Hub Controller options

dulpit

Hot water through the hub I believe. There is also an immersion switch but that is rarely used. Before it was installed there was a simple daily rotary dial thing that you pushed pegs in to schedule the heating on (I think each peg was half an hour).

Is this the type of kit you're talking about as a straight swap?

https://www.screwfix.ie/p/tado-v3-black-edition-wireless-heating-hot-water-smart-thermostat-starter-kit-black/701kg

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122713123#Comment_122713123

the Hub controller has no timer or output for HW timing control. Hub installers would leave the original segment timer clock in situ, use this to control HW timing, with the new hub controlling CH timing and also thermostat control. This is why I ask if your old timer is still in use, and can your system switch on HW only, say, during the summer. It may be the case that the HW also heats once the boiler is firing, and the CH needs to be turned down so as to heat HW only. If they have full independent HW and CH heating, I.e, one without the other, this is usually achieved by zone valves. The hub would open the CH valve, which in turn fires the boiler, or else the old segment timer would open the HW zine valve and call the boiler

The wireless stats with receiver can have two outputs on the receiver, one for CH and one for HW timing. Ideally the receiver would be placed near the zone valve plumbing and the boiler and/or HW cylinder, where the wiring could be installed to enable independent HW and CH heating, but, it depends on your plumbing. What you had when you only had the simple timer. Dd they also have an old dial thermostat on the wall which was replaced by the Hub installer? Did they have, or do they still have a system to heat the HW without radiators getting hot, or is it the case that they used the immersion in the Sumner. If there's no definite independent heating method for HW, then just a wired thermostat replacement is required, it's a few minutes work to to swap for the Hub. Any other changes, adding a receiver other than in the hub location, investigation of the wiring, timers, zone valves if any, and CH pump, will require time and expense to figure out, even more to install, and you don't think they'll want to spend more than the price of the thermostat itself.

This is the Tado wired thermostat you need, just a stat and a small Internet bridge which connects the Internet to the Tado. This connection is wireless. The little bridge device plugs into their Internet router.

https://www.screwfix.ie/p/tado-v3-smart-wired-heating-thermostat-starter-kit/447ht

dulpit

My parent's hub controller still not working (as in you can't connect to it from phone, it does control the heating if you go to the device) so they sent out a replacement device. But no tool to take the old one off the wall.

I'm not sure what I need to pull at or poke at to get the old one off, does anyone have any experience of taking one off the wall without a special tool? Or am I stuck without that tool?

deezell

The opposite of this, prise from the left should do it.

dulpit

That's great @deezell that worked. New hub connects fine and can be paired (yay), but the screen is terrible, it looks damaged and contrast is all over the place. I could really only read it when looking from below (boo). The hub crowd are a right shower.

I took a photo when I had the yoke off the wall, see attached. Is it right to say that one of the options mentioned earlier in this thread would be a direct replacement if needed?

dulpit

The quality viewing angles available on the replacement device they sent.

Head on:

From below:

Thanks Hub. Such a great service.

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122799447#Comment_122799447

Bin it and buy a Tado wired starter kit. Brown(live) and black wire to the Tado common (Com) and Normally Open (NO), Blue neutral not needed. Once you knock off the power, its a DIY job. That's it. Probably the best smart stat in terms of functionality. If you would prefer the thermostat in a better location, say it's in the hall and you want it in the living room, then a wireless version will be as easy to install, the receiver replaces the Hub controller ( Neutral wire used in this case), and you place the wall stat where you want, even on a stand. Hive, Tado, Drayton will do the job, with infinitely smarter and better time and temperature programming options than the dumb Hub.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122799531#Comment_122799531

This so? I assume no monthly fees here, just plug and play, and can put the receiver where the hub is now and the thermostat then somewhere central in the house?

With the time of year, might hang tight for Black Friday sales. https://www.screwfix.ie/p/tado-v3-black-edition-wireless-heating-hot-water-smart-thermostat-starter-kit-black/701kg

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122800931#Comment_122800931

That's it. No fees, there are a few extra features avaiable which are optional afaik, but yes, wire it up and off you go. Live and neutral are already there to power it, so just a short live link to the CH Common, black wire to the CH NO. There's also a HW timer relay in this receiver, which your hub wasn't wired for, so of no immediate use. That Tado kit is a bargain tbh.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122801374#Comment_122801374

Bought the Tado, will try to install later. Thanks for help so far, here's hoping I don't need any more!

dulpit

As an update for anyone with a Hub - they sent out a replacement hub to fix the issues my parents were having with not being able to connect to the Hub from phone. The replacement worked for about a day, but with brutal contrast ratio. But they were able to connect phones and it worked. It then stopped working and shows nothing on screen at all. Had to put the old one back in as a temporary measure so they can at least turn on heating from the device itself.

