What are you all up to
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While at a bit of a loose end on Boxing Day, we decided to order up some new controls to go with our new boiler, and they arrived today. Will need to get to grips with how to install it all now, it looks a little complicated!
We have invested in a tado V3+ system starter kit, which gives us a wireless thermostat, a user interface to control heating and hot water, and a wifi bridge.
And we have added 8 Smart TRVs for the radiators we use most, so these will each be able to be set to come on, call for heat from the boiler, and heat to a specific temperature at the times set, via an App. So should mean that bedrooms and bathrooms can be on at different times from living rooms.
I think, if this works well, we may add another 4 of the Smart TRvs for a better result as we have a total of 19 radiators on the system. One does not need a TRV, plus we already have a programmable TRV we can use elsewhere, so that will leave 5 radiators, that we really never turn on, with the ordinary TRVs. The Smart TRVs are quite pricey, so no point in having ones we will not need at present. They can always be added at a later date.
I have also made cardboard templates for the 3 bits of Iroko counter top I need to cut for the new bathroom, and discovered that I will have to join 2 pieces to make one of them. Not a problem as they are already made up of joined staves, just a bit more work than envisaged.
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R&R - good new about Meg, I can only imagine how stressful the whole event was.
It's our last day down in Cornwall for a while. Today we had our last "Christmas event" - the annual pet carol service at Truro Cathedral. Not quite as well attended as usual; I guess a combination of poor weather, continued concern over crowded places and, possibly travel costs have had their effect. Pictures aren't the best, had to manage most of them with an active canine on the other end of the lead, his first experience of indoor crowds.
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A duck at Christmas…….nice😙🦆
I saw the clip, M👍🏻
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Me too, heddlo, without clearing my cache, so all looks well.
Glad to read that Meg is well on the way to a full recovery, R&R.
Kjell, you have lost me completely with all this talk of TRVs etc but it sounds as if you have been very busy and I hope it all works fine for you.
Moulesy, lovely to as the photos of the service, and the dogs all looks as if they were behaving themselves. Safe journey back home tomorrow.
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Lovely photos M - I think I spotted a 'Meg' in the middle! We went to one a few years ago with our friends in Old Malton and Meg thoroughly enjoyed all the attention. They couldn't take their working spaniels because they were concerned that they might end up trying to chase something 'tasty' around the church!
WN - No - not really other than she had a badly inflamed stomach lining. There are two possibilities re causes in my opinion - either she ate something nasty amongst all the seaweed in Bridlington beach on Christmas Eve morning - or it was contaminated water she drank. Of late, she has been drinking out of a watering can underneath one of the water butts in the garden, as she passed it. (Seems to like the lack of chlorine) That one was OK - new can and clean water. Unfortunately, it split in the recent frosts so she went to another (old) one at another butt, When I looked in it, it was full of algae. Could have been that, I suppose.
Anyway, she's bounced back and is back to being her usual greedy self
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My money is on the beach findings R&R. Our old lad disgraced himself with a tasty rancid crab one cottage holiday in Wales. Couldn’t risk any kind of indoor “accident”, so one of us slept downstairs with him for two nights, out every hour. That cost us a mere £600 at the local vets. It wasn’t fun. He’s watched like a Hawk now.
Love the animal service M. Any ponies? We used to go to a Horseman’s Sunday Show with our big lad every year. Vicar blessed each horse/pony, a hymn was sung, and then battle commenced. Outdoors of course.
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We are getting a little lost with it too nellie!!
We are being "dragged screaming and kicking" into using the latest technology in an attempt to have better control over our heating AND hopefully save on fuel costs in the longer term.
At the moment we have a timer for turning the heating on and off, and ordinary thermostatic radiator valves so we can set each room to the temperature we want. With that system, the radiators all warm up during the same time periods rather than when we are using particular rooms.
For example, if the heating goes off at 10 pm and we go to bed at 11.30, if we want to shower first, by the time we go to our en suite bathroom it will have already cooled down, so we end up using an electric heater to warm it up again.
With this new system we will be able to set individual times for each radiator, so can for example have just the en suite hot at bed time, warm first thing, and off during the day.
It is all controlled via an App, so when away we can also alter what is happening at home, and set things up to be warm when we get there. I think DK mentioned doing this using Hive? The tado App seems similar, but the level of control also depends on how much tech one invests in.
Getting it all set up to work how we want it to is proving a bit of a puzzle, as we seem to have a wireless thermostat that we appear to have no use for, but that comes in the kit with bits that we do need. The instructions are not good in that respect!
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We finally caught up with Christmas today, local daughter was well enough to visit with her partner so we had an impromptu lunch and they gave us our presents...we have felt out on a limb throughout the festivities, no actual contact with anyone due to Covid etc. We get their dogs tomorrow when they join in NY festivities with friends and a band session so it's back to normal.
All the best for 2023 everyone!
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When we were together with the family over Christmas the conversation turned to the need for us to clear out our loft. 'you shouldn't be going up into the loft these days!' So yesterday they all arrived to do just that. After several hours and several trips to the local tip our loft is now cleared. There is some stuff now in the bedroom that belonged to our youngest son ready for him to sort through next time he is over from NI (even though he had sworn blind that there was not anything belonging to him up there
.) I have told him that it either goes back with him or we get rid of it.
