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Home heating automation

[Deleted User]

Just starting to look into this now though probably wont be purchasing for a while unless a bargain pops up.

I know there are a number of options out there for this but many like the Nest for example appear to be mostly based around running automatically depending on temp etc or learning your usage.

What I want to know is which one is best to use like a traditional timer? I'd want to set a schedule for heating and water to come on and off and also boost it if I felt like it. Learning my usage or using the thermostat to turn on/off the heating is not something I would really use.

I do want to be able to boost the heat and water remotely so the place is warm before arriving home and have a nice interface for setting timers using an app as we change around our water and heating timing quite often and its a pain having to do this using the poor user interfaces and controls on a traditional heating timer.

I'm assuming they can all be used in this way but I wonder if any device in particular is more geared towards this type of usage?

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maxamillius

deezell wrote: »

Its hard to make sense of boiler photos, pipes disappearing behind stuff. The cylinder one shows the flow and return dropping through the floor, with hot expansion to the attic and cold feed from the head tank. Cyinder is upstairs I presume? Are there tee offs those pipes just under the floor boards? That would usually mean the upstairs rads are fed from these, rather than from a seperate connection closer to the boiler. Maybe take another one of the boiler back a bit, if theres any stuff in the way pull it out. Ultimately, a plumber will be needed to trace the pipes and advise you on the possibility of fitting zone valves. It might just be possible to separate off all the upstairs rads with one valve, all the downstairs rads with another, which would not only allow you to heat HW separately, but also to heat upstairs/downstairs independently. You'll need a house call at least.

Ye I appreciate the photos don’t help too much, think I’ll get someone to take a look.
In general are zone valves expensive to fit?

Appreciate all the advice

deezell

Rennaws wrote: »

Hi,

Hope I’m posting this in the right place..

I’ve had amazon echo plus for a while now and I love it so much I just bought an echo for the bedroom.

As far as iot goes I’m only using it for the lights which is useful but I’d really like to add the heating.

I don’t want anything fancy, just be able to schedule it to come on and off and do the same remotely.

The existing setup is straightforward with a main timer switch and 2 thermostats (upstairs & downstairs). It’s an oil boiler if that matters.

Can anyone recommend a simple system that would allow me replace the timer switch without replacing the thermostats and that will work with Alexa ?

Hope that makes sense..

Cheers..

Get a cheap Sonoff switch, program schedule via Sonoff app and link to Echo

budhabob

deezell wrote: »

Get the plumber to fit a motorised valve in place of the manual one. He can then join call for heat from the valve relay to call for heat from the heatlink HW relay, connect to boiler and you will have HW only timing all year round.

You're a gent man, much appreciated!!!!!

reignschaos

@Deezell, cheers again for your detailed reply. For the first time in my life I've printed out a forum reply, so I can digest exactly the information supplied.

The one part that I can reply too, now, is I plan to remove the Grasslin altogether and replace with a Tado extension kit, which I have waiting to go (figured I would go piece meal, in case of issues and make it easier for me to troubleshoot).

Time to do some testing :-)

raytaxi

Looking for some information / help. Got a new boiler installed with 3 zone heating (upstairs, downstairs, and hot water) on motorised valves controlled by eph system. Just wondering how hard in would be to switch it to nest, have one nest already as was previous control system. I know I will need a second nest, but not sure how I can put stat onto hot water system it has a wireless one from eph at moment.

deezell

maxamillius wrote: »

Attached some pics of my crappy setup,

Only 2 pipes leaving the boiler, what would be the best case here to separate hot water from central heating?

