Home heating automation

Tado is the only thing that calls from the boiler so it should know also I add price per KWh for every bill as well as metre readings so it should be able to do those maths at least, being out consistently by a 1/3 every month is a bit ridiculous.

Efficiency doesn't matter if I tell it I used x gas at y price.

A bale of Peat Briquettes to the person who can figure out the app algorithm for estimating your usage. Heres what I know.

in the 'Settings/Energy IQ' you can submit either Meter Readings or 'Heating Bills'. you decide the dates and frequency, and the M3 or KWH rate in €. You could submit 12 for the last 12 months, Feb 1st 2022 to Jan 31st 2023, a month at a time, or 6 bi-monthly etc.

What is the difference between Meter Reading and Heating Bill? Im guessing meter reading is cumulative, the number rising with each bill, whereas Heating bill is the actual usage for the period of the bill. Is there a difference? There may be. Im guessing 'Heating Bill' is taken as the exact Unit consumption of your heating, (They ask that you leave out standing charges). Meter Reading seems to be the same then, but it would include other gas usage such as cooking, and HW from Direct HW boilers, which are the norm in Europe. Does it estimate these out if you submit your historical usage as meter readings? That would account for the third difference. If you submit 12 moths readings, and there is a reasonable consumption shown during the summer, which does not match the ON times of your Tado rooms, it's going to estimate these as other non heating consumption.

Does it use your boiler data? you may have entered your boiler brand and model when first signing up to Tado. This does not appear in Energy IQ, either in the Tab on the app home page, or in Settings/Energy IQ. It does however appear in Settings/Care and Protect/Boiler, where you can edit the exact model, and tag Underfloor heating if you have it. Remarkably, they have my Boiler to the make and model, which I manually entered when registering all those years ago, as it was not in their database then. It is now, but it doesnt have the output though, just 'Firebird Enviromax Kitchen' but no choice of the model output subset,e.g. C20, C26, C35 etc. although these are listed in the information for the Enviromax but not selectable individually.

I doubt very much if they draw down Boiler consumption/output figures in KWH or M3 of gas to estimate your heating exclusive usage, but they may use a general assumption based on you Heating bill, or the estimated Heating portion of your meter readings.

Elsewhere on their Help I read that retrospective Meter Readings/Heating Bill entries will take about a week to be mulled over and computed to effect thier estimated saving and consumption figures. If you're only adding data this past few months, they haven't got much to go on, and no summer data either from the app or your usage entries. So maybe look closely at your Input data, enter your last 6 bi-monthly gas bills. Use Heating Bill rather than Meter reading. If you use gas only for CH and HW, look at Summer gas use and factor this out over the 6 bills. Now sit back and wait a week for the algorithm to come up with its best estimate of your heating use and compare it to actual. If your Tado has a HW timer then leave in the gas consumption, as the algorithm can see this from App use. Im going to mock up mine for a previous year based on the KW value of the oil I consume, at approx 10KWH per litre, 2000l/annum with a roughly 4 month and 8 month spread per 1000l, winter and summer. It will be meaningless as my HW is not controlled by Tado, and I have an integrated solid fuel Backboiler which heavily supplements the CH flow, cutting out the Oil boiler behind Tado's back as it were. Results should be interesting.

Check that the 'Zone Controller' for each zone stat is the actual stat itself, and not the wireless stat or it's ext kit device. In "Settings/Rooms and Devices/ " note the Zone name, stat and its serial no. then open its settings by tapping the Right Arrow ->, and at the bottom of these settings check that the "Zone Controller' for that stat is the same serial number as the stat. If the serial number is say that of the wireless stat/ext kit then that wired stat will trigger the extension kit relay when turned up, but not its own relay and consequently will not open it's zone valve. All 4 stats should have their own serial no. as their zone controller. This is easily tested by turning up each stat in turn and observing if it opens it's motorised zone valve.

With this wiring correct and each wall stat opens only it's own zone valve, you next need to ensure that the smart TRVs in a distinct plumbed zone are using the Zone Controller serial number of the stat for that zone as their 'Zone Controller'. Thus ensures that when a smart TRV is turned up and opens, it also wirelessy triggers the correct zone stat for its plumbed zone, so that the correct motorised valve opens and the boiler will fire.

Note that when a wired stat (or a wireless stst plus ext kit) is acting as the electrical relay for a smart TRV to open the motorised valve and fire the boiler by virtue of the relay in the motorised valve, this will take place regardless of the status of the zone stat itself. It may be turned down and it's relay off, but will close the relay in response to a TRV which uses it to open the zone valve and fire the boiler.

A final word on radiators with smart TRVs which are situated in the same location as the wired wall stat. You may have, say, 4 bedroom radiators and a landing radiator. Generally, the radiator in the same location as the wall stat will not have a TRV, as this would mean two thermostats trying to control the same physical heating area. Normal practice is to have this rad open and providing the heat source to govern the operation of the co-located stat. The other rads then heat as a consequence of the main zone stat, and are temperature limited by their normal TRVs.

