But what controls do I ACTUALLY need to have installed with the boiler?!

[Blackspaven]

Just starting to have the trickle of plumbers round doing quotes for boilers and, as I suspected and hoped WOULDN'T happen, they're giving me different bits of advice on what I 'have' to have, along the lines of the 'I shouldn't install it without x/y/z'.

I've currently got a 14 year old Ariston Micro Genus 27mffi combi, which although EVERY plumber has said is cr@p, has worked fine for all that time and I've definitely got my money's worth. The issue seems to be not with the replacement condensing combi, but with the extras. Definitely getting a magnaclean of some description, so that's not an issue, but I've always quite happily controlled my old boiler with the dials on the boiler itself. So I know it's not going to balance and be thermostatic and lovely, it's either on or off, but that's suited me and the girlfriend fine.


So, both so far have quoted for Worcester.

First bloke said would I like a wired or rf controller, and personally I can't see the point in spending an extra £100 on something simply because it's in exactly the same place 2 foot away and wiring wouldn't be an issue anyway. But he gave me the choice.

Second bloke said I HAD to have one certain bit installed (can't get my head around which) so he said he was gonna quote for a Comfort II RF thermostat which would cover everything, but apart from efficiency and programmability, I couldn't see what was wrong with the good old fashioned mechanical timers?

Just not sure what I HAVE to have which my old boiler didn't seem to do perfectly fine anyway? Don't like gadgets at all, so this Worcester Wave rubbish was of no interest to me: see enough people fannying around with their heating on the train for when they get home for me to completely hold it in contempt: House is cold, put a jumper on, wait 10 minutes and it'll be warm, how difficult is that... or am I missing something?!

 

[Howsie]

Weather compensation is right in every circumstance and should be mandatory. It will benefit every installation.

 

[Scott_D]

Post the winning quote unk:

 

[oz-plumber]

Weather compensation is right in every circumstance and should be mandatory. It will benefit every installation.

Except on UFH.

I have to disconnect one this week because the customer is complaining that the floor temperature is not warm enough.
Can't explain to the customer the benefits of having weather compensation.
They just want warm floors all the time.

Their gas bill versus our planet - and my sanity.

 

[Blackspaven]

Newcastle Phil, you can catch the trigger with your toe if you try hard enough.

Reason I'm asking is cos the guy fitting it hasn't installed one before and therefore can't advise on it as HE doesn't know, but thanks for the advise, as long as there's no issues with my old house itself I may well go for it, it does seems almost like common sense. (when I asked him, he said probably only 5% of plumbers have installed them but 100% of them then rate them highly)

Phil... Good luck in the championship next year.

 

[Howsie]

Why doesn't it work on UFH?

 

[Blackspaven]

Ooh, just had an interesting conversation with a tech bloke at WB about the FW100 weather compensating controller, see what you guys think of this:

I said I had a Victorian house which can't be cavity filled and is a bit nippy at times, the heat insulation isn't great but managable, and he said don't get the weather compensating module cos it'll never reach warm enough temps. Said the installer will set the heat curve for it to work to in any specific house but it'll take the outside temp and not compensate for the potentially low temp inside so 10 degrees outside will only give you about 40 degrees, hand/luke warm kicking out the boiler. There's no thermostat with that bit of kit. Said straight out, don't bother, go for the Comfort 2 cos it's got an internal thermostat instead and will work the boiler in relation to the inside temp and give a better result.

Food for thought?

 

[Howsie]

Not really. He's wrong but that's not the first time I've heard rubbish from them. Give Viessmann, ATAG or Vaillant a call and see how different the response is.

 

[oz-plumber]

Why doesn't it work on UFH?

It does work.

I just can't explain to the customer that due to higher outdoor temperatures the boiler heats the water to a lower temperature - hence lower temperature floors.

I am dealing with Eastern European's - can't tell them anything

 

[Howsie]

Say no more.

 

[oz-plumber]

Did you explain to the person that you also would like and internal thermostat as well.

