Has My Nest Been Installed Correctly?

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

I'm being driven demented by the missus as the Nest randomly turns itself on despite being turned off for both heat and water. The Eco setting is also turned off as is the schedules for both.... so I'm at a loss to explain why it just fires into life.
I wasn't here for the install myself and the old thermostat in the hallway was left connected and still 'talks' to the boiler. The Nest was installed in the kitchen by the Electric Ireland technician. Could that be the root of the issue? Should it not have been installed in the hallway where the other thermostat is or should that not have been deactivated at least?

Sitting here typing this and it's come on at least three times despite all settings being off.

Dardania

The old thermostat should have been deactivated and probably removed for sure. There is a possibility it is wired in parallel with nest, so either of them could switch on boiler.
Regarding placement, the best location is a good central living space where you spend most of time. I put ours in living room for example.
Can you go to home.nest.com and login there - take a screenshot of your schedule - something might be switched on, or at the very least you will see if it's the nest that's switching on the boiler or not.
And as a general note, using a nest properly involves giving up a bit of control to it, and trusting it's judgement. If that doesn't sound too dystopian. The principle is you should tell it what temperature you want the house to be, and when, and it'll do the rest. it might wish to activate the boiler in advance to get it to the right temperature etc.
It's like the thought process switch when buying a car with climate control versus a simple heater / AC - you need to let it do it's thing rather than overcontrol.

HeidiHeidi

I have a nest for about a year, and because it's only me in the house and I have a totally random schedule I had to turn all the "learning" bits off - it was turning the heat on at all sorts of ridiculous times.

I emailed Nest a few times about issues and they were incredibly helpful - there are all sorts of settings hidden in the app, and one (can't remember what it was) in the device itself - you'd never have found it without their help.

I have no idea about a second thermostat, but instinct would tell me it might be conflicting with the nest - and I agree with the other poster that if you have any sort of a regularity about your life you should let the nest do its thing (I'm basically using it as a remote control which is a shocking waste of its capabilities really)

But if you can't sort it out, get on to Nest, they honestly couldn't be more helpful!

Eireann81

Is it firing the heating or the hot water? I had a similar problem with mine. It turned out to be a safety setting for the hot water. If your hot water hasn't been heated for more than a couple of hours continuously in the past couple of days, the nest will turn it on. It's a bacteria prevention setting in the equipment menu.

Kintarō Hattori

Dardania wrote: »

The old thermostat should have been deactivated and probably removed for sure. There is a possibility it is wired in parallel with nest, so either of them could switch on boiler.
Regarding placement, the best location is a good central living space where you spend most of time. I put ours in living room for example.
Can you go to home.nest.com and login there - take a screenshot of your schedule - something might be switched on, or at the very least you will see if it's the nest that's switching on the boiler or not.
And as a general note, using a nest properly involves giving up a bit of control to it, and trusting it's judgement. If that doesn't sound too dystopian. The principle is you should tell it what temperature you want the house to be, and when, and it'll do the rest. it might wish to activate the boiler in advance to get it to the right temperature etc.
It's like the thought process switch when buying a car with climate control versus a simple heater / AC - you need to let it do it's thing rather than overcontrol.

It does seem to control the boiler as well because adjusting the thermostat in the hallway affects what happens with the boiler.

I'd be quite happy to give the Nest a good degree of control but unfortunately my partner isn't a fan of the boiler coming on outside of her control. We're very lucky in that our house is modern and very well insulated so we don't need to have the heat on very often and so she has always turned it on as she's needed it. I can probably get her to ignore it during the day but having it turn on at night is what's really driving her nuts as it's a very quiet house.

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

I have a nest for about a year, and because it's only me in the house and I have a totally random schedule I had to turn all the "learning" bits off - it was turning the heat on at all sorts of ridiculous times.

I emailed Nest a few times about issues and they were incredibly helpful - there are all sorts of settings hidden in the app, and one (can't remember what it was) in the device itself - you'd never have found it without their help.

I have no idea about a second thermostat, but instinct would tell me it might be conflicting with the nest - and I agree with the other poster that if you have any sort of a regularity about your life you should let the nest do its thing (I'm basically using it as a remote control which is a shocking waste of its capabilities really)

But if you can't sort it out, get on to Nest, they honestly couldn't be more helpful!

That's the thing, at the moment we're very predictable in what we do and so we don't need it coming on at random times. For a while in the morning and in the evening would be fine. It's the kicking in at night time which is what's really bothering us.

Eireann81 wrote: »

Is it firing the heating or the hot water? I had a similar problem with mine. It turned out to be a safety setting for the hot water. If your hot water hasn't been heated for more than a couple of hours continuously in the past couple of days, the nest will turn it on. It's a bacteria prevention setting in the equipment menu.

It's been firing the heating but on a few occasions it's not actually lit the boiler, it's more so turned it on as it was about to but then didn't do anything.

Thanks Folks. I'll get onto Electric Ireland and see what they say and if that proves fruitless I'll contact Nest as well.