Its hard to make sense of boiler photos, pipes disappearing behind stuff. The cylinder one shows the flow and return dropping through the floor, with hot expansion to the attic and cold feed from the head tank. Cyinder is upstairs I presume? Are there tee offs those pipes just under the floor boards? That would usually mean the upstairs rads are fed from these, rather than from a seperate connection closer to the boiler. Maybe take another one of the boiler back a bit, if theres any stuff in the way pull it out. Ultimately, a plumber will be needed to trace the pipes and advise you on the possibility of fitting zone valves. It might just be possible to separate off all the upstairs rads with one valve, all the downstairs rads with another, which would not only allow you to heat HW separately, but also to heat upstairs/downstairs independently. You'll need a house call at least.

maxamillius

Attached some pics of my crappy setup,

Only 2 pipes leaving the boiler, what would be the best case here to separate hot water from central heating?

The Bishop Basher

Hi,

Hope I’m posting this in the right place..

I’ve had amazon echo plus for a while now and I love it so much I just bought an echo for the bedroom.

As far as iot goes I’m only using it for the lights which is useful but I’d really like to add the heating.

I don’t want anything fancy, just be able to schedule it to come on and off and do the same remotely.

The existing setup is straightforward with a main timer switch and 2 thermostats (upstairs & downstairs). It’s an oil boiler if that matters.

Can anyone recommend a simple system that would allow me replace the timer switch without replacing the thermostats and that will work with Alexa ?

Hope that makes sense..

Cheers..

deezell

Get the plumber to fit a motorised valve in place of the manual one. He can then join call for heat from the valve relay to call for heat from the heatlink HW relay, connect to boiler and you will have HW only timing all year round.

deezell

budhabob wrote: »

Deezel, I have a plumber calling into me this week (getting the bathroom remodelled) so i'll ask him for some guidance. I don't quite understand the bit in bold.

Currently using the nest as described, but just copped that in the summer months it wouldn't really work like now - cant have it not working as the OH will kill me for changing without being fully ready.

EDIT: Sorry by the way for being a complete NOOB

Your nest has a separate timer for HW and a second relay on the heatlink box which would normally be used to drive a HW zone valve, thus directing boiler output to the cylinder only. As you only have a single zone, you were looking for a way to fire the boiler as timed events to heat the HW, with the CH flow turned off. My first suggestion was a fake CH schedule, high to low temperature events which would turn the boiler on then off. I also suggested enabling the HW timer schedule, which translates to on off events on the HW terminals of the heatlink relay. These are unused in your system, but by crossing them to the CH terminals on the heatlink box you effectively have the equivalent of an on/off timer, which will fire the boiler as you require for the programmed intervals. Joining pins 2 to 5 and then 3 to 6 will achieve this.

budhabob

deezell wrote: »

When movingfrom on/off notch timer control to schedulded programmable thermostat you have to think differently in terms of appropriate temperature, envisage an ideal full day graph, rolling up, level, down and so on. Create a schedule to mimic this. Its a waste to try and use a smart stat as a notch timer, but it can be simulated as I described. In your case you are trying to use the stat in summer as an interval timer for HW. You can use the nests own HW interval timer for this by crossing the outputs on the heatlink box.

Deezel, I have a plumber calling into me this week (getting the bathroom remodelled) so i'll ask him for some guidance. I don't quite understand the bit in bold.

Currently using the nest as described, but just copped that in the summer months it wouldn't really work like now - cant have it not working as the OH will kill me for changing without being fully ready.

EDIT: Sorry by the way for being a complete NOOB

deezell

budhabob wrote: »

Just read this again, and I now understand what you are suggesting here. That's a smart way around it. so regardless on temp, I can set it to come on for 30 mins etc by setting high (on) and low (off). Bit of a convoluted way around it, you'd think slight changes to the NEST set up would make it much simpler.

