A shame to fit a Hive to an OpenTherm-compatible boiler, it'd be much more efficient with an OpenTherm stat such as Nest or Honeywell T6 (although that would require you to remove the boiler casing, which you shouldn't do unless you're Gas Safe Registered, but it looks like you might need to go down that road anyway...)
The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 said:
electrical installation” has the meaning given in regulation 2(1) of the Building Regulations 2010(2);
The Building Regulations 2010 said:
electrical installation” means fixed electrical cables or fixed electrical equipment located on the consumer’s side of the electricity supply meter;
The Building Regulations 2010 said:
“fixed building services” means any part of, or any controls associated with—
(a)fixed internal or external lighting systems, but does not include emergency escape lighting or specialist process lighting; or
(b)fixed systems for heating, hot water, air conditioning or mechanical ventilation;
Since the covers must be removed by anyone doing an EICR I can't see how any cover over the electrics can be requiring a gas safe qualification as by law they must be removed during the EICR.
As to Nest with OpenTherm v Hive with linked TRV heads not so sure which would be best? Honeywell where both OpenTherm and linked to TRV heads yes very good, but it seems Hive is once TRV heads are included more of a hub than a wall thermostat, keeping the boiler running while any TRV is calling for heat.
From what I have read to date I will admit Hive does seem to have a problem with wifi links from hub to TRV heads and they have marketed a more powerful hub, and there are reports that the TRV heads are not powerful enough to operate some TRV's. However we don't know if this is due to some thing special within the home, or some unusual TRV head. I know some homes have be plastered using a insulating plaster board which included a foil in it which in essence produced a Faraday cage.
As said name of boiler followed by installation manual comes up with
the PDF showing connections I personally feel heating and ventilating is a specialist subject which is reflected by the name engineer which to me means University trained over the level 3 normal for most tradesmen.
My first house was gas hot air, cost a lot to run, but it heated the house even, which is likely why so costly to run, as circulated air past single glazed windows must loose heat, second house open plan, again very easy to get a even heat throughout the house, then I had to move back in with my late mother to look after her, and she had a house with loads of internal doors, and bay windows, and I realised central heating was not as straight forward as I had thought. It took me 18 months to get all the settings right, and clearly an heating engineer can't spend 18 months getting it right. Once set up yes it worked well, the programmable TRV heads did a great job, but the biggest improvement was when I fitted a TRV on the hall radiator as well as the wall thermostat, it was it seems not what should be done reading every book, they all said no TRV in room with wall thermostat, but both set to same schedule it was a huge improvement, in essence the wall thermostat only turned off boiler when we had a warm day, or change in schedule. And this is basic what the Hive does, all the wall thermostat does is turn off boiler when all radiators thermostats are satisfied.
What I don't understand is how the Hive geofencing works, with Nest the house temperature is allowed to drop when all linked phones are out of the house, and no movement is detected in the house, so any visitors walking around will cause heating to stay on. So having the thermostat where it will see people is important. But even before Nest dropped support for Energenie TRV's the Nest told TRV what temperature to run at, it was not the TRV telling Nest, which to me seemed wrong way around.
So if Hive take a "demand for heat" from the TRV is this over ridden when it detects no phones in house and does it allow house to cool, or do the TRV's override the geofencing? If so it would mean it would not turn off without manual intervention, which defeats the whole idea of geofencing. And does Hive like Nest also have occupancy detection which overrides the geofencing?