Hub's support has been terrible.

dulpit

Just connected the Tado there, seems all very straightforward.

Only issue I've encountered is that the boiler seems to be running to heat the water, even though the tado doesn't have any connection to hot water as far as I can tell. The heating is set to off, and the rads are cold, so that bit is working fine.

Any suggestions @deezell ?

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122812856#Comment_122812856

Your hub was only capable of acting as a CH thermostat, it had no relays or timers for HW. Whatever was controlling HW only firing of the boiler is still doing it. This is probably a mechanical timer, or it may just be a thermostat on the cylinder.

You've replaced the thermostat and timing function of the hub. If you want to investigate further and discover how the boiler is fired for HW only, you can use the Tado receiver to control this, as it has an idle HW relay, but it will mean some wiring. The instructions for hub installation were very simple, leave the HW on its existing timer, and install the hub in place of whatever previously controlled CH. Some single timer installations would heat HW in gravity mode, i.e, wherever the boiler fired, HW is heated. The CH thermostat would only operate the pump or valve which sent the flow to the radiators. In this case, the timer had to be 'on' for CH to work. This could well be your arrangement, but without knowing what's there, I'd let the Tado just replace the function of the Hub. As you bought the wireless one with the spare HW relay though, it's very tempting to use it. I could probably figure it out if you look and see if there's another old timer still in play, if there's motorised zone valves, a cylinder thermostat, if it's oil or gas boiler and so on.

dulpit

Turns out I had it wired wrong, I had the black wire going to CH NC rather than NO.

It's all working now. I have temperature set to 20 degrees, and the rads came on for a while and I believe off again now because the temperature is above the target. The hot water was hot at the same time, so something is happening somewhere to sort that out I guess.

I'll let them have at it for the night now and will check back in tomorrow to see if all is okay.

Marhay70

Anybody know where I might lay my hands on the tool for removing the Hub Controller, the cowboy who fitted it left nothing, he didn't even bring a box in, just the unit. Anyway, I've just been using it as I need it and it has been coming on and off, but something has happened in the last 24 hours and now it won't even do that. I would like to replace it with the Tado unit discussed here but I can't get it off, I've heard there is a way of taking it off using screwdrivers but the box is very close to the adjoining wall.

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122836305#Comment_122836305

Go to my post on the 4th Nov.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122836305#Comment_122836305

Pull hard from the left side and it should pop off.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122813189#Comment_122813189

I was looking at this just now to see what needs to be done for water heating. As far as I can tell, the water heats if the heating is on. In the summer, when the heating is not on, my parents usually use the immersion if they need hot water, there is a way somewhere on the boiler (I believe) to have it so that turning on the heating from the hub (as it was last summer) just heats the water.

The new Tado is where the Hub was, so just outside the hot press. The hot water tank is in the hot press, and the boiler is in the room behind it then. There are 2 sets of wires coming from the boiler to the hot press, I didn't follow them but I can see that 1 terminates at where the hub was, I can't see immediately where the other one goes.

I stuck my head in where the boiler is and it's a Glow worm Flexicom hx. That's all I had time for today, but if there was an easy to follow guide or similar to hook the hot water controls to the Tado, that'd be ideal. Is this something that is likely to be possible?

deezell

The key is that 'somewhere', where heating HW is achieved by firing the boiler without pumping the hot flow to the radiators. If there is a gravity path between the boiler and the HW cylinder, then this is possible. This particular boiler has a simple heat exchanger construction which might lend it to gravity heating of HW as the flow and return are top and bottom fed to the heat exchanger, and the circulation pump is external to the boiler, allowing hot flow to be controlled by CH call only.

