On Thursday, 2 March 2017 21:04:20 UTC, John Rumm wrote:
On 02/03/2017 12:09, tabbypurr wrote:
On Sunday, 26 February 2017 19:17:05 UTC, Murmansk wrote:
I'm soon going to be moving into a new (to me) flat that has a new
combi boiler with an old fashioned wired thermostat. The timer is
mounted on the front of the boiler and is a very crude mechanical
thing with little switches.

Part of me wants to install a Hive system but as a halfway house
I'm wondering about about replacing the basic thermostat with a
digital one - then I could leave the boiler on constant and set
some fancy varying programs via the thermostat - different times
and temperatures on different days.

Does my proposed setup and sound practical and can anyone recommend
a stat please?

Did that and learnt that: 1. different temps at different predictable
times are not wanted

Speak for yourself... I find them quite handy.

Turning the heating off when not around on a regular basis, or setting it to a lower value when irregularly not there works perfectly well for me. We've no use for different settings where we're here.

2. smart stats are a usability problem,

When setting up initially perhaps, but not once set.

I assure you it was.

Thereafter its just a case of hit an up or down button if you want to
manually jog the temperature up or down.

They also have the advantage that you can't forget to turn them down
again - they will automatically revert to program once they next time
slot is reached.

that approach doesn't work well here.

resulting in poorer energy use IRL 3.

Can't think why. They normally have better accuracy and control than a
bi-metal type. Less overshoot etc.

they do fwliw, but when people can't work out easily how to work them they don't get adjusted down when it's wanted. Result: more energy use.

They have relatively poor
reliability.

Again not IME. I have had a couple myself, and installed a few for
others. Never had a single problem or failure.

I'm sure if you look at a sample of a few bimetals you'd usually find the same. It's too small a sample to be useful. Domestic electronic circuits simply don't have the reliability/longevity of a bimetal stat.

Went back to a bimetal stat, gratefully.


NT