When you upgrade these passive TRVs to smart ones which can call the zone and boiler through the zone stat, it is possible to put a smart TRV on the radiator in the zone stat location, say, landing or master bedroom, but in this case the smart trv is added as a device to the same zone name as the star, and is not configured as its own measuring device Iintead the zone stat is, ( you will be able to chose which device is the measuring device for the TRV), so that TRV just opens and closes when its wired zone stat is turned up, but does not use its own Internal temperature measuring sensor. This arrangement give full independent heating of each room with a TRV, and also ensures that when the wall stat is triggered by another rooms smart TRV, the zone valve will be opened, the boiler will be fired, but the TRV in the wall stat location will remain closed as the Zone stat itself may be turned down. This can take a bit of thinking about, but in the end, a TRV will only open its valve when its own internal temperature sensor passes the threshold, or the temperature measuring device assigned to it, such as the zone stat itself.

Tado config generally assumed a Main Stat, and may be assuming all other stats to be sensor stats for TRVs. This is what appears to have happened, but Tado support will configure each stat as the zone controller in its own zone or 'Room'. They are closing their own relay anyway, which will oen that zone's valve and call the boiler, but you need to be able to call that zone also from a TRV that's located in the zone.

Their logic is a bit convoluted, normally they will treat a TRV setup as a single master zone, as with a full TRV implementation you don't really need the zone valves, you just have all TRVs set to use the main stat or its ext kit as the sole means of firing the boiler. The TRVs are all then zones in their own right. You can use the wall stats as just sensors for better temperature reading for co located stats. When they are configured as a sensor, they wouldn't close their own relay as it's assumed they are not wired. There are more complex settings available directly in the stats themselves, programmed by pressing the stat buttons. There are installer charts for these configs, but they are tricky to understand, and I think there has been some change to the logic since the new ext kit was introduced. The easiest thing is to describe what you want and they'll push the config to it.

What you are saying is that the wireless receiver was the only choice for zone controller, but the wired stats operated anyway as their mechanical relay was still active. If you tap on the zone controller Heading and Serial no in the stat setup, it should open the chooser for zone controller like this.

I've only one wired stat and TRVs so I've only one to choose from. If this doesn't let you choose the zone controller S/N of the wired stats, you can choose 'No Zone Controller', and the wired stat should still operate the motorised valve and fire the boiler, but without closing the ext kit relay. You would still need the choice of Zone Controller for the TRVs, unless you just open all the motorised valves permanently using their latch lever, and then the TRVs will fire the boiler using the ext kit. If you don't have a full TRV setup as is often the case you would need to retain the individual general stat controlled zones in order to heat open radiators with no smart TRVs in those zones (though such rads will heat for any TRV cslk within that zone anyway). I assume when adding the stats you placed them into their own zones, or 'Rooms' as Tado refers to them . Any devices placed into the same room will all follow that single timed schedule, and should use that room's stat as their zone controller by default, without any choice to change.

You can put the TRVS in a 'Room' of their own and give them their own schedule. The Zone controller for these TRVs will still be the stat which controls their hot flow zone valve

You don't say if you currently have 5 zone control, but I'm guessing the inspire still opens the three valves, but you have to coincide this with a call to fire the boiler from the proprietary wifi zone device built into the Ideal boiler. Its unfortunate that you choose a boiler with a closed firing system. A standard switched (SL) live trigger in the boiler would have allowed the simple reconnection of your existing 3 zones' motorised valve relays' connections from the old boiler to the new, with the addition of the relays of the two extra valves, HW and extension. These 5 live signals are simply joined onto a single wire which goes to the boiler SL inputs and fires it in the event of any valve being opened by its timer/ stat. You could probably have got a CH stat plus HW timer from inspired, or used any other 2 zone system like Tado receiver, Hive, etc. It may be possible to wire a switched live (SL) boiler call in tandem with the calls from the ideal WiFi unit, I'm not confident, but I'd need to do a bit of reading on this, and Ideal's response does not inspire much hope. You can almost certainly return your new boiler to a standard SL triggered input, which will be the 5 outputs from the 5 zone valve relays. Actually, how does the boiler wufu receiver module address it's two zone valves, are there some control wires from the boiler wifi unit back to them. I'll look this up.

If you decide to dump the boiler wifi module, get a refund on it. You just need a 2 zone receiver with a CH and HW relay to the two new zone valves. The hive two zone wireless is about €110 from Screwfix All output from the zone valves built in relays are the combined to fire the boiler, this is know as S plan wiring. You could buy a hive CH plus HW stat and two channel receiver, then you could buy a further 3 hive wireless stat and single zone receivers to give you the same smart system over all five zones. Selk the inspired kit You could achieve the same with Drayton wiser wireless, or as I said, add two more Inspired and another two channel gateway, if you're happy with its credentials and functionality. ( I've never heard of it in reference to smart heating systems). I'll take a look at the manual for the ideal, the wifi unit is always an add on on these.

You can add the SL from the previous boiler connection to the CH SL input on the New boiler. It will Call the boiler in combination with whatever connections were made externally from the boiler to the two new motorised valves. The SL input is the first terminal on the left. The second is the output of the boilers own internal timer system that was installed, which also includes the thermostat control from its wireless stat. This goes out to a CH zone valve and returns as a zone valve relay SL to terminal one.

