On Friday, 9 October 2020 at 08:44:04 UTC+1, Chris J Dixon wrote:
Tricky Dicky wrote:

Go for a smart system, we have Hive and each radiator has a smart valve except the bathroom. It is possible to heat just one room or as many as you want and we can do it all using Alexa.
Conceptually I like the idea. Does the system create a "demand
for heat at the boiler" as long as any smart valve needs it?

What kind of cost are we looking at for a full install in an
average property? Not sure if the payback time is reasonable.

I hope your Alexa makes a better job of it than mine does of
recognising music I am trying to ask for. The frustrating aspect
is that there is no alternative interface.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
@ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

Off the top of my head I cannot recall all the costs but in our case it was all about comfort and convenience. We originally bought the Hive programmable thermostat and hub as we had one reception room that tended to lose heat quicker than the other and once the heating was in maintenance mode it would become a lot cooler than the room that had the thermostat in. We were able to move the thermostat into the cooler room as required but the drawback was the the room which normally had the thermostat became too warm. Although we could use a TRV in that room it caused issues when the thermostat was back in its normal place.

When the valves became available we bought a batch of five which covered all the radiators barring the bathroom which is the official system bypass and so is on whenever any device is calling for heat. As I said before we can now control the temperature room by room and can literally just heat the room we require without heating other rooms.

With the Hive system you do need the complete package of the Thermostat and valves as the valves communicate with the thermostat, I am not sure if you require the Hub as the system continues to work even if the internet connection is down, I think it is only really required if you want remote control over the internet. When we got the original Thermostat the hub came as part of the package then. The valves we bought as a batch which meant a discount on the individual valve price meaning one valve was essentially free.

There are other systems out there and it is worth shopping around with sales and discounts regularly available. All I can say is we are very happy with our system and the control we have so it was money well spent.

Richard