When movingfrom on/off notch timer control to schedulded programmable thermostat you have to think differently in terms of appropriate temperature, envisage an ideal full day graph, rolling up, level, down and so on. Create a schedule to mimic this. Its a waste to try and use a smart stat as a notch timer, but it can be simulated as I described. In your case you are trying to use the stat in summer as an interval timer for HW. You can use the nests own HW interval timer for this by crossing the outputs on the heatlink box.

budhabob

deezell wrote: »

Setting the temperature up an down at different intervals is the equivalent, boiler will come on for a higher than ambient temperature, off for lower, rads and HW will heat together, as it previously did. You can close the valve in summer, then only the HW will heat. You can enable rhe HW timer on the stat and cross connect the terminals on rhe heatlink box so either the temperature dependent stat or the HW time slots will fire the boiler. If your CH can be isolated by a valve, you should look into how it is plumbed, as it may be as simple as controlling the circulation pump to get CH, when its off you will have only HW. The HW may require the pump to be on though, if it is equipped with a non return valve.
A much better solution is to get a plumber to replace your manual valve with a motorised one, and with a small change in wiring you will have exactly what you want. Motorised valve as little as €41.
https://www.ie.screwfix.com/horstmann-z222-2-port-motorised-valve.html

Just read this again, and I now understand what you are suggesting here. That's a smart way around it. so regardless on temp, I can set it to come on for 30 mins etc by setting high (on) and low (off). Bit of a convoluted way around it, you'd think slight changes to the NEST set up would make it much simpler.

maxamillius

deezell wrote: »

Try and establish if your HW can be heated by gravity. If the cylinder is upstairs and there are a separate run of pipes from the boiler to it, you're nearly there. Simple test, disconnect power from the circulation pump, and run the boiler. It will heat safely to its max internal temperature which is limited by an internal stat. CH wont come on without the pump. See if there is rising heated water to the cylinder coil pipes in the side of the cylinder. I'm assuming your cylinder is upstairs. For gravity to work there has to be a rise in the boiler pipes up to the cylinder. If the boiler hot flow pipe drops underfloor first then only a pump will get the heated water to the cylinder. Worst case is that boiler flow and return is brought upstairs for both rads and HW cylinder, making it impossible to zone the HW in isolation from upstairs rads without lifting floorboards. In this case you would need to consider smart TRVs to knock off the rads while the cylinder is heating.

Have a look, see can you trace the HW cylinder directly back to the boiler on its own run of pipes. If you can then it can be zoned, possibly by gravity, definitely by a valve. If it has it's own rising run but still doesn't heat by gravity,(circulation pump powered off), there may be a non return valve in the loop, it looks just like a pipe coupler, usually with a little arrow stamped on it and a small bleed nut.

I'm always suprised at plumbing which doesn't facilitate HW only. Most oil boilers (excluding grant) are still made with 2 flow and 2 returns to the boiler jacket, on either side. This allows easy independent pump or gravity flow to a cylinder, and separate pumped flow to CH. Even with only one side tap its possible to have gravity and pumped from that starting point. Tapping HW flow from the pumped CH loop is just wrong.

Thanks for all of the above, I’ll take a look at pipework when I’m home and report back. I’m keen to get some sort of automation on it and also try separate CH from HW.

Black_Knight

deezell wrote: »

Respect! Not for everyone though. I take it you had the nest stat mobile, in the bedroom at night? Or in the living turned down. Either way your problem seems to be balance. It take more boiler activity to heat the living space than the beds, so when the beds are comfortable, the living is cold. This is a problem with single zones. You can go some way to fixing this with zoning, you say you can cut off the upstairs by a valve, so with a proper system you can call the boiler for downstairs only without heating, or overheating upstairs. If you find some rooms in a zone have to overheat so that other rooms are comfortable, initially try tweaking the radiators valves to constrict the flow to the overheated rooms. Alternatively put manual TRVs on the rooms that are the quickest to heat. These will cut off and the flow will be directed to the cooler rooms. All the smart stats (brand name or homemade) and schedules in the world won't create separate heating zones, or distribute the heat evenly or selectively. You need valves for that. Simply screwing down the lockshield valve in non critical rooms will direct the most heated water to the slowest to heat rooms' rads, the restricted rooms will catch up over time. If you have to heat one room to 25° to get another to 21°, putting a stat in the hotter room to cut the boiler at 21° will not allow the colder room to heat if you have just one zone. At best multiple stats will ensure cooler rooms kick in the boiler according to their needs, at the (considerable) expense of overheating unused rooms at that time.