HW call from this may have been wired to a seperate HW call terminal 3 from the left, see the note regarding different boiler flow temperature for CH and HW

You will need to have the combined SLs from your original 3 valves which went to the old boiler reconnected to the new at terminal one, marked in orange. I'm surprised this was not done, as so much else was in your new install. You should call them back in.

Once this is done replacing all this mixed control with a Single new smart 4 CH plus HW system is just a case of a sufficient no. of new wireless stats and receivers wired to existing zone valve brown control wires. The combined orange wire outputs of these go to the boiler SL in. Your current Inspired has 4 outputs I'm fairly sure, so it can take an extra CH stat, leaving HW control to the Ideal timer plus cylinder stat control perhaps.

That's a Hive brand, not Nest, but it's identical in function, smart wireless thermostat with relays for control of CH timing and temperature, and a separate timer for HW. Your current setup has no facility to heat HW only, so you'll have no immediate use for the HW control until you have some plumbing changes made to your system, if its possible to easily isolate thee CH and HW flows. Meantime it's an ideal system for your single zone setup, with the receiver mounted in place of the timer switch, and the wireless thermostat placed in your chosen reference spot, usually living room or other reception area.

Thanks for the detailed response. The old house had 2 zones, upstairs and downstairs. We had Nest for downstairs and remote water on/off/schedule. Worked great.

I was thinking the exact same as you - UFH is slow to respond so should be based on schddule, zones and wall stats.

Upstairs should benefit from below, and be very performant.

I might just stick the Nest in our bedroom and link it to upstairs zone, may as well make use of it. That would give remote access to the only thing that is responsive.

No. The EPH R37RF control unit is the wireless receiver for wireless EPH stats, so you will need these also. The full kit is EMBERPS08. This has two wireless CH stats, one wireless cylinder stat, the 3 zone RF controller, and the Gateway. About €440 currently, or €370 for the EMBERPS06 without the wireless cylinder stat (wired mechanical cylinder stat if fitted will continue to work)

Far smarter system would be the Drayton wiser Kit 3 zone, €239 in Screwfix. https://www.screwfix.ie/p/drayton-wiser-wireless-heating-hot-water-3-channel-thermostat-control-kit/4081v

It has much more smart features, better stats and app, and the option for individual radiator smart TRVs at a future date. The Wiser receiver just replaces your existing wired EPH controller and you can remove the old wired CH stats, linking their live and switched live wires together, and concealing them in the wall recess behind the old stats. Alternatively, they can be left as is and just turned up full to link the internal connections. The existing mechanical HW cylinder thermostat if fitted can be left in place

Blue to Neutral, Brown to Live, the Black is the Switched live back to the boiler, it goes to terminal 4 on the Hive. The green/yellow earth is parked on the earth terminal on the hive. Its looks connected to your Blue Neutral wire in the old timer. It shouldn't be. Earth is only ever strapped to Neutral up in the consumer box. Here's the backplate wiring for the Hive, you have the two channel one on the right, CH on is terminal 4.

It can only be that, unless... that green/yellow wire was actually neutral back to the boiler, and whoever installed it had no blue wire. If this is the case the switched live Black is going to the boiler and coming back to the now disconnected green/yellow. Power down and link that green/yellow to the Blue Neutral, check does it now fire.

It's so wrong to use g/y wire in a powered circuit, it could cause an accident if cut on the assumption it was a passive earth wire while it was carrying boiler motor current. Roy Rodgers was on the job

When you say you popped it into gravity mode, are you referring to the Hive configuration? Your system as you said only heats HW when CH is on. Gravity mode requires that the HW on terminal is wired to fire the boiler, but the CH On terminal operates the pump. The cylinder will then heat independently by convection if the hot flow pipe from the boiler rises To the cylinder, without dropping to or under the floor first. CH heats by bringing on the pump. Currently you are not using the HW timer ON of the hive.

You don't have an existing old wired wall thermostat in your setup? This is often wired just to control the pump, so turning it down switches off CH while the boiler continues to fire and heat HW by convection/gravity flow.

Yours is just a single zone as far as I can see. If you have no wall thermostat to separately control the pump, (some people had a simple switch to knock it off), then you'll always have CH and HW everytime the boiler fires. You'll need some rewiring to get gravity mode, but it would be worth it. If the pump is next to the boiler, you would just need to move the Hive there, connect CH ON to operate the pump, and HW ON to fire the boiler, with the hive in gravity mode. Easy peasy.

Seems they're the best option for Home Assistant linking.

I'll stick to the Hive, have it working hubless with a bit of effort (proxy devices that send receive the commands as HA doesn't always send the right info based on user interface) and I know enough that I think I could automate something similar if I wanted to but I don't have TRVs yet so no big deal!

What way would the Tado radiator valves work along side a stove with a back boiler for the rads? Been using the oil to heat the rad but got an inkling to crank up the stove today but then thought of the Tado valves I have installed. They will stay closed unless I open and then the oil will turn on.. Is there a way around?