There is also a box of stuff belonging to my sentimental hoarder OH for him to sort through and dispose of.Great photos moulesy what a lovely occasion.
brue so pleased that you have caught up with Christmas at last. Happy 2023 to you as well.
heddlo I see Whitby as well.
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Oh Millie it’s the Christmas break and you mention lofts! Ours is full of junk, kids stuff, and a couple of things that were my grandparents that I just can’t bear to part with. Also OH is the biggest hoarder. Actually scared to delve too much up there but the time has come after New Year as it’s probable that we will try once more to move. Just trying not to contemplate it over the holiday period.
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Well done millie, I wish our 2 would do similar! Unfortunately they know that I frequently do go up into the loft . I think our daughter could well be persuaded to come and help, but our son stays a bit too far away for quick trips to assist.
We had an electrical problem today, realised we had no power in the lounge, unplugged everything, but it still kept tripping. Then I remembered that the garage below is on the same circuit, went to look, and found a lot of water had been blown in under the door overnight. The puddle was so big that some cables were lying in it, one with a tool plugged in, so mystery solved. We will need to get some sealing strips to fix round the door opening.
The weather overnight must have been bad as there is a lot of flooding on the roads. We met up with DD and family for lunch at a farm shop and play barn a few miles up the road, some of the floods were right across the road and quite deep.
Callum had a great time in the soft play, Nathan was not so keen as there were a lot of rather wild older children, far more than at any of the other soft play places they have been to, and nobody was supervising. Also very noisy, if we go there again we will wait to eat till after the playing is over! Probably best to avoid a school holiday period too.
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Any system like that is much too complicated for us. We just switch on the heating manual!y when we want it, very rarely setting it to come on during the afternoon if we are out all day, and switch it off well before we go to bed. We tend to only use two rooms, plus the kitchen and bathroom, of course. We very seldom ever have the heating on till lunchtime at the earliest unless it is really cold, and never through the night.The other rooms have their thermostats at that their lowest setting just to ensure a circuit and above freezing.
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Kj
Yes its me with the Hive system which I find very useful. Hive do TRV's, which we currently don't have, just ordinary ones, but it would cost probably about £500 plus fitting to replace them and I suspect it would take many years to get my money back? I am quite an advocate of leaving the heating on 24/7 much against what some "experts" say! I have been experimenting with various temperature settings and currently settle on 18 degrees overnight, then 18.5 during the morning and early afternoon, 19 degrees until dinner time and 19.5 until 10.00pm which seems to work quite well. I do have the option to use the boost setting to increase the temperature should it be needed at any time. The Hive system monitors how long the heating has been on during the day. I am sure most wouldn't be interested but I am a bit nerdy about such things! I have put a screenshot of today's boiler on time below.
David
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We have ours on from about 8am till 10pm. If we're in it will be set to 20 but if we're out like today it's left at 18. I like how we can change the temperature before we get home.
I like the graphics too.
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It is all controlled via an App, so when away we can also alter what is happening at home, and set things up to be warm when we get there. I think DK mentioned doing this using Hive? The tado App seems similar, but the level of control also depends on how much tech one invests in.
Getting it all set up to work how we want it to is proving a bit of a puzzle, as we seem to have a wireless thermostat that we appear to have no use for, but that comes in the kit with bits that we do need. The instructions are not good in that respect!
Ours was all set up by the boiler fitter. In essence there is a wifi device on the boiler which is connected by the wifi in the house to a device connected to the router by an ethernet cable. This device then talks to both the wireless thermostat and the boiler and a website and App that runs the Hive. I can alter ours either by the app, computer, or the thermostat and of course either by wifi or mobile data outside the house. If the wifi fails the boiler can be controlled manually by a few buttons on it.
The thermostat is the easiest if you're in the house as it's just turn to alter the temperature or press a few buttons to boost either HW or CH. The computer is easiest to do all the programming of days and times, and temperature because of the large screen. The phone we just use when out and about.
There's also an annoying feature that wanted us to do two step logon when a code was sent to the phone just like in a bank app but for me that's overkill.
Who installed it? You could ask them to set it up and explain it?
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We have electric radiators here and OH has got digital system here thermostats in each room and can be controlled by phone and iPad etc and he is a gadget man also got the weather station all linked up so we can see what happens to the weather, I record the weather each day in a French gardening book so I can look back through the year as I prefer manual to all the electronic stuff that OH likes, again he has all the graphics which I sometimes look at over his shoulder.
A nice sunny morning here and could be quite warm later up to 18/19C and same for Sunday.
Just would like to wish everybody a Happy New Year.
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RK
Our lives are being increasingly controlled by digital systems whether we like it or not. Margaret is concerned about most of the household bills are done online sans paperwork, she likes a bill in her hand, something to hold and keep! I like to embrace easier systems but do appreciate that it can be more difficult for those that are not so in tune with online systems. We set up her new Kindle yesterday and even I was flying blind initially but gradually worked my way through it. Margaret would have struggled a bit despite using her phone and laptop on a daily basis. She has the advantage over me when it comes to WhatsApp!!!