Oh it'll be a never ending evolution i'm sure. Knowing what I know now, i'd probably have saved the money from the Nest and gone for a Tado.

Yes, the nest was mobile, but we'd rarely move it. It's supposed to add convenience to our lives and it somewhat wasn't if we had to move it regularly. I've the heater valves pretty well tuned to evenly heat the house, but at night with our room door closed and the 2/3 of us in there it's kept relatively warm. 1 or 2 boost of heat during the night at a max. These 1 or 2 boosts of heat in our living room just wasn't enough to keep that room warm (and pointless keeping it warm over night), so come morning we'd leave the bedroom and find the living room a couple of degrees colder. We'd then be waiting for the bedroom to cool down so the heating would kick in. Babies don't do patience.

I'll see how the automation goes for now, but I might add a physical switch in the house to toggle whether we're out of the bedroom or not. Either that or have fun with Bayesian sensors and let Home Assistant make a best guess as to whether we're up or not (after 7am, kettle boiling, hall motion sensor active etc).

Stopping overheating the empty rooms is my next challenge.

Side note, our 1 and only hall heater is fed from upstairs (stupid previous owners), so closing the upstairs loop = no hall heating. And our hall is probably our biggest area of heat leakage.

deezell

Black_Knight wrote: »

Replaced my Nest at the weekend there. Our house isn't zoned, but there's certainly zones of temperatures these cooler nights, resulting in a perfectly heated bedroom over night (heating kicking in once or twice but ourselves in the room kept the temperature up also) but a freezing cold living room in the morning.......
.......... I've Home Assistant running on a mini PC, but this PC runs oodles of other services so the money spent on that couldn't be included. Home assistant could run on a RaspberryPi for about 40-50 euro.

Respect! Not for everyone though. I take it you had the nest stat mobile, in the bedroom at night? Or in the living turned down. Either way your problem seems to be balance. It take more boiler activity to heat the living space than the beds, so when the beds are comfortable, the living is cold. This is a problem with single zones. You can go some way to fixing this with zoning, you say you can cut off the upstairs by a valve, so with a proper system you can call the boiler for downstairs only without heating, or overheating upstairs. If you find some rooms in a zone have to overheat so that other rooms are comfortable, initially try tweaking the radiators valves to constrict the flow to the overheated rooms. Alternatively put manual TRVs on the rooms that are the quickest to heat. These will cut off and the flow will be directed to the cooler rooms. All the smart stats (brand name or homemade) and schedules in the world won't create separate heating zones, or distribute the heat evenly or selectively. You need valves for that. Simply screwing down the lockshield valve in non critical rooms will direct the most heated water to the slowest to heat rooms' rads, the restricted rooms will catch up over time. If you have to heat one room to 25° to get another to 21°, putting a stat in the hotter room to cut the boiler at 21° will not allow the colder room to heat if you have just one zone. At best multiple stats will ensure cooler rooms kick in the boiler according to their needs, at the (considerable) expense of overheating unused rooms at that time.

deezell

maxamillius wrote: »

That’s the issue I have to turn the CH on in the summer to heat the hot water, alternatively use the immersion, neither of which are ideal.

It would be great if I could control hot water and heating separately.

Try and establish if your HW can be heated by gravity. If the cylinder is upstairs and there are a separate run of pipes from the boiler to it, you're nearly there. Simple test, disconnect power from the circulation pump, and run the boiler. It will heat safely to its max internal temperature which is limited by an internal stat. CH wont come on without the pump. See if there is rising heated water to the cylinder coil pipes in the side of the cylinder. I'm assuming your cylinder is upstairs. For gravity to work there has to be a rise in the boiler pipes up to the cylinder. If the boiler hot flow pipe drops underfloor first then only a pump will get the heated water to the cylinder. Worst case is that boiler flow and return is brought upstairs for both rads and HW cylinder, making it impossible to zone the HW in isolation from upstairs rads without lifting floorboards. In this case you would need to consider smart TRVs to knock off the rads while the cylinder is heating.

