Which 3 channel 7 day timer?

Myles45

Hi All,

I am replacing our analogue timer which controls the switching on & off of the oil fired boiler, as it's broken. (It's an Immermat Flash) Right next to it are two switches, one for the upstairs heating circuit & the other for downstairs, they manually switch the motorised valves on & off. The hot water has no switch & just heats whether the central heating circuits are on or off when the boiler is on.

I'm thinking of replacing the lot with a 3 channel 7 day electronic timer & would like a bit of advice on whether this will work, how to wire it up & finally which one would be recommended if anyone has any experience of these.

I'm currently looking at three timers, firstly the Horstmann ChannelPlus H37XL & the Timeguard TRT038. & finally the Sunvic Select 307 XLS.

Or does anyone know of any others that may be suitable.

Any advice much appreciated

Regards
Myles

Sparkpea

horstmann are my personal preference

the newer models are great for everyone in my opinion, good big writing and buttons for everyone to read/use. its good that it tells you heating is on until e.g. 10:00 or next on at 14:00 for example so you can tell by just looking at it without having to touch buttons. nice blue backlight also

h37xl is perfect

http://www.horstmann.co.uk/downloads/ElectronicDocuments/Central-Heating/H37XL-USeries2.pdf

set you back about £80-90 maybe

5 year warranty also

crosstownk

I have the Sunvic 307. I bought it from C&F Quadrant in 2008 and it worked fine for about 10 months. Then one day the display just flashed on and off continually. I brought it back and C&F exchanged it instantly. I'm not sure if it's a fault with them but that's my experience. The replacement one has been perfect for over a year now.

Apart from that it's fine. Simple to program and easy to use.

Pete67

I'd also recommend Horstmann, but if you want to do it properly, you should add a zone valve for the hot water cylinder, and use the 3-channel timer to switch the three zone valves directly. Even better would be to add two room thermostats and a cylinder thermostat in series with the timer outputs. Then use the aux contacts in the zone valves to fire the boiler (wire them in parallel).

This way room or DHW heating is only enabled when needed, and the boiler will only fire when one or more zones is calling for heat. It's a little more complex if you have to run cables, but will pay off in the long run. You could also use wireless thermostats to save on cabling. You may be eligible for a grant to update heating controls?

Myles45

Thanks all,


I reckon the Horstmann is the most popular from what I can tell, so I think that may be the one to go for.

Thanks for the advice Pete 67, I wasn't aware there was a grant just to change the heating control system so thanks for that. Will definitely do a bit more research into it now.

Myles

ntpm

Sparkpea wrote: »

horstmann are my personal preference

the newer models are great for everyone in my opinion, good big writing and buttons for everyone to read/use. its good that it tells you heating is on until e.g. 10:00 or next on at 14:00 for example so you can tell by just looking at it without having to touch buttons. nice blue backlight also

h37xl is perfect

http://www.horstmann.co.uk/downloads/ElectronicDocuments/Central-Heating/H37XL-USeries2.pdf

set you back about £80-90 maybe

5 year warranty also

Hortsmann by a country mile.
little more expensive than others but worth it.
Easy to use/program as Sparkea says.

I have had to install other models (depending if plumber / customer supplies it) but not too keen on others.
Sunvic comes second best IMO.

Anthonyk2010

crosstownk wrote: »

I have the Sunvic 307. I bought it from C&F Quadrant in 2008 and it worked fine for about 10 months. Then one day the display just flashed on and off continually. I brought it back and C&F exchanged it instantly. I'm not sure if it's a fault with them but that's my experience. The replacement one has been perfect for over a year now.

Apart from that it's fine. Simple to program and easy to use.

I had the same problem, like you got it replaced, now the +hour timers cut out before there time.

Sunvic is very user friendly but seems to be troublesome.