I think he misunderstood your request, to the point of, having the system run off the weather compensation thermostat only

 

[Blackspaven]

I confirmed that the kit didn't come with a thermostat so how does it work and apparently (if I understood it right) it's designed to work as one OR the other: the controller when fitted on the slot on the boiler uses the outside sensor, when fitted on the wall acts as a thermostat, but that then stops the outside sensor from working as it doesn't receive, it' sends. So if it's physically in the boiler, there's no in signal for a room thermostat, just the outside sensor.
There's a hard wired, wall mounted 'cage' so the controller can be popped out the boiler itself and clipped in the cage as a regular thermostat to do one or the other job.

I did say that I thought if you had both then you could work on the thermostat temp, and the outside temp could balance HOW the boiler works to compensate so you kept the room at the temp you want but have an efficient boiler, but he said it can't work with both the sensor and a regular thermostat, not wired that way. He said it was more designed for a more modern, better insulated house.

Also, I may end up renting this place out in 5 years and he said that you have to manage heat curves, which in summer/winter are fine, but in the crossover months of spring/autumn it would probaly be a pain and you'd be constantly adjusting it all to get it right if the house possibly isn't as good as a modern build in holding heat.

Annoying.

 

[oz-plumber]

The easiest solution to your problem would be to have an indoor thermostat installed with an external weather compensation thermostat installed.

Have the installer set the system up.

If you are not happy with the performance of the system with both indoor and outdoor thermostats, just disconnect the external weather compensator from the terminals in the boiler.

That will mean, that with radiator panels, the boiler will just heat the water up in the system to the set water temperature on the boiler.

The boiler will assume you want an indoor temperature of 21C. The weather compensator will say the outdoor temp is 16C. That will tell the boiler to heat the water, to say 50C, because you don't need 75C to bring the house up to temperature.

That's all they do. Everything is generally pre-set to these parameters.

There is tech info on all this, but for domestic installations, there is not much more you really need to know

 

[Blackspaven]

Cool, thanks.

 

[Frelon]

oz-plumber, an excellent description of what weather compensation does. I had it installed in my house in France (heating engineer just included it in the install without asking me, after all he is the expert). It is one of those things that when installed it just works quietly doing it's job.

When I bought my new build house here in the UK two years ago I asked the developers to specify weather compensation with my standard install Ideal boiler. After many exchanges something along the lines of "Oh, what does that do, I must ask the heating engineer doing the install?" Heating installer (doing 150 houses) knew nothing about weather compensation, so I brought him up to speed by pointing him to Ideal weather compensation kits. The site manager came back and told me that this would cost another £400 to install, £200 for the electrician and £200 for the plumber!! Now that is what I call a rip off - the cost of the kit was less than £30!!

Sadly (for me) I decided not to have weather compensation and installed a Nest Learning Thermostat after the house was finished!

Needless to say these discussions all took place before the house was built!!

 

[Howsie]

Unfortunate with the Nest but they do look nice...

 

[PhoenixServices]

Frelon why not get it installed now by a local engineer, wouldn't cost that much. Could probably sell the nest on eBay and come out even.

 

[Frelon]

When I made enquiries about this amongst my local engineers, none were interested in the job!

The north facing wall of my house where the sensor should be located is rendered in the latest polymer render (white). I do not want wires running down from the sensor on the outside of the house to the boiler so only solution was to come through the wall with the wires and somehow try to run them inside the house (cavity wall) to the boiler - yet another challenge. This was why I wanted the wiring installed during the build process, but builder was uncooperative!

The fall back option was the Nest, and I must say it has worked without any problems since the installation. It links through the internet to the local weather situation (outside temperature) and appears to make adjustments accordingly.

Initial installation of the Nest was a challenge as none of the local heating engineers had any experience of installing the Nest system, but all said they would "give it a go!". No thanks, I do not want to be a guinea pig for their learning!! The authorised Nest installer did it in 30 minutes and gave me a comprehensive run through of the controls - not that much instruction is required.

So overall a less expensive method of installing weather compensation - that works.