Have a look, see can you trace the HW cylinder directly back to the boiler on its own run of pipes. If you can then it can be zoned, possibly by gravity, definitely by a valve. If it has it's own rising run but still doesn't heat by gravity,(circulation pump powered off), there may be a non return valve in the loop, it looks just like a pipe coupler, usually with a little arrow stamped on it and a small bleed nut.

I'm always suprised at plumbing which doesn't facilitate HW only. Most oil boilers (excluding grant) are still made with 2 flow and 2 returns to the boiler jacket, on either side. This allows easy independent pump or gravity flow to a cylinder, and separate pumped flow to CH. Even with only one side tap its possible to have gravity and pumped from that starting point. Tapping HW flow from the pumped CH loop is just wrong.

maxamillius

deezell wrote: »

You can simply replace the wall stat with a smart stat, wiring is as you say. Turn boiler to on and set timing and temperatures of the smart stat through its app. Job done. Tado ideal, also Nest and Netatmo, Hive. This will operate as your current setup, one zone.
Does your boiler only heat the HW cylinder when the stat is on and CH is on? If the stat is wired to just fire the boiler on and off this will be the case. If your HW cylinder is gravity fed, it can heat without the circulation pump being on. In this case it's possible to wire the stat to just control the pump and hence the CH, whereas HW will always heat as long as the boiler is on or on a timed interval.
Sometimes the heated water flow to the cylinder (usually upstairs) is constrained by a non return valve, requiring the circulation pump to be on in order to provide flow. In this case you can only have HW when CH is on, and you will need to install a motorised valve on the CH circuit to have independent heating of HW. In this case the boiler is fired from the relay in the CH valve, and from a mechanical stat on the HW cylinder. You can add smart timing to the HW also with most of the smart stats using their extender relays. Hive, Nest and Tado all capable of this. For fully independent HW you can install 2 motorised valves, one for HW and one for CH. This system has the benefit of concentrating the heating effort only in the zone required, so HW is not excessively heated when CH is on.

Start with the smart stat. 5 minute install. If you have sufficient HW as a result of the CH being on, thats fine. I should ask how you heated HW only during the summer.

That’s the issue I have to turn the CH on in the summer to heat the hot water, alternatively use the immersion, neither of which are ideal.

It would be great if I could control hot water and heating separately.

Black_Knight

Replaced my Nest at the weekend there. Our house isn't zoned, but there's certainly zones of temperatures these cooler nights, resulting in a perfectly heated bedroom over night (heating kicking in once or twice but ourselves in the room kept the temperature up also) but a freezing cold living room in the morning. We've a newborn and moving from the bedroom to the living room every morning was a pain as she'd get too cold, and waiting for the nest in the room to adjust to the cooler downstairs air filtering in took too long. The solution would be to increase the thermostat target temperature, but then the house would end up too warm overall. Overall, we were just getting frustrated with some of the limitations of the nest, and I felt I could do a better job myself.

My solution... I've already got a few ESP8266s around the house with a temperature sensor attached, with a 7SEG displaying their values and reporting into home assistant. I connected up a simple sonoff basic to my boiler in place of my nest controller (pin 5 I think is what was turning on my combi boiler, so I connected that to live through the sonoff).

Now home assistant runs all the "zoning" and automation.
Zoning
Home assistant allows me to create my own thermostat. The temperature value is taken from a sensor I have in the house. eg. "Living Room Temp sensor", "Bedroom Temp Sensor".
When the thermostat turns on, it just flips a switch. I've set this to flip a switch to indicate if that room is cold or not. So if the bedroom is cold, I get a switch called "Bedroom cold" turned on.

