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Definitely a repeat question but as title really.
My last house had Nests x2, and once I got the remote sensors it was a fine setup (cast iron radiators, central AC), although the thermostat was forever overshooting the target heating temperature.
The current house is being renovated, and will have underfloor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs, driven by air source heat pump, split into 3 zones.
So which smart thermostats should I be looking at? Remote sensors feel like a useful thing as the thermostat location will be somewhere useless like the hallway; and a decent app would be good.
Edit - wrote a load of stuff that only applies to gas boilers and not heat pumps.
My only really recommendation is to look at what the heat pump manufacturer offers. I found for gas boilers, it was the manufacturer’s control that actually offered best control over my boiler when I was recently putting a new one in, and I assume the same holds true for heat pumps.
Are you going down a full proper route of smart Thermostat , smart TRV’s, a zone for the underfloor with smart thermostats in the rooms with underfloor and zone for traditional radiators?
If not that’s what you should be doing .
We have Honeywell EvoHome. It’s pricey, does work, but to be fair does appear to have glitches once a year or so that take Honeywell a week or so to resolve
+1 for the heat pump manufacturers proprietary controls. They really need to modulate properly to get the best out of them:
have a look at heatmiser, seems to be the most common i see going into jobs i'm working on, one of which was with a air source heat pump.
i've got a couple of neostats at home controlling the upstairs rads and the ho****er(oil combi's still need a time clock for HW) but when i get downstairs finished there will be 3 more for the UFH zones and they will connect to a neohub for app control.
the stats themselves aren't smart but once connected to the hub it becomes a smart system.
Aha, thank you! First time having a heatpump, so it's useful to get these pointers tbh.
Are you going down a full proper route of smart Thermostat , smart TRV’s, a zone for the underfloor with smart thermostats in the rooms with underfloor and zone for traditional radiators?
The underfloor and all radiators are plumbed in parallel actually, with a big ol manifold in a cupboard; and the radiators are all new. So yes we can do zones per room and smart TRVs.
It's not something I know particularly well, but in theory (leaving aside the heatpump part) would that mean a thermostat on each loop of the manifold connected to a smart sensor in the relevant room?
It's an old house, and while we're obviously doing some serious insulation, it won't be up to modern standards, so anything that helps keep us warm as efficiently as possible is a good idea!!
It’s not something I know particularly well, but in theory (leaving aside the heatpump part) would that mean a thermostat on each loop of the manifold connected to a smart sensor in the relevant room?
Pretty much. A small differentiation - a thermostat per zone rather than loop. You connect each loop to the manifold but can have multiple loops in one zone.
For example I have 6 loops but only 3 zones. Zone 1 is one loop, Zone 2 is two loops and Zone 3 is 3 loops. Each Zone has a thermostat. Loops are approximately equal length of pipe run and fed by the manifold. The flow rate at the manifold can be set and balanced as can the water temperature with the mixer.
We have heatmiser neostat and a neohub, as recommended by the UFH supplier. The hub needs to be wired to your network and each stat needs wiring back to the manifold for power and control. Stats communicate wirelessly with each other and the hub.
The app is pretty good. Can set up profiles, control zones, have it geolocate (we prefer manual control due to slow response of a wet / slab system).
I also have Tado and prefer this app usability but it also has its shortfalls in some areas and a few quirks (like when it's off, it still nags you to set it to away when you leave the house - a simple app fix I'd have thought).
Thanks diggery, appreciate the detail. Is your UFH gas/ oil fueled or heatpump, out of interest?
And (noob) what *are* the traits of a wet UFH/ concrete slab? Slow to warm up then gradually releases the heat to keep heating the house?
We have a gas combi boiler. I looked at a heat pump and it wasn't the right solution for us for various reasons but I've tried the best to futureproof the install so it could be retrofitted in future if needs be.
Exactly as you say. With wet UFH in a slab the goal is to heat the slab then that large thermal mass and a radiator. It's built for all day occupation and designed to be very constant output. Slow to warm, then release, so works best when on all the time with a low fall back at night (I think we are on 4 degrees drop).
It runs at a lower temp than wall rads and therefore lower cost to heat (and makes heat pumps much more viable). The quality of heat is really nice and it softly radiates up from the floor and since the water is in a big slab it's quiet. No funny convection currents, no pipe noise, even warmth and no space taken up with wall rads. I love it.
The downside is the slow response time so you can't just "pop it on for a quick boost". This is where I find the app invaluable for fine tuning, as long as you can anticipate your use (out for the day, knock it back a couple of degrees, use the in app history to learn the thermal response of your building so you know when to turn it back on).
Excellent insight, thanks!
I found the nest a bit crap as it didn't have the temp sensing TRVs, so the hall would be warm but the rest of the house would be freezing. I replaced all of the TRVs and the upgraded to a Wiser, which so far I have found to be pretty good.
if each room is it's own zone from a manifold do you need trv's on the rads? systems i've seen done have had stats in each zone.
usually there is seperate manifolds for UFH and rads due to differnt flow temps needed but possibly as yours is from a heat pump, flow temps will be low anyway. the job with a heat pump i was on last year had them on seperate manifolds but that may have just been down to the size of the place.