Controlling heat to the entire house with a Hallway room-stat.

[bri160356]

My son has recently moved house;…it’s a 3 bed detached house built in 2001. It has an ‘Ideal’ ‘combi’ gas boiler that was fitted less than 2 years ago.

Just got a few questions for you guys regarding the use of a ‘room stat’ to control the temperature of the entire house.

The room-stat is in the hallway/stair well ;…the radiator in that area does not have a TRV. In fact none of the radiators in the entire house have a TRV fitted.

The hallway needs to be kept overly warm otherwise the boiler shuts down and not enough heat is delivered to the rest of the house;…that in itself is very inefficient because the ‘hallway’ is not really a living space and there is no need for it to be so warm.

My son lives on his own, but uses one of his extra bedrooms as an office a couple of times a week.

At the moment all his radiators are heating up and cooling down at the whim of the hallway ‘room stat’ which is not really what he needs. Apart from the main bedroom and bathroom, which he’d like to keep at constant/comfortable temperature, he has 2 other bedrooms that can be kept at a lower temperature most of the time, but he’d like the option of raising the temperature when the rooms are actually in use.

At the moment the heating is ‘all or nothing’ in every room,…even when he doesn’t need it;…even his girlfriend has commented that the upstairs is either too hot or too cold.

The ‘room stat’ is functioning perfectly and it’s controlling the boiler properly;…I’ve checked the displayed temperatures with an industrial thermometer and it’s just about spot-on.

Does he need TRVs fitting?....does the room-stat need re-siting?...do the radiators need balancing or something like that???

Any suggestions as to how things can be improved will be gratefully received?

Thanks.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Start with changing the TRV's.

Use Honeywell Valencia ones.

If the house has weird het up patterons and rooms not working evenly, then he can then upgrade to Evohome which gives the rooms independent control of the heating.

 

[muggles]

Yes TRVs would definitely help, as would getting your system balanced which could be done at the same time

 

[stem]

I had exactly the same problem in a house I bought. I fitted TRV's to all radiators except in the hall where the room thermostat was located, and fitted a smaller radiator in there to make sure that it was the last room to warm up. This meant that the other rooms all got nice and warm first and their TRV's started to close down before the room thermostat in the hall shut the boiler down.

It worked a treat and all of the rooms were kept at the temperature we wanted all winter without us having to adjust anything.

Don't fit a TRV on the radiator in the room where the room thermostat is located, otherwise one will interfere with the operation of the other.

 

[bri160356]

Start with changing the TRV's.

Use Honeywell Valencia ones.

If the house has weird het up patterons and rooms not working evenly, then he can then upgrade to Evohome which gives the rooms independent control of the heating.

Hi, thanks for that;…when you say change the TRVs, do you mean he should have TRVs fitted to all the rads?

At the moment there are no TRVs on any radiator.

If TRVs are fitted to all rads what happens to the room-stat?

 

[Dan Robinson]

All except the hall and bathroom. Should have read "change to TRV's".

Leave the room stat as is for now. Get the basics sorted first.

 

[stem]

If TRVs are fitted to all rads what happens to the room-stat?

Don't fit a TRV on the radiator in the room where the room thermostat is located, otherwise one will interfere with the operation of the other.

 

[Doggit]

A stat in the hallway can cause the boiler to kick in unnecessarily when the front door gets opened and the hallways cools down, so think about moving it to the living room (if possible of course), as you don't want to have to do two changes to the the TRVs.

Do you or your son know how to balance the system though. On one end of the rads, you'll fit the TRV, and on the other end is the lockshield valve that you'll adjust to let more, or less water into the rads so that everything warms up evenly, and then the TRVs kick in to control the heat after that.

Once that's done, you can look to follow Dans suggestion of using Evohome controls, but as it's only a couple of rooms, he may decide to just turn down the TRVs on the days that the rooms aren't in use.

 

[gasbanni]

Start with changing the TRV's.

Use Honeywell Valencia ones.

If the house has weird het up patterons and rooms not working evenly, then he can then upgrade to Evohome which gives the rooms independent control of the heating.

Come on Dan read ....there's isn't any trv 's !

 

[gasbanni]

Fit trvs that will give you a little more control, fit a programmable room stat. The room that this is in will give the boiler a target temp. Cheapest way of sorting it out.

For simplicity I use these, they come with a stand so stood on the desk in your son's office ........

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=s...AUIEygC&biw=1280&bih=800#imgrc=w1Q_JgN5r51RlM:


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