Automation
I've 2 sets of automation. 1 for the bedroom, 1 for the living room
1. Check every minute that, under the condition of the bedroom being cold, between hours X and Y, and if people are at the house, turn on the heating.
2. Check every minute that, under the condition of the Living room being cold, between hours Y and X, and if people are at the house, turn on the heating.

Then i've automation to say turn off the heating if the room (based on the time of day) is not cold.

I added in an additional 20 minute boost switch, so if I feel the house needs a boost in temperature, i'll kick that off.

Future work
We did some work on one of the rooms when we bought the house. I ended up getting an electric valve plumbed in to the upstairs, so I can cut the heating to the upstairs of the house. Ideally, i'll bring that into my DIY thermostat, and during the day i'll shut off heating to the upstairs.

TL;DR - IMO my nest didn't suit my house configuration and was causing frustration, so I replaced it for about €14*

* I've Home Assistant running on a mini PC, but this PC runs oodles of other services so the money spent on that couldn't be included. Home assistant could run on a RaspberryPi for about 40-50 euro.

deezell

maxamillius wrote: »

Thanks Deezel,

It just does CH, I’m a sparks but hearing etc is not my strong point.

I’d like to add a bit more control and be able to switch heating on from any location.

There are no motorised valves on the system literally just a boiler, and cylinder in hot press. I turn boiler on manually or with the analogue timer, then adjust with the wall stat. Only two cables at wall stay which I assume are permanent live and switched live?

Thanks

You can simply replace the wall stat with a smart stat, wiring is as you say. Turn boiler to on and set timing and temperatures of the smart stat through its app. Job done. Tado ideal, also Nest and Netatmo, Hive. This will operate as your current setup, one zone.
Does your boiler only heat the HW cylinder when the stat is on and CH is on? If the stat is wired to just fire the boiler on and off this will be the case. If your HW cylinder is gravity fed, it can heat without the circulation pump being on. In this case it's possible to wire the stat to just control the pump and hence the CH, whereas HW will always heat as long as the boiler is on or on a timed interval.
Sometimes the heated water flow to the cylinder (usually upstairs) is constrained by a non return valve, requiring the circulation pump to be on in order to provide flow. In this case you can only have HW when CH is on, and you will need to install a motorised valve on the CH circuit to have independent heating of HW. In this case the boiler is fired from the relay in the CH valve, and from a mechanical stat on the HW cylinder. You can add smart timing to the HW also with most of the smart stats using their extender relays. Hive, Nest and Tado all capable of this. For fully independent HW you can install 2 motorised valves, one for HW and one for CH. This system has the benefit of concentrating the heating effort only in the zone required, so HW is not excessively heated when CH is on.

Start with the smart stat. 5 minute install. If you have sufficient HW as a result of the CH being on, thats fine. I should ask how you heated HW only during the summer.

maxamillius

deezell wrote: »

A hive or any stat can be used to fire the boiler in place of the built in timer. There is a wire link inside the boiler which is removed and the stat is wired across the terminals to fire it, with the original timer set to always on.
Does your boiler heat HW? Is there a switch for HW only and HW+CH?

Thanks Deezel,

It just does CH, I’m a sparks but heating etc is not my strong point.

I’d like to add a bit more control and be able to switch heating on from any location.

There are no motorised valves on the system literally just a boiler, and cylinder in hot press. I turn boiler on manually or with the analogue timer, then adjust with the wall stat. Only two cables at wall stay which I assume are permanent live and switched live?

Thanks

deezell

reignschaos wrote: »

1 week in with my Tado Stats and I must say, I'm well impressed........
........The good problem I'm having now, is not keeping my water hot enough as I turn off the heating earlier than before :-)

I posted previously during the summer about my hot water issues, but I had my boiler type wrong.......

........My hot water issue is that, even though my programmer has a HW dial, when turned on, the hot water would not heat (ie. the boiler does not fire). The hot water will only heat when the CH is turned on.......

