Thermostat vs Timer

[galaxy123]

The house we bought has a British Gas 532 Boiler (WB i think) wall mounted behind a wardrobe front in a bedroom, controlled by a British Gas PT2 thermostat mounted on the wall on the landing.
It drives me mad !
Once the house gets cold and you turn boiler on via the thermostat, it develops a mind of its own for the rest of the winter. We might turn it on for a couple of hours when we get home from work, then it will go off a few hours later. Thats fine, but even though the temperature hasn't dropped it'll come on again at about 11pm and keep pumping out heat until somebody wakes up sweating their bits off in the early hours, and goes and turns it off.
In the morning we get up and it's freezing but the heating hasn't kicked in.
It's driving me potty.
I've read the manual, which is no help whatsoever (and incidentally talks about it being wireless - but ours isn't).
I just want a programmable timer, so i can tell it to be on at given times, and more importantly stay off the rest of the time.
Can anyone help with the best (easiest and cheapest) way to switch over to a programmable timer?
Thanks in advance of sharing your knowledge.

 

[warmadmax]

would have thought there was a timer somewhere,
even my back boiler had a timer / programmer elsewhere to control it.


incidentally, the landing where the thermostat is (or at bottom of stairs), is there a radiator ?

if there is make sure it's not got a TRV on it (the valve with numbers on) as this will "fight" with the thermostat causing the overheat your describing.
if there is, turn it to full on / 5 temporarily to see if this helps.

if there isn't a radiator, do you close your bedroom doors? if you do your locking the heat in the rooms, leaving the landing cold and the thermostat will keep thinking you need heat (when your boiling in the rooms)


for it to be freezing in the morning, i would have thought a programmer / timer has switched it off... have a good scout round for a programmer, it may be mounted on a wall with the boiler or near the hot water cylinder.

 

[JohnD]

please describe the timer and the thermostat you are using. If you post photos that will be even better //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=129539

when you say you turn it off, where? Why don't you just turn down the thermostat one or two degrees?

Is the thermostat in a heated area?

Is it like the Drayton RF3 on here http://www.draytoncontrols.co.uk/search.aspx?search=rf3&page=1

http://www.draytoncontrols.co.uk/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=25590

 

[mikely]

From doing a quick search, it seems that the BG PT2 is a 7 day programmable thermostat (a badged Potterton Myson?), so you should not have a separate programmer because it is controlling a combi.

I can't find a manual for the PT2 on line, so can’t be much help. Do you understand the principle of a programmable thermostat, in that you are not setting on and off times like a programmer, but different temperatures at different times through the day? What temperatures are set in the thermostat's programme?

 

[D_Hailsham]

From doing a quick search, it seems that the BG PT2 is a 7 day programmable thermostat (a badged Potterton Myson?),

My searches did not come up with that result. I made it out to be a plain old mechanical stat.

 

[JohnD]

I expect we'll see the photo soon...

 

[D_Hailsham]

I expect we'll see the photo soon...

Found this being sold on Ebay, so the OP may have a programmable stat after all. Obviously a badged Drayton. Apologies to mikely.

Untitled

• D_Hailsham
• 12 Oct 2012
• 1

 

[JohnD]

I've got one of those on my spares shelf, for when my Danfoss needs replacing (the display is dim) so I will watch with interest.

It is a programmable stat, isn't it? Could the internal battery be low and causing odd behaviour?

 

[galaxy123]

Thanks for all of the responses.

It is the one in the photo above.

incidentally, the landing where the thermostat is (or at bottom of stairs), is there a radiator ?

if there isn't a radiator, do you close your bedroom doors? if you do your locking the heat in the rooms, leaving the landing cold and the thermostat will keep thinking you need heat (when your boiling in the rooms)

It's at the top of the stairs, outside my bedroom. It's quite high on the wall (level with the top of the door frame), dont know if this makes a difference? The BG engineer who last serviced the boiler commented that it's an odd height!

I do tend to sleep with my bedroom door closed (advice from fire service). The only radiator is at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway. If this is the problem, I'm not sure how to resolve it. Prob best to switch to timer instead of thermostat?

when you say you turn it off, where? Why don't you just turn down the thermostat one or two degrees?

Is the thermostat in a heated area?

What I should have said was that I turn it down on the thermostat until the boiler clicks off. If I want to make it stay off, I'll turn the thermostat right down to 5 degrees, but it'll still click back on in the middle of the night if it feels like it.

Do you understand the principle of a programmable thermostat, in that you are not setting on and off times like a programmer, but different temperatures at different times through the day? What temperatures are set in the thermostat's programme?

I understand the principle, but whether I'm putting in the right info is another matter. Garbage in / garbage out, right?

It is a programmable stat, isn't it? Could the internal battery be low and causing odd behaviour?

I'm not sure the battery will be low, but will change anyway to be sure.

 

[D_Hailsham]

Do you have the instructions for the thermostat? If not, you can download them from Here - it's the Digistat 3.

What are your time/temperatures settings?

 

[JohnD]

having looked at the instructions (they are under "discontinued products" them "Digistat" then "Digistat 3") I reckon that taking out the battery for an hour or more, so it resets to factory settings, then putting in new batteries and setting the clock, would make it work in quite a good programme, and better than the OP is currently suffering.

If that works, it just needs a bit more tinkering in the event that the standard getting up/going out/coming home/going to bed times are not quite suitable.

I wouldn't be surprised if the clock setting was out of time.