Can you get black coloured smart TRVs?

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Soldato
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As part of our new kitchen the boiler is going to get moved. We had the plumber round to assess what's going to happen, no surprises or worries there. He obviously did a bit of upselling and was asking if we're upgrading the thermostat as the one we inherited from the previous owners is pretty rubbish. Cue arguments between myself and my other half (she's not a fan of anything smart :p). I think at the very least we should look at a smart thermostat, we have Google Homes already so it makes sense. But smart TRVs seem to be the next step up right?

Before I dive into all of these and start asking what systems I should be looking at (feel free to recommend whilst we're here!), what I'm struggling to find are any systems that have black coloured smart TRVs. This'll be a deal breaker, as all of our radiators are going to be black besides the vertical one in the kitchen, and the one in the loft. (Edwardian house, radiators are all going to be old column style etc.)

Cheers.
 
I personally think smart TRVs are a a poor investment. A smart thermostat makes sense if you are going to use it to more accurately control your heating/hot water demand, they are relatively cheap and can significantly impact your energy usage.

On the other hand a smart TRV is likely around £50 per radiator (working out to £700 in my house). If you already have standard TRVs I just can't see how I'd ever save £700 in energy usage over any kind of reasonable period.
 
Abyss said:
I personally think smart TRVs are a a poor investment. A smart thermostat makes sense if you are going to use it to more accurately control your heating/hot water demand, they are relatively cheap and can significantly impact your energy usage.

On the other hand a smart TRV is likely around £50 per radiator (working out to £700 in my house). If you already have standard TRVs I just can't see how I'd ever save £700 in energy usage over any kind of reasonable period.
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If you live with a bunch of irresponsible dinosaur burners that like to leave the heating on all the time, and think the thermostat has a scale for lols, being able to set the temps on an app so that it auto closes/sets low at set times during a day where you'd normally have to go around entering each room (touching the handle in case) and manually turning them down. I've had them 3 years and managed to have a warmer house in the locations I was most of the time, leaving bedrooms cold but then warmed before bedtime, and managed to use a 1/3 less oil last winter thanks to them turning off errantly left on rads.

You don't need them on every radiator, and like other smart stuff can be picked up cheaper on the big sale days.

@Scam sorry, but I only know that tado have a black smart thermostat that's new - it makes sense that they'll maybe come out with a black version. Have to remember though, that most will have white so the market will be thin for black.
 
Abyss said:
I personally think smart TRVs are a a poor investment. A smart thermostat makes sense if you are going to use it to more accurately control your heating/hot water demand, they are relatively cheap and can significantly impact your energy usage.

On the other hand a smart TRV is likely around £50 per radiator (working out to £700 in my house). If you already have standard TRVs I just can't see how I'd ever save £700 in energy usage over any kind of reasonable period.
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Fully agree. You'd have to cut a lot of heating to get a return on investment for smart TRVs.
 
I’m a little surprised everyone is so against them, I thought this would be exactly the type of tech that everyone goes a bundle over on here :p

But entirely fair points, I hadn’t really priced them up beyond the £200 odd for the Tado thermostat and 3 smart TRVs included which didn’t seem too bad (in white obviously).

Perhaps a nice incremental upgrade is to a Nest now, then smart TRVs if and when we feel we need them.

dirtychinchilla said:
Fully agree. You'd have to cut a lot of heating to get a return on investment for smart TRVs.
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Even the way prices are going? :p
 
Abyss said:
I personally think smart TRVs are a a poor investment. A smart thermostat makes sense if you are going to use it to more accurately control your heating/hot water demand, they are relatively cheap and can significantly impact your energy usage.

On the other hand a smart TRV is likely around £50 per radiator (working out to £700 in my house). If you already have standard TRVs I just can't see how I'd ever save £700 in energy usage over any kind of reasonable period.
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They are more for comfort.
With us they do save cost but not sure if they'll ever make ROI.

But as we work at home we only need to heat 2 rooms 9-5 rather than the whole house. And then those 2 rooms go off in evening as we move down stairs.


I have every radiator (except 1) on smart. They cost me 30-40 each and the main stat kit cost 140.

We have tado
1x boiler control unit for our tank setup (core unit)
2x wireless thermostats
7x trvs
 
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