Advice for UK heating system on complete renovation

Hi all. Brother in law is doing a major renovation on huge house. Full replumb and putting in wet under floor, electric underfloor and keeping some radiators.
He's looking at evohome which gives TRV control of each radiator separately so a lot of control, but from experience changing batteries on 10+ TRVs is a pain.
Are there any mains options if he has option to lift floors and run cables? I think underfloor manifold valves from Heatmiser can control radiators and be wired into a Neo system for unified control?

Cheers. Simon

Simon,
I have Evohome and very happy with it. I have a combination of wet underfloor with the underfloor controller, relay controlled second underfloor zone for an extension, a remote electrically heated zone room in a separate brick built annex and 8 TRV’s. And hot water temp sensor that are battery powered. I was very sceptical about the battery power but the protocols are very well designed to preserve battery life and the actuators seem optimised (they can be noisy to some). I think battery’s are about 18months or so but I don’t track it, and it has never been a chore or problematic. I suspect the zwave systems will be a little worse but that is just based on motion sensors that I need to change more often.
Neil

Cheers. I use zwave TRVs and I am changing batteries every month or so, although they are rechargeable so new Duracells might last twice as long but no where near the 18 months.

The Spirits TRVs constantly adjust the valve % open. Are the evohome TRVs full open or do they adjust constantly?

I use Netatmo. The TRV batteries (2 x AA) last a year or so and the control is very good.

I have EvoHome TRV's and change batteries about every 18 months, using a python script to control then 24/7 which works well until EvoHome decided to do one of their famous server maintenance updates which can last from several hours to over 24 hours!
Just a shame they won't allow local access to them.

They certainly modulate which is where the noise comes from when they adjust.

@clive - went through a phase of repeated downtime but (and I will regret saying it) it has been pretty stable for the last year or so.

@clive - went through a phase of repeated downtime but (and I will regret saying it) it has been pretty stable for the last year or so.

Yes looking at my logs it seems the last comms error was 17 June 2021 but almost daily in June but middle of March was chronic.

But I think between us we have jinxed it now !

Does a Comms error mean no updating but it still runs existing schedules or nothing at all happens.

If they are having a maintenance outage then my TRV's won't move from the temp they are set at, not sure if the control panel controls it locally but I just changed them manually (but only done that once in 4 years so no real problem)

Most comms errors I get usually dissapear after one or two plugins reloads.

I have Evohome at home and barely remember changing batteries in the TRVs.

At church we’ve got the HeatingSave system with two “controllers” (8x I/O in each) and wired inline zone valves rather than TRVs.

HeatingSave is LAN based with remote access, whereas EvoHome is Internet based.

Only thing I don’t like about HeatingSave is the 4-button thermostats for boosting individual rooms locally; the buttons do my head in. The thermostat bit works fine in both button and non-button variety.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Cheers. Now I'm wondering why I have to change batteries on the Spirit TRVs so often? Do I need to reduce reporting and use new Duracells rather than rechargeable?

If they are having a maintenance outage then my TRV's won't move from the temp they are set at, not sure if the control panel controls it locally but I just changed them manually (but only done that once in 4 years so no real problem)

Most comms errors I get usually dissapear after one or two plugins reloads.

Mine still work as scheduled by the local controller if the server is down but of course you cannot do any Indigo overrides.

Another vote for Evohome. I've seen the same battery performance and cloud server outages others report, but as far as I can tell the local control comms stayed active and functional.

I mostly leave it to its own devices, only connecting it to Indigo for monitoring. The primary 'functional' interaction with the heating system is to shut down a secondary water circulation pump whenever there's no-one at home, and that's not really an Evohome thing anyway. Depending on the size of the house, the number of zones might be an issue - there's a limit of 12 on the standard system.

For a bit of contrast...

I also have an Evohome and am in the UK. If I was buying today, I don't think I would buy an Evohome.

I agree with the others on both battery life (excellent, only change around every 18 months) and cloud outages (a bit annoying). It has been – on occasion – handy to open the app and turn on or off the system remotely. Thats about it.

There are several things I don't like about it.

I don't like that I cannot speak to the modules locally – it all has to be through the cloud. Evohome does have an Alexa skill, but I have had to disconnect and reconnect several times. There have been outages for days where it did not work.

I don't find the system to be terribly smart. Temperature is read from the TRV itself... and being right next to the radiator, that temperature does not often reflect the rest of the room. As a result, I feel I am sometimes having to manually adjust the temperature in the room – it is akin to fighting with the system. I didn't mind that per se on a manual thermostat, but what is the point paying all this money for the Evohome when I am having to battle it myself?

One thing I had looked at doing was to adjust the settings based on outdoor temperature. In other words, the colder it was outside, use the Indigo plugin to raise the temperature in specific rooms. I did not have much success. Between having to depend on the cloud (which, again, is prone to too much maintenance) and not being able to take room temperature inputs from other than the TRV's, I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

Finally, the ability to set schedules within the app or physical console is quite limited. For example, I can only set six schedules per day for the hot water. Each on/off pair uses two schedules. That means I can only turn the hot water on/off three times a day. I could say more money if I had greater flexibility, but alas, am limited.

I haven't looked into other options, but in theory, I would use all Z-wave based TRV's and boiler controls. This way I have no dependancy on the cloud, I could have more room temperature inputs, and better controls on each room (which in my house, having varying levels of occupancy throughout the day, and varying levels of insulation).

Interesting points. My concern with zwave TRVs is the battery issues, and they jam up your zwave signals of you have a lot. Maybe not an issue in their own network.

Didn't realise they didn't do separate sesnors. The Heatmiser wired TRVs use Neo so can do remote air sensors so seem like the best solution as also do local control, assuming you can lift floorboards and run cables to each.