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    Dean Idoine

    In that case is there any benefit to having smart TRVs on the radiators in the same room as the room stat?

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    thebaron

    I am asking myself the same question, I have a large Kitchen/Diner/Lounge with 2 rads that had old style TRVs and the house thermostat was in that room. The Wiser themostat is there now, I have fitted, but will now remove, the 2 wiser TRVs and move to other rads in the house. The Wiser thermostat will now control them both, along with, by default, non TRV bathroom rads and a non TRV hall rad. Only had this system partially fitted for a couple of days now and I'm immediatley noticing the saved heat in non (day) use rooms in the house.

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    Ian Friend

    The only issue with removing the wiser TRV's from the radiators in the room with the room stat, is that when OTHER rooms with the wiser TRV's call for heat, your room without the TRV's will still warm up, even if already at temperature.  Leaving the wiser TRV's on these radiators means they will turn off and not heat when other rooms need heating

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    thebaron

    Ah yes, very good point. I already have that issue with the 3 bathroom and 2 hall rads that are Non wiser TRV so go on whenever another Wiser TRV is calling for heat. I'll monitor the temperatures in that thermostat room and if they get too high/don't drop to the set point, I'll get some more, although I think the break even point would be a long way away given marginal savings. In fact I think the Heat reports for each room are one of the best things though it would be handy to see when the TRV is calling for heat as opposed to say, sun shining in the room or heat rising from a room below, or indeed people in the room warming it up.

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    Dean Idoine

    So when the TRV's call for heat it turns the boiler on even if the room stat has the boiler turned off?

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    Ian Friend

    Yes, when a TRV from another room (lets call it room 2) drop below its setpoint temperature it will call for heat and the boiler will turn on to heat that room.  If you only have dumb TRV's in the room with the room stat (lets call this room 1) then when Room 2 is calling for heat then Room 1 will also be heated as it has no way to turn off those radiators while the boiler is on to heat Room 2.

    If you have Wiser TRV's in Room 1 then these should stay off so that room 1 is not overheated, but the boiler can heat room 2.  The room stat in this room works as a grouping mechanism so that the room only reports one temperature even though you might have multiple TRV's in that room, and the Room Stat takes priority about whether to call for heat for Room 1 or not, rather than each TRV in Room 1 calling for heat seperately (as they may report slightly different temperatures +/- 1 degree).

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    thebaron

    No. At the moment there are no Wiser TRVs on the 2 rads in the room with the room stat.

    But if *any* other Wiser TRV *or* the room stat calls for heat  *all* the non Wiser TRVs rads heat up (inc the 2 in the room stat room).

    Full layout is 8 Wiser TRV rads, 3  Bathroom (Non TRV rads), 2 Hall (Old TRV) Rads, plus the 2 (Old TRV) rads in the Room stat room, 15 in total.

    Previously whole house was 21 degrees 06:00 to 09:00 15:30 to 22:00 then 18 degrees otherwise.

    Now occupied time rooms  are 20 degrees , unoccupied time rooms 16 degrees , 'partly' occupied rooms 18 degrees, and at night all 16 degrees. Occupied rooms during the day have PCs for WFH in them which helps, but its 11am and frosty outside and no heating on and we're all comfortable. Hoping to get gas useage down from 28,000 Kw/h per annum by at least 10% maybe 20% payback 3 years/18months dependent on saving and gas price. I'm watching the heat reports and getting feedback from Mrs thebaron if it gets too hot/cold in places and fine tuning. I have the comfort and Eco modes on so 3 bedrooms warm up to match the occupants rising times (7am/ 8.30 am/8.30am) rather than all on at 6am for example , TV room only heats up in evening from 6pm etc etc . Early days but impressed so far.

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    Ian Friend

    Good to hear.  I'm impressed with my wiser setup too.

    Living Room - 3 x wiser TRV's and a room stat

    Main Bedroom 1 x wiser TRV

    2 x offices both have 1 x wiser TRV

    Spare bedroom (mostly in the off position unless we have guests), bathroom, downstairs WC, hallways and kitchen have old dumb TRV's but that works for those rooms, we have them set to some mid point on the dumb TRV's and works nicely that they heat whenever something else is also calling for heat.

    The 3 wiser TRV's are a new addition to the living room which previously had dumb TRV's and just the room stat, but had the problem in the evening of overheating when the bedroom called for heat - seems to work nicely grouping together though as i explained above.  I have a homeassistant setup so i can actually monitor the temperatures of the individual TRV's in the living room, as the wiser app only gives 1 reading from the room stat.  and i can also see whats calling for heat and when which is usefult for working out how the system actually works.

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    thebaron

    I like the sound of that homeassistant set up but may be too techie for me. But I want to know when each TRV is calling for heat. The insights graph of each temperature line could be made to show this, solid for on, dashes for off, and dots as now for no connection. Also I'd like the time to pop up as well as the temperature when you click on a line.

