Remote Access into Heating Control *DELETED*

Post deleted by Elixir

Look for a cloud-based one if you can. Early doors used Nest since 2014 and in the refurbed house we put in a Viessman and tado controls. Both their apps for boiler and thermostat control, also cloud based. Now that I think about it pretty much all our home automation apps are cloud based. Least hassles.

(Like left over Turkey dinner, hate to waste a dead thread: I’d rather think I was talking about, rather than yelling at clouds. ⛅️ 😂)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Now that I think about it pretty much all our home automation apps are cloud based. Least hassles.

The typical UK ones are Hive, Nest, Tado, but then if you're into importing and want a lot of flexibility, then ecobee is pretty impressive but needs quite a bit of engineering to work for UK.

There's also a school of thought with heating, and one I'll definitely look into if I need to do any work on mine, that you remove zone valves, TRVs (anything that impedes flow), run a flow temperature as low as possible so you get maximum condensing, and modulate the flame according to an outdoor temperature sensor and the knowledge of the actual heat loss of your property, rather than having a thermostat turn the boiler on full blast as soon as the indoor air dips below a certain level.

I installed the Honeywell EvoHome system a few years ago, and it does everything I need. Each radiator has its own TRV, radio controlled by a central unit that programs each valve separately. So I have an 11-zone system with each radiator having 6 timed temperature settings for each day of the week. My gas boiler has external weather compensation and some other useful features like domestic hot water priority. The valves are all battery powered (2 AAs) with no wiring to be installed, and the batteries last 12 to 30 months. Not a cheap system but I have no regrets. The controller is accessible via a small touch-controlled display, or remotely from anywhere via a PC or smart phone. It can also control the boiler's hot water supply, but I find the original basic timer adequate.

In reply to a post by jpm:

There's also a school of thought with heating, and one I'll definitely look into if I need to do any work on mine, that you remove zone valves, TRVs (anything that impedes flow), run a flow temperature as low as possible so you get maximum condensing, and modulate the flame according to an outdoor temperature sensor and the knowledge of the actual heat loss of your property, rather than having a thermostat turn the boiler on full blast as soon as the indoor air dips below a certain level.

Much more an enterprise approach, I guess it needs a boiler than can adjust flame easily and under external control. I think Zones are useful if big enough scale, in domestic properties likely only upstairs/downstairs if you're not using an upstairs room as an office for home working.

In reply to a post by jpm:

There's also a school of thought with heating, and one I'll definitely look into if I need to do any work on mine, that you remove zone valves, TRVs (anything that impedes flow), run a flow temperature as low as possible so you get maximum condensing, and modulate the flame according to an outdoor temperature sensor and the knowledge of the actual heat loss of your property, rather than having a thermostat turn the boiler on full blast as soon as the indoor air dips below a certain level.

Most modern smart thermostats use OpenTherm (or <insert boiler proprietory control>) so the boiler modulates anyway. I wouldn't recommend removing TRVs, thermostats, etc, the problem with this is that regardless of the mathematics of the properties heat loss, different people will have different desired temperatures in different rooms, so you still need some sort of control.

It is still more economical having the boiler on full blast to heat your house up to temp, say, 30 mins before you get home, as opposed to leaving it on "low" for 8 hours during the day when you are not there.

A heat pump arrangement would be different of course, but I presume we're talking about Oil and Gas boilers here.