Has anyone used these, if so any feedback on ease of fitting? I have hive in my house and annoyingly the heater 'rooms' are set to living room and rest of the house with both thermostats being downstairs. This means in the colder months my bedroom ends up freezing while downstairs is warm. I know I could move the thermostat upstairs, but I don't want the heating on in all