I’ve recently fitted smart radiator thermostats to my gas central heating system . We can now set the bedroom to warm up for getting up and then cool it down till about 30 mins for bedtime . We have heating off at night and like a window open.
The office is set to 16c most of the time unless we are working in it.
I can control them through Google so can vary anytime.
Re Pete’s comments on induction hobs,best thing since sliced bread, quicker and the control is instant, no more boiling milk over.
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Not only that, but we also have Microbore piping sizes, 12 and 15mm, rather than 15mm and 22mm. I suspect the whole cost will never see my money back in my lifetime.
Also after reading this thread, (and I realise I may have partially taking it off thread - sorry), but do others agree with me that the whole technology of heating has become so complicated. Here we are talking about flow temperatures, curves, weather compensation and what-not. Now I have a basic understanding, but how are most of the general public going to understand this. Presumably they are at the mercy of whoever did the installation. I used to have enough problems trying to explain to my mother-in-law not to put the CH thermostat in the kitchen, or the living room where the gas fire would be blasting all day long.
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and I got an email today to say my electricity price is coming down from 33.029p to 33.006p per kWh - Wow… a fiftieth of a penny!
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Don’t knock it…….surprised they were not increasing it……what supplier?
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Bulb
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Well OVO did just that:
0.82 pence increase per kWh.
What on earth does this mean?
Specifically:
However, due to the way in which the price cap and the EPG support level is set and applied, some households will still see an increase in their prices from 1 January 2023.
If the price cap remains the same how on earth does the price go up?
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They are great. We had one before and opted to again. When the house is sealed they circulate air throughout each room exchanging it with outside air that goes through an active filter. Very good if you live in a city as they remove much of the airborne particulates. They’ve become standard in new homes here in the lsst 10 years.
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Outfox the market show the cost before the cap and then show the reduction paid for by the government.
Bit alarming if you don’t look at bills!
Phil
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I’ve sent the boiler details to my mate and I’ll see what he comes back with. Looking at Vaillant’s website I can see that it looks like your boiler is 26kW in condensing mode.
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Can’t really see anything relevant on my bills to be honest, have recently been moved from SSE to OVO.
In general OVO’s site seems better than SSE’s, but when I look at meter readings they have estimated ones every few days which you can hide, but there’s an inexplicable manual one in late November which I never gave them - it had jumped 500 kWh electric from the one I actually gave the day before, not that it matters as usage has gone up since the cold snap.
What you’ve just described about the design/product defect is exactly the sort of issue I was referring to. It could also have been the installers. It always makes make think when I’m photographing ever evolving window profiles, locks, door composites and components that are better than 2 years earlier, that it means the previous products were flawed. Nothing is ever perfect, but it does illustrate why one can’t just simply claim to have a better product because there’s more layers, it’s thicker or larger gaps.
Sorry, I don’t know about seals being made to spec.
Your boiler is 25.7kW for CH. Suitable for up to 15 radiators.
Microbore pipework is popular as it is cheap and much easier to fit. It does help avoid elbow joints though 
Elbow joints are restrictive; one elbow is the equivalent of 2m of pipework IIRC.
My system is 22m with 15mm tees to feed each rad, there are only 4 elbows in the entire system (used in a very tight space), the rest is bent copper.
These are the boiler pipes, the only elbow used is for the emergency overflow and is not used in the central heating or hot water flow. All the rest of these pipes are in one piece from boiler to under the floorboards. Except for the Magnaclean CH return which is in two sections.
I don’t know where you are getting all you information from, but you do throw up a lot of wrong/debatable points.
Profiles can be made thinner, but at the expense of heat insulation. The chambers inside the upvc profiles can be complex air pockets and something manufactures like to promote (or not, for the cheap ones). Aluminium profiles are the worst insulators, but the best manufacturers get around this with wood or other materials within the chambers.
This whole ‘I don’t like upvc, because it can’t be recycled’ business is missing an environmental issue. Sarah Beeny, yes her again, chose pvc sash windows for all windows above the ground floor, for environmental reasons. The case that every few years they won’t need repainting with nasty chemicals, no scaffolding & no workmen travelling.
