Hive thermostats

[Funkyfridays]

yes 3 storeys, ufh downstairs with 4 thermostats controllling 7 zones, and floors 1 and 2 are radiators with x1 thermostat controlling each floor. The boiler is a combi

 

[ericmark]

In the main a thermostat has a single pole relay, but we want it to do at least two functions, one open the valve, and two fire up the boiler, it may also need to start a pump, so what we need as a bank of relays to turn the single pole into multi-pole.

Units like this have the relays required, and it seems likely that is what your existing system does. One could design your own relay bank, but easier to use one ready made. The radiator system motorised valves have micro switches built in, these are not built into the UFH valves, and the TRV can have an electronic head which connects to the wall thermostat, again this is not as far as I am aware available for UFH.

In the main for UFH the problem is to avoid the hysteresis, some wall thermostats have very complex algorithms to get around the problem, Hive is a rather basic wall thermostat, so seems unlikely it will produce good results.

There is a huge difference between working, and working in an economic and well controlled way. I have a problem with my central heating, and I have to decide how far to go, I am considering two thermostats in parallel, but the point is if bad enough to be worth spending out to fix it?

 

[Funkyfridays]

That was my thinking, the property is less than 10 years old so you would think the set up would be more efficient and easy to monitor but that doesn’t seem the case, I also have to manually switch the pump on for the ufh, which doesn’t bother me as like what’s been said before the ufh does take a while to heat up so switching on remotely wouldn’t be much more beneficial I was just thinking by changing the thermostats I could make it a bit more modern and efficient and see what’s going on better via an app but that doesn’t seem the case or at least makes economic sense just to have it on your phone.

 

[Rodders53]

You are going to need a relatively expensive smart system if that's what you really want with individual zone control (of all your 6 zones).

NB You have 7 loops of UFH in 4 rooms (zones) not 7 zones of UFH; it is 7 water pipe loops to serve the 4 zones.
My Kitchen-Diner and Utility Room are two loops on one Kitchen zone 'stat. The Hall (and d/s loo) is one loop on the Hall stat. The lounge has two loops, with one room zone stat. Plus a single loop study zone. 4 room zones six loops and actuator heads in my system.

The UFH pump shouldn't need a manual switch on/off -- that should be automatically done by the Polypipe thermal actuator control box you pictured when there is demand from a zone: it has pump and boiler (call) lights on it!! It may need a timer on/off control if the existing stats don't support a set temp and lower set-back temp automatically.

Something like the Drayton Wiser 3 (to control 1st and 2nd floor radiators - add in smart wiser room TRVs if you want even more granular control) plus the Wiser UFH box and another 4 room stats to control the 7 actuators and four room zones would be one solution. It's possible some rewiring of the existing control systems may be needed.

You may need to discuss your exact wants and price them up against some alternatives with some professional heating controls people?

There are possibly simpler things like smart mains wired thermostats around for all the thermostats you have (but they often need a neutral which many existing wired thermostats don't have). If I recall correctly you mentioned a spare wire was available to your existing that may be suitable if wired up by someone competent?.