Anyone Else Been Banned?

So I tried to log on to the community and found that I have been banned. As a result I have set up a new profile. So Tado's approach to anyone who criticises their product, and who has spent over £1000 on their kit, is to ban them from warning others?


Nice.


It's 1984 everyone.

Answers

  • Yes, me to and I don't know what I did? No email, nothing.
  • Yup. Had the same. It shouldn't be a crime to criticize when we are simply telling others about our experiences. For example, I check my oil tank level regularly and have a spreadsheet covering the time when there was no thermostat in my house, when I had a Nest and now with the Tado. The data clearly shows that oil consumption has increased. Now, maybe some of that might be colder winters. Perhaps. But over the last 7 years the highest consumption has been with Tado installed.

    I also now keep a spreadsheet of battery consumption so I have facts to go back to Tado with. We are eating through a ridiculous number of batteries.

    So this eco-friendly thermostat system uses more oil and munches through batteries.

    Doesn't sound very eco-friendly to me....

    I guess I'll be banned again for this post!
  • paul0000
    paul0000 ✭✭✭

    censorship?! :)

    @Catfunt I would be interested to hear more about your data. I have oil and installed tado pretty much as soon as we moved in with a view that it SHOULD save me money.

    Are you able to share publicly or privately?

    Thanks!

  • No problem.

    Moved in to the house September 2016 and began taking measurements in October that year. Here is the annual consumption (October to October) with some explanatory notes....

    2016-17 we used 2098 litres but were cold. The radiators had TRVs but there was no room thermostat so it was just on a timer. That wasn't fun.

    2017-18 we used 2425 litres. Had Nest fitted January 2018 and took a while to get used to it. But the house was much warmer in most rooms. Two bedrooms remained cold but I wasn't prepared to put the Nest in those rooms because my children would fiddle with it!

    2018-19 we used 2025 litres. Full year with Nest and a warm house. New baby in the house back in June 2017 so this is a year with mum and baby at home during the day as well and there's no way I'd let the house go cold.

    2019-20 we fitted the Tado. Smart radiator thermostat on every radiator, but not on the two towel rails. Room thermostat in seven rooms. Oil consumption this year was 2534 litres. Mum back at work and the house was empty during the day.

    2020-21 we used 2650 litres.

    2021-2022 with the cost of oil going through the roof I turned the temperature down in every room back in February. And I turned the heating off when the clocks changed in March. We had a cold snap for two weeks in April so I turned it on again but its been off since then. I'm not turning the heating back on until the clock change in October. I paid 43p per litre last summer. I paid 59p per litre in February just before this Russia thing kicked off. And now it's basically £1 a litre. So far since October last year we've used 1775 litres which, according to Tado, is a 25% reduction since the previous year. But at current prices is still massive.

    The point is, we went from 2025 litres with Nest to 2500+ with Tado. The radiator thermostats are rubbish without the room thermostat so you're looking at £150 a room for the tech unless, like me, you take a risk a buy off eBay and hope the seller has removed the item from his account.

    But watch out because if something goes wrong Tado won't accept eBay receipts as receipts for warranty purposes. So you're screwed.
  • @Catfunt have you tried grouping the TRVs so that you have fewer zones/rooms. A heating system is inefficient when the load (radiators) is not matched to the minimum output of the boiler. A typical radiator might be able to dissipate 1KW of energy, but if your boiler is running at 15KW then there's going to be a lot of wasted energy. Some of the newest gas boilers will modulate their output to less than 2KW, but oil boilers are nowhere near as advanced. Individual control of rooms is nice but it may not be the most efficient option when you have an oil boiler.

  • Kind of defeats the point of having total control of the heating in the house....

    Each bedroom is one rad and one room thermostat. The kitchen and living room each have two rads and one thermostat. I also have two long corridors each with two rads and one room thermostat. I can't really link my rooms any more together without compromising controlability.

  • rafm5
    rafm5 ✭✭✭

    @Catfunt Do you have any other data you can provide? Average daily temperature during heating season, number of days with heating on etc. This info is crucial to investigate your case.