As long as the colour or foil used on the upvc is good and, like I said in an earlier post, the components are good, the window should last well over 35 years. Very good for the environment and that’s why at long last building permission is gradually accepting them in listed building areas.
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That looks very interesting, how often do you have to re-fuel it with the bioethanol? Every day or more/less frequently?
Not sure if you were referring to my usage or someone else’s.
In my case, 4 bedroom, formerly 3 reception Victorian end-terrace in a city.
It has always been tricky to heat/insulate but a few things we had done 6-7 years ago have probably made things worse.
I seem to have accidentally deleted my reply! Basically I have a well designed microbore system with minimal lengths of 8 or 10 mm pipe work. It works in a 15m x 11m chalet with lots of 22mm pipe work in the eves.
Anyone can test theirs by just reducing the boiler water temperature to 40c. A 5C drop by the time it reaches the radiators is good. The rads should be uniformly warm including at the bottom mid way along.
An ASHP just takes longer to heat all the water in the system from cold.
Phil
We’ve had a chat and I’m going to test the portable airco tomorrow. I’m pretty sure it’s much better.
I’d wondered where it went 
Thanks, but of the floorboards I have had up, I’ve never seen more than 15mm as the main run, with T’ing off with 12mm - I could be wrong though and missed the big bits.
I’ve got the temp now on the boiler to about a third the way around, which gets the hottest always on downstairs hall radiator input at 57, output 52 currently. No numbers on the dial, but using an infra-red meter gun to check. It’s probably near to 10 years since they were last flushed. It’s a very basic boiler (Baxi 80 HE Plus). With it being on for 12 hours yesterday, it took a few hours to reach what I call comfortable, so whilst I like nudging it down a bit every now and then, I may have hit my limit in these cold spells. But I will keep trying
Been using Wiser for several weeks now though initially the weather was so mild we didn’t have the heating on at all. That’s no longer the case.
The system can work with a Boiler+ boiler but doesn’t require one. Our oil fired boiler is twenty something years old. The hub attaches to a standard backplate.
The Valves replace standard TRVs and have a M30*1.5 with an Danfos adaptor supplied.
To extend the range I’ve deployed multiple plugs that use a mesh network. They also facilitate remote switching of a 13a plug. We use them for lamps.
We will extend the system to control the underfloor heating in the Utility room and new kitchen (the correct actuators for the manifold the builder installed arrived today. they are an non-standard fitting, this is not M30*1.5).
Really pleased with the system. Previously it was all or nothing for the 14 radiators in the house. Now each zone ( a room with 1+ radiators) can be individually programmed across 24/7. There’s a boost facility either by turning the radiator valve, or with more granular control through the app. If I’m the only person in the house during the day, quite often the case, I can have heating in only my office.
Here’s a snapshot from the app, afternoon time.
For the Cinema the current temperature is 11.5c and the programmed temperature is temperature is 9c until 19:00 when it goes (IIRC) to 18c. If the current temperature drops below the set temperature the system fires up the boiler, pump and opens the relevant radiator valves. A friend who already has the system reports batteries last a year or so and the app monitors their health and reports.
Haven’t done any analysis of savings as I haven’t been running it long enough yet and am still fettling the temperature profiles. That said heating the office instead of the whole house has to be significant in addition to the benefit that when the boiler is driving just one or two zones they get up to temperature really quickly.
Been relatively trouble free though I’m getting occasional brief outages of the plugs. Probably needs a firmware update.
System also has scope for learning how long it takes to heat a room and can be set to achieve a temperature at a set time. There’s an optional external temperature sensor.
In summary, should have done this years ago.
Willy.
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Thanks Willy. I guess if you are not heating a room you are not in and you can get it up to target temperature quickly it must be saving money. Looks as though it must be quite cold where you are. Nearly -6c here with the stars twinkling. Coldest so far.
It looks as though most people could fit the hub as long as they already have a standard wiring base
Phil