The central heating system in my York home is very basic, a hall mounted thermostat and a few thermostatic radiator valves (trvs) upstairs mean it is not the most efficient. My love of smart home tech meant that an improvement had to be made but which system to select? The hot water system is not a problem and a basic timer schedule is all that is required but the house heating needs to be on at different settings at different times. Looking around at the various smart home products the one I selected was Netatmo because all that is required is to replace the hall thermostat as the existing switch wires are used. A simple job. A spare socket has to be found to plug in the relay that connects to your wifi and passes instructions wirelessly onto the thermostat.
The app for your smartphone is easy to use. One of the best features is being able to set the thermostat in away mode so the house is not heated as much when out but you can ensure you get back to a warm and cosy house by setting an expected arrival home time.
A schedule for different temperatures at different times is easy to set up. In our house we like it cooler at night but a little warmer when it is time to get up and start the day.
So far it seems to have made the system more efficient but it was limited by the old TRVs which had to be manually changed and as we like a different temperature in the upstairs rooms depending on the time of day the Netatmo TRVs became an essential purchase. They are not cheap but they should reduce energy bills and make the rooms more comfortable.
Replacing the old TRVs was easy as lots of adapters are included for different makes. Setting up was also easy. There are basically two options. One is to let the hall thermostat determine when to call for heat from the boiler. This is the mode I use but the heating will go off when the hall is at the set temperature even if the room with TRV is not at the required temp. You can get the TRV to call for heat with this would mean all radiators without TRVs would be on.In practice with our house only the first mode is required.
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