    A simple sensor can really help (data provided by QingPing Temp and RH Monitor I use)


    Personally, I don't expect to have return on investment in tado° It was never my aim, so I can't be disappointed.

    IMHO It's main feature is (at least minimal)

    • simple remote access
    • stability
    • Apple Home compatibility


  • I think you must be richer than me if you're happy for you heating bill to rise by 25% in return for those features you mention. At today's prices that's an increase of £500 each year. My main point of course is they my experience flies in the face of Tado's stated claim of saving money on heating by being able you control the heating in each room. I'm my case that simply isn't true. My oil consumption has increased. Then add into that the use of batteries which are thrown away after a short time. Don't get me started on batteries! I'm keeping a spreadsheet of battery replacement and an shocked by how many we are using. Since 21/12/21 I've replaced the batteries in 12 radiator thermostats and 7 room thermostats. That's 45 dead batteries now in landfill.

    Not very eco-friendly....
  • @Catfunt if you were on a district heating system where you don't have your own boiler, but just take a supply of hot water from the street, then the TRVs would give you efficiency and controllability. But with other heating systems the efficiency factor is not so straight forward, something that Tado doesn't really make clear.

    Probably worth checking the minimum heat output of your boiler and thinking whether you want to give up some of the controllability.

  • I'm really close to selling the Tado stuff on eBay and going back to the Nest, to be honest. If I'm going to give up controllability then I may as well go back to a system that works. The problem with that is post COVID I now work from home and if I go back to the Nest then I'm basically going to have the whole house warm all of the time.
  • rafm5
    rafm5 ✭✭✭
    edited July 2022

    @Catfunt The only way to stop your bill from going up is to switch the heating off, but then you will be paying a standing charge anyway.

    These 'smart' thermostats can't really save much, unless you are an ignorant and keep the heating full blast all the time. They can however make your life more convenient.

    Energy costs increased to cover expanding environmental and social schemes, plus other things like the administrative cost of taking over the customers of suppliers who've gone out of business, and some distribution costs moving from unit price to standing charge.

    Last but not least one-off £400 energy grant for all households is also coming in October, and it 'won't need to be paid back' they say. This is exactly how inflation is going up and so your bills.

    If you really not happy with tado° use the Energy Savings Guarantee and claim your money back, but I would really like to see your heating vs weather pattern.

  • No standing charge for oil fired heating.

    If you can put me on to a website that will give the weather data for my location that would be great.

  • @Catfunt Just search for heating degree days UK.

  • johnnyp78
    johnnyp78 ✭✭✭
    Very few oil fired boilers can modulate so it’s likely tado will be cycling it to try to simulate modulation, especially when there’s little demand, from a single trv for example. Short cycling puts strain on the boiler and uses more energy, which might be what’s happening in your case. In your case sounds like it might be more efficient to have less granular control, like you did with the nest, and the boiler maintaining a baseline temperature for the house rather than cycling for different room temp demands.
  • @Catfunt The Central England Temperature record goes back to 1772: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html

    In this scatter diagram we plot the daily kWh each billing month for heating and DHW (gas boiler) vs CET (outside temperature). For us, the overall saving in 2022 is 21.8% when compared to consumption in the closest monthly temperature (higher) in previous years.

    If the boiler is short-cycling (as suggested by Johnnyp) could you reduce the number of individual heating zones (Rooms that individually call for heat) by setting some (most? or all?) of the Rooms with TRVs to 'Zone Controller: Not Assigned ? We have two rooms like this that operate as scheduled time/temp TRVs, without individually calling for heat.

  • I don't understand that last suggestion. If I remove the zone controller from, say, two of my hallways and those hallways go below temperature in the night in winter will there be a call for heat?

    My set up is a room stat and a Tado trv or two in each room. So at any time any of the rooms or zones can call for heat. So, yes, I might end up with all but one room to temperature but the final one still under temperature so it calls for heat.
  • This thread seems to have moved away from the original post.....
    Yes I received what tado° called.....
    "A Shadow Ban" 😎
  • johnbur
    johnbur ✭✭✭
    @GrayDav4276 impressive!