The hub controller

deezell

Gravity in terms of heating your HW means the heated water flows from the boiler to the HW cylinder by convection, without the aid of a pump. The heated water can only reach the rads if the circulation pump is on, so a it's possible to heat HW only by controlling the pump with the CH timer. If your boiler is a system boiler with the pump built in, then you isolate CH using a valve. In very basic systems, a single timer fires the boiler for both HW and CH, and the valve is usually controlled by the CH wall stat.
Replacing this with a 2 zone timer requires a particular type of wiring to keep the zones independent, and I suspect your climote simply combined the roles of timer and CH stat, meaning the valve is opening for any timed event, HW and CH. Its only closed when neither are on, so you never have HW only. I could be wrong, but a properly wired CH valve if stuck open would mean CH on all the time, stuck closed would mean no CH, so I suspect it's either been wired to both CH and HW outputs, or is permanently live and open (not good), and the Climote is just firing the boiler. I doubt if the valve relay is being used to call the boiler for CH timer events.

deezell

Btw, you can observe the manual lever on the valve moving without removing the motor.

jimmycrackcorm

deezell wrote: »

Btw, you can observe the manual lever on the valve moving without removing the motor.

true, but if it is set to manual then it is open, or else it is set to automatic and my suspicion is that the actual valve is permanently open regardless, i.e. what isn't working is being able to close. The next time I go to cut the electricity off, I'll take it off and see what is happening.

Otherwise, I've no idea what the purpose of this motorized valve is... the wiring for it and the hot water tank thermostat are linked together which is why I think calling for hot water is supposed to close the valve to supply the rads.

AndrewJRenko

Anyone else having trouble with the Hub since the clocks went back at the weekend? Ours is misbehaving, and getting inconsistent responses from connected phones.

deezell

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

true, but if it is set to manual then it is open, or else it is set to automatic and my suspicion is that the actual valve is permanently open regardless, i.e. what isn't working is being able to close. The next time I go to cut the electricity off, I'll take it off and see what is happening.

Otherwise, I've no idea what the purpose of this motorized valve is... the wiring for it and the hot water tank thermostat are linked together which is why I think calling for hot water is supposed to close the valve to supply the rads.

It's might be a priority connection, calling for HW may have been designed to close the valve until the cylinder was heated and it's stat opens, allowing the rads to heat. This would prevent the CH from cooling the HW supply below a given temperature as the HW is always in circuit on a gravity feed. It's hard to tell exactly, but for sure the valve closing should cut the CH, and this should be operated by the CH live output of the Climote, and the valve in turn should use it's built in relay to call the boiler.
The connection from the valve to the cylinder stat might just be a convenient location to connect the two boiler calls, HW and CH, together, as the HW On live from the Climote should go via the cylinder stat and then to the boiler, to be joined to the CH live, not from the Climote, but from the valve relay. Like I said, the Climote appears to have been installed in place of a simpler single timer and wall stat installation, and this required a different wiring scheme for the 2 channel Climote, but just dropping the Climote in place of the wall stat was not correct. It will take a bit of tracing by a good sparks with heating control knowledge to get it right

AndrewJRenko

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Anyone else having trouble with the Hub since the clocks went back at the weekend? Ours is misbehaving, and getting inconsistent responses from connected phones.

https://twitter.com/hubcontroller/status/1320684140086349824

https://twitter.com/hubcontroller/status/1320708425639174144

ddub11

Hi all,my hub controller was playing up,turning its self on and off constantly,so i just got a replacement sent out and connected it and im having the same issue (on and off constantly).

Was onto hub crowd and they said they,lll get the installers(third party) to contact me with a view to getting to the bottom of this,however i live alone and these guys dont work after five(crazy)so there is no way to get it sorted.

Any one any experience of this issue with the hub?

This is my third hub(all the same issue)and while their a good idea they actual units are poor quality and the support service is a joke.When my third one was delivered they couldn't get into my apartment block so they left it in a store shed beside the block,despite me giving my mobile and instructions to ring me if they couldnt gain access,a joke.

deezell

Time to get a proper genuinely smart thermostat. The hub controller was a piece of cheap technology used to lever large amounts of eu grant money into the pockets of the utility companies.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119185438#Comment_119185438

proab running over raspberry pi or audruno, claiming grants of IT Tallaght, IDS and development boards aswell as the SEAI

deezell

Leaving a trail of inefficient heating systems, frustrated owners, fudged statistics and misspent grant money. But could you get a grant to just add an extra motorised valve, or a few TRVs? Not a chance. The EU credits to the utilities for fanasty efficiency savings were multiples of the cost of a proper smart system. Hub controller is nothing more than a cheap electronic stat. No smarts.

dingdong1234567

Removed mine years ago. The thing just stopped working and could not be bothered with dealing with the Hub Controller crowd. Using a Sonoff 4 channel pro to control my zone heating and it works a treat.

AndrewJRenko

This thread might be of interest to hub users. Looks like they are trying to force users into a monthly subscription model.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058272199/hub-controller-options

WildCardDoW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119919969#Comment_119919969

Yup, pretty scummy of them as well as wasn't that a selling point? Nevermind that they burned the SEAI grant for a lot of people, a grant that should have been used for proper boiler upgrades.

deezell

Have you seen @scholes picture in that thread of the install? The unit is on the floor under the boiler! Two posters there who have this done. Cowboys.