doesn't go completely to 0 unlike the other zones.
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@maurello seems like you have a 230v wiring centre so you used 230v actuators? in my case, my wiring centre is 24v. It is this one specifically: https://renewableproductswarehouse.store/products/lk-wiring-center. So i think in my case i need the 24v actuators.
quick question, how do you close the pin by hand? When i removed the actuators for the ones working vs the ones not working, i couldn't see anything obvious. but I'll go home tonight and re-look.
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@TtT @SanjayT lets hope ure ones don’t have a power loss, had mine since 2016 as new build installation.
Hi all I have the above JG controller installed like most of you @ TiT, Sanjay a few days ago the power went out on it, giving us no UFH during the cold weather.
Currently we have no power going to JG UFH control box in the garage backing onto the manifold in the utility.
I have checked the fuse in the switch that sits above it and it’s ok as it also powers the hard wired thermostats in each room and they are working.
Also checked the fuse box in the garage and reset that but that never tripped in the first instance.
I have also checked the internal 2 fuses by RF Potts and they are ok.
I have spoke To John Guest and they have advised a replacement unit which I have purchased from Screwfix being an updated model it is different to current one, and wiring is different.
I am in the Derby area if anyone can help as it would have been straight forward it I had the same replacement. EBay do the older one but they specify no returns and are a ridiculous price like £250 even though I paid £115 for the replacement one JGWC4!
Anyone replaced this from the older model to the newer one.
Doesn’t let me add any pics on here?0