......I"ve had a look at the Hot Water cylinder in the hotpress and a pipe about 1/4 down with a White value on it, would seem to be the most likely one for water going into the tank and i guess acts similar to a TRV........

From doing searches people make reference to a possible faulty diverter value but I've no idea where to look for that.
I guess another possible problem places could be the programmer itself. Considering my old stats were busted maybe that part of the programmer is too.

OK. In my previous posts I had assumed that your two motorised valves are for CH, one for each zone, and that HW is only heated when the boiler is fired by either zone stat ( via the zone valve microswitches). I also deduced that the two outputs from the grasslin were being used for two CH zones, not one CH and one HW This is consistent with having two separate stats. It would be easy to check this out. Turn both grasslin switches to off. Turn on both zones using the new stats, then turn each grasslin zone switch on in sequence. See if CH switch or HW switch controls an individual CH zone. If neither zone operates when grasslin HW switch only is on, the i'd have to assume both stats are being fed live from the grasslin CH output, which would beg the question, where is the HW output wire going?
I'm ruling out to a HW diverter valve, you only seem to have two valves for CH, and as the HW still heats when CH is on, this means the HW cylinder is gravity fed. This is partially confirmed by the presence of the thermostatic Cylinder Valve (TCV) flow controller you correctly likened to a TRV for the HW cylinder. This cuts the heating water flow from the boiler to the cylinder at target temperature, but it does not act to call the boiler. The presence of this device would seem to imply that HW is dependent on CH being called
So, if you can establish that the two outputs from the grasslin go only to the CH stats, we can get HW to heat without CH by doing a little rewiring.
First, the grasslin has no function any more as the Tados fully control the two CH zones. Both the brown wires from grasslin terminals 3 and 4 can be wired to 4 (CH switched to ON) or diectly to Live, to send always on live into the stats. The grasslin termimal 3 can now be used for its intended function, to send timed live to the boiler, which will fire it for HW when the CH stats are off.
Now, there may be a plumbing issue with this, in that you can have a situation where the boiler is firing to pump heated water to the cylinder when both CH motorised valves are closed. If the TCV closes when the cylinder is heated, but the timer is still on, the boiler has no flow path for it's pumped heated water. It's own internal stat will cut in when it's internal water temperature rises as a result of this, but it would be better if the live HW call for heat from rhe grasslin to the boiler was terminated by an electrical cylinder stat set lower than the TCV, instead of or in tandem with choking the flow with theTCV. This would be better practice, as a boiler should not be called unless there is at least an open valve or gravity circuit or a small bypass between flow and return on the boiler. This is not currently an issue as HW is dependent on a CH zone valve being open.
For three fully independent zones, the TCV could be replaced by a motorised valve, triggered by the grasslin HW timer and/or a cylinder stat. This zone valve would in turn provide a live to fire the boiler only when it was open.
Finally, as mentioned on my previous posts, you could hand over HW timing to a Tado extension kit, and dispense with the grasslin altogether.
You may need to get a sparks to go over this if its too much info, but I suspect the wiring on your current install, I don't see anything to indicate the existence of motorised valves or cylinder stats for HW, and I'm convinced the HW terminal of the grasslin was used to feed one of the CH zone stats.

deezell

maxamillius wrote: »

Apologies if this has been covered,

I have a gem oil boiler in the house, has an analogue clock and on off switch on the boiler.

Heating isn’t zoned it’s just on or off. Is it possible to install a hive thermostat on a system like this or would I need to get motorised valves etc installed?

Cheers

A hive or any stat can be used to fire the boiler in place of the built in timer. There is a wire link inside the boiler which is removed and the stat is wired across the terminals to fire it, with the original timer set to always on.
Does your boiler heat HW? Is there a switch for HW only and HW+CH?

maxamillius

Apologies if this has been covered,

I have a gem oil boiler in the house, has an analogue clock and on off switch on the boiler.