    I have had a smart plug just delivered, I intended to add a small fan heater in the kitchen to the back room thermostat area alongside the 2 rads as its difficult to heat that end , you can add it to the room, but not put it under thermostat scheduled control unfortunately, they do have a heat switch that will do the job, so I'll maybe try that.

    Other than that I may bite the bullet and get 4 more Wiser TRVs , leaving just the bathrooms uncontrolled.

    The insights section is telling me I have saved 6% energy so far in January, only started install about 5 days ago so thats impressive !!! Time will tell

    Cheers

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    Ceri Dash

    So… is it possible to run the wiser heating system with just smart TrVs & leave the room stat in its box in a drawer unused somewhere?!

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    Ian Friend

    Yes it is.  The Room stat comes into its own if you either dont have the smart TRV's, or you have multiple TRV's in one room and want to group them to use the room stat temp rather that the individual trv's as individually they could be 1-2 degrees different

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    S T Hoskins

    In my sitting room I have the room thermostat and two wiser TRV’s. They all show in the same room in the app. I often find that one of the radiators is hot and the other is cold. I thought the room stat would control both rad stats. Does anyone have any idea what’s going on ? I tried removing, resetting and re-installing the rad stats…. no change.

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    JOAO GOMES FERREIRA

    @S T Hoskins

    Your problem might not be related to the Wiser system. Both Wiser TRV's control the radiators in the same way. So both of them should be hot. 

    Do you have a way to check that your hot water circuit is balanced ?
    As you might know, the heating emitted by a radiator is linked to the flow of water through it.

    Could you also check the body valves from both of radiators ? If they are not the same (and given that the TRV's manage in the same way) this could have an influence on the hot water flow. 

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    csokane

    My question is this. I have 6 smart Wiser TRVs in an open plan space. As stated above (Ian Friend) a Wiser Smart room stat will co-ordinate all the TRVs (if I have that correct). But...how? How does the room stat know the trvs are in the same space? 

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    Ian Friend

    @csokane as long as you put the TRV's and the room stat in the same "room" within the app, then Wiser groups them together and uses the room stat as the source of truth for the room temp, rather than the individual TRV's doing their own thing.

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    William Jones

    Hello, I'm trying to optimise my system and currently have 3 wall stats (2 for UFH) and one smart trv. I'm planning to add 4 more smart trvs; two in one room with a wall stat, one in a hallway and another in the kitchen. My question is about the 2 bathroom rads and another hallway rad which don't have trvs, will I need another wall stat to control these? 

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    thebaron

    @ William Jones Any radiator uncontrolled by the Wiser system will just 'do its own thing' . So those 3 rads will come on when ANY other single radiator is calling for heat. I have the same issue with 3 bathroom rads at the moment, the warmest rooms in the the house are the bathrooms :)

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    William Jones

    Thanks, @thebaron. I'm thinking ahead to the summer really so I guess I will have to get another wall stat for these rads...I'm hopeful that the energy savings will eventually cover the costs to set this up! I do wonder if I'd been better just having a dumb system.

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    thebaron

    @ William Jones you will also need the drayton TRVs for those 3 rads so try without the wall stats. Wall stats are generally only used where you have 2 or more rads in the same room. On the subject of payback my gas use was down around 33% over the year, combined with other tweaks, do payback was under a year..... I don't use the eco mode but have set times to suit

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    William Jones

    Yes, sounds like it will need another 3 smart TRVs. In theory though, let's say you put one wall stat outside the bathroom door could you run the three rads using that? As in, you could set up a timer during the summer and only these 3 rads would call for heat when the others are off?

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    thebaron

    Yes you could use a wall stat to control all 3 , but it would be the hallway temp not the bathroom temps controlling all 3, timing would be the same of course

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    William Jones

    Noted, makes sense. Do you think a smart trv would be happy in a bathroom?

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    Ian Friend

    I have this set up, our bathroom rads dont have wiser TRV's, they jsut have the regular dumb TRV's that they came with.  This actually works ok for us - we just set them to a mid temperature, and its actually pretty good that they get regular heat throughout the day when any of the other wiser controlled things call for heat.  good for drying towels etc.  Works for us and means not having to spend £45 a peice on extra TRV's for the bathrooms (we have 12 already, and 4 room stats)                                                                                                                          

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    William Jones

    @Ian How do you mange these rads during the summer? 

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    Ian Friend

    @William I'm not sure what you're asking sorry.  My heating is generally off in the summer months (~ early April - late September) so no rads get heat anyway.

     

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    William Jones

    @Ian, sorry, I meant to say how do you operate your towel rails during the summer months if they only come on when the other rads do? I'm thinking ahead as I'd like to have the towel rads come on to dry towels during the summer months.

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    Ian Friend

    @William gotcha - I tend to find i dont need them in the summer, they seem to dry naturally int he warmer air i guess.  If you did want them on then yes you'd need wiser TRV's on the towel radiators so that only they came on and no others.

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