David
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Our heating is simple. We more or less live in one room (traditionally called The Kitchen - though the only Kitchen equipment is the solid fuel Aga). When we come downstairs (at 5 am and 7 am) it is reasonably warm from the Aga. Until someone opens the back door and lets cold air in while they talk. Looking at you number one son. Depending on the weather I light the wood burner late morning or afternoon. Then control the room temperature by opening the door into the hall and letting the heat permeate a bit more of the house.
The rest of the kitchen equipment and food etc is in the pantry. Thermals needed for long exposure. Likewise upstairs, though during extreme cold we do weaken and use a portable electric heater.
No technology needed. Just physical labour.
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We have a Hive system which is controlled via my phone (OH doesn't do technology of any sort
). Our heating is set to 21 degrees and goes on at 7.30am off again at 10.00am on again at 1,00pm and off again at 7.00pm after which we have the fire on in the living room. The radiators in 2 of our spare bedrooms and the main bathroom are now switched off and the doors kept closed. We couldn't bear to have the heating on overnight but that is just us. Our children said that their heating is set at 18 or 19 degrees (another Christmas discussion - we lead such exciting lives ). We like the Hive system as we can control it while we are out. We often switch it off if we are going to be out during the afternoon but I can switch it on again an hour or so before we get home.We have just ordered our Chinese takeaway for this evening in the hopes that it arrives sometime before midnight!
I would like to wish you all a very Happy, peaceful and healthy New Year. Let us hope that 2023 brings better news for everyone.
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We got this new boiler back in May, but decided to see how it performed before deciding on whether a new control system was the way to go, and if so, research which one we preferred. Not all of them are suitable for all types of boiler.
The previous timer plus TRVs worked fine to a point, but with the cost of gas these days, more accurate control of times and temperatures seemed the way to go.
The installation of the system has been easy as far as wiring and TRVs go, it is designed to be so, and we have now established that the wireless thermostat does not need to be included in the system, unlike in Hive, according to DD, so I have Deleted User it from the system and deactivated it completely by removing the batteries.
We spent yesterday evening working out how to set up times and temperatures on the TRVs, and then having a "discussion" as to when each room should be heated, and to what temperature. I was over-ruled on several decisions there!
Today will be a test day to check that everything works as we think it should as we are home all day to keep an eye on what the system is up to.
Next thing to investigate is how to set individual days of the week, and how to copy a programme from one device to another. There are also a number of other features that we have not yet looked at.
We are not in "normal operating mode" due to Christmas and New Year holidays, we still have one more week off, so we will see how it goes for this week and then set things up on a daily basis for being out more. Now we know how to do it, it is actually pretty easy.
The bits of the old system that I removed will be kept together in a marked box in case we ever need to put them back in place, which I suppose could be the case if we have a drastic internet failure.
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It’ll be an interesting test day, K. We did a similar exercise in zoning out home. So many factors and variables. To some extent the home will bleed heat between zones to balance the heat gain and loss. Even with the best interior insulation and attempts to keep doors shut we found the difference between not zoning and zoning was minimal and certainly the house was not as cosy. The hall way was never as cosy as the small radiator was of an insufficient size to manage, with the connecting rooms heated it was fine. The doors and walls adjacent to colder rooms never felt warm.
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Like Goldie's our heating is simple too although we do have a newish boiler and radiators and a regulator....the outer and inner backdoors.... the system works well when both doors are closed. We used to leave the inner door open and have discovered closing it keeps the heat in except for humans and animals wanting to go in or out. We are exposed to the elements but we're fairly well insulated. The heating is either on or off with some adjustments to radiators in less used rooms of which there are few. The heating is off at night and whoever gets up first turns the thermostat up to around 20C and turns it off at bedtime. We turn it down if we go out.
Interestingly my sister lives in a snug ground level flat with the same amount of rooms as us, her fuel bills are £50 less than ours, I think it's insulation "wot counts."
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I just wanted to take a minute to wish you all a happy year, and most of all good health for the coming year.
These days people don't spend much time or thought on some personal words to their friends, they just copy and paste some random message and send it on. So after all we've been though together this year I want to thank you for your friendship and wish you a happy and fulfilling 2019 - you’re the best gymnastics group anyone could ask for. Best wishes Linda
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Kj
You are certainly micro managing your heating? I think the Hive allows me sufficient control. As I mentioned we leave ours on all the time. It's been fairly mild during the last week so it has not come on at night. Whether I am right or wrong I don't know but I always think that the system has to work a lot harder if its constantly starting from a low point, whereas just a gentle boost to the system automatically, now and then seems to consume less gas? I noticed when we were away in October the temperature in the house had gone down fairly low and it took a long time to get it back up to temperature. Hopefully the price of gas should, if not go down, stay where it is so hopefully Ofgem won't need to increase prices in March as the world price of gas is now where it was before they really rocketed, perhaps wishful thinking on my part perhaps? The price of electricity is artificially high because of the way the Government link it to the price of gas rather than making any allowance for all the nuclear and renewable energy we produce.
David
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