Heating isn’t zoned it’s just on or off. Is it possible to install a hive thermostat on a system like this or would I need to get motorised valves etc installed?

Cheers

deezell

limnam wrote: »

my GRASSLIN Towerchron won't fire HW unless i have the jumper on the back of the programmer set to gravity mode.

Is yours set for gravity?

Deezell would be the man to assist on this i'd say

Indeed. I'll read back over the summer posts. There was something off about the way the grasslin controller was wired if I recall. You only had HW even then when the boiler was running for CH? I'll be back.

limnam

my GRASSLIN Towerchron won't fire HW unless i have the jumper on the back of the programmer set to gravity mode.

Is yours set for gravity?

Deezell would be the man to assist on this i'd say

reignschaos

1 week in with my Tado Stats and I must say, I'm well impressed. I think I'm mostly impressed by the fact the Tado Stats set a temperature the boiler fires and then shuts off when the temperature is reached. The old mechanical stats that I replaced were just useless, in fact now that I know how my system should have worked, it's fair to say they were busted for years.

The good problem I'm having now, is not keeping my water hot enough as I turn off the heating earlier than before :-)

I posted previously during the summer about my hot water issues, but I had my boiler type wrong. I have an Ideal Logic 24 KW System Boiler (Logic System s24IE),
Ideal Logic Pic 1
Ideal Logic Pic 2

My hot water issue is that, even though my programmer has a HW dial, when turned on, the hot water would not heat (ie. the boiler does not fire). The hot water will only heat when the CH is turned on.

My Programmer is a basic one a GRASSLIN Towerchron QM2
Programmer Pic 1 - Outside
Programmer Pic 2 - Inside

So I opened up Programmer to look at the wiring
Programmer Pic 3 - Backplate
Programmer Pic 4 - Wiring

and based on the backplate and the wiring, it seems like it's wired correctly.

I've had a look at the Hot Water cylinder in the hotpress and a pipe about 1/4 down with a White value on it, would seem to be the most likely one for water going into the tank and i guess acts similar to a TRV. There is a wire coming from it connecting to a device attached to the cylinder (I assume the actual thermostat)

Hot water cylinder Pic 1
Hot water cylinder Pic 2

Based on the above, anyone have any suggestions where the problem may be?

From doing searches people make reference to a possible faulty diverter value but I've no idea where to look for that.
I guess another possible problem places could be the programmer itself. Considering my old stats were busted maybe that part of the programmer is too.

Officer Giggles

Thanks for that response deezell, I had read the earlier posts and was half looking to confirm I was in the same boat as the other poster.

Thanks again

deezell

Officer Giggles wrote: »

The pictures would help I suppose

Two stats and ext kit is what's normally required for a 3 zone setup. It looks like a 3 pump zone system. Picture 2 is an electric immersion heater controller, ignore this, I assume there is an immersion on the cylinder. To confirm that the pumps correspond to the zones, turn on the timer with both switches off. Check if the boiler fires and one of the pumps runs. See if heated water is going to the HW cylinder only. Then check each zone individually to confirm upstairs/downstairs CH.
Your system is likely wired with the timer firing the boiler and operating just one pump, the one that heats the cylinder. The two switches connect the timed lived to the other pumps to enable 2 CH zones. Currently you don't have a means of switching of the HW pump while CH is on.
Working on this assumption, you need a system which switches on each pump independently, and fires the boiler when any of these zones is active. Two stats and an ext kit will give you the three zones' Switched Live (SL) outputs, but to fire the boiler you will need a relay box to produce a SL to the boiler for any or all zone SL live inputs. You can't just join the 3 zone SLs together, that would just mean all the pumps would come on for any zone. Go back a few posts to https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=108603248&postcount=853 to see this same discussion. Wìth a relay or lex box your suggested two stats and ext kit Plus a mechanical cylinder stat would give a completely independent 3 zone system.

Officer Giggles

Sorry I've tried reducing the size of the pics