An alternative arrangement that is common is when both HW and CH hot flow are actively pumped, but a motorised zone valve is introduced in the CH circuit to prevent CH flow. This is often connected to a simple switch to turn off CH, while the timer ( now the tado) controls firing of the boiler. See if you can establish how HW only was achieved. Is there a boiler only switch the turns off the circulation pump, or is there a zone valve to turn off CH.

Either woukd be very easy to connect using the Tado receiver, as the Tado can be configured in gravity mode, using the HW relay to fire the boiler for all HW or CH timed events, while the CH NO terminal is only used to operate either a CH pump or to open a CH zone valve. A good few images of the plumbing around the boiler and next to the cylinder might give a few clues.

dulpit

Here are some truly terrible photos that might help.

In order, they show:

1. The top of the boiler.
2. Another of the top of boiler.
3. The under side of the boiler. The 2 wires in background that are tacked to the skirting board are the ones that out to where the tado is.
4. The hot water tank. The insulated sleeve thing is the wires coming from boiler on other side of that wall.
5. This is the 2 wires from boiler running up along with the green and yellow wires from hot water tank.
6. One of the insulated wires plus the green and yellow wires terminate in the box here. The switch will turn the boiler on and off.
7. The other insulated wire goes through to this expertly placed tado box (thank you command strips, no thank you hub for putting the old one up in such a crappy way).

deezell

I'm not seeing any motorised valve there, just a red circulation pump wearing a turban? Little leak probably. What I do see on image 4 is a red handled spool valve. I suspect this is used to cut off flow to CH, so that pumped flow only goes to the cylinder. Try it out and see does it close off CH when the Tado calls the boiler. This was a common low tech solution on unzoned systems. It would be a relatively simple job to replace this valve with a motorised one. Once this is in place, the Tado CH No relay will open this valve, while the HW No will be used to fire the boiler. The Tado receiver would be configured in Gravity mode, so that either CH or HW schedule will close the HW relay, while the CH No terminal will only be used to open the new CH motorised valve. A small bit if plumbing, and a little change in the wiring will give you HW only time slots.

A pair of motorised valves and you'll have fully independent S-plan CH and HW zoning.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122839507#Comment_122839507

Correct, I checked with my parents and they said in the summer if they want, there are 2 valves they can shut that will allow them to use the timer in the past or the hub subsequently to heat the water and not the rads. But in general they didn't bother with hot water in the summer.

Cheers @deezell you've been a big help!

corkandproud

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122811738#Comment_122811738

Hey @dulpit, which version did you buy? I'm in the same boat. The V3+ is cheaper but I think I just need the thermost (which seems to be €20 more expensive on it's own

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122855935#Comment_122855935

Hey, I bought this one:

https://www.screwfix.ie/p/tado-v3-black-edition-wireless-heating-hot-water-smart-thermostat-starter-kit-black/701kg

Annoyingly it's not €15 less than when I paid for it.

deezell

Absolute bargain. @corkandproud , the wired starter kit is €99, you can use either starter kit, the add on stat only doesn't have the bridge device in the starter kits, which is needed to connect to the Internet and use the app. It's more expensive only because the starter kits are a bargain, should be at least €150.

corkandproud

Thanks @dulpit & @deezell. Gonna buy it tomorrow and try and install it. Can I connect the 3 Hub wires directly into the smart thermostat or do I need to use the larger connection box?

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122859249#Comment_122859249

In the wireless starter kit, the thermostat has no wiring terminals, you must use the terminals on the receiver.

If you're happy with the current location of your hub as the location for your new thermostat, buy the wired starter kit, the thermostat in this has wiring terminals, and the COM and NO terminals connect to the wires marked live L and V1 in the Hub. Neutral not needed in the Tado wired stat as it's battery operated, so park the N wire in the spare P terminals on the Tado backing plate.

Martt

Hi lads. I need replace my h control for that thermostat. How I should wire this. I know neutral to N, live to L. What about v1, where should I plug this wire. I have simple oil boiler. Before H controller was mechanical clock.

deezell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860108#Comment_122860108

Bring the pair of wires from 4,5, into the boiler and connect them across the Live and Switched live terminals. There is probably a link there between them, remove this. First, post the make and model of the boiler, a photo maybe, inside and out. I'll look up the terminals to be sure.

corkandproud

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122859428#Comment_122859428

Cheers for that. I'll have to go for the V3, I'd prefer the app control. To be fair to the Hub, the intrgrated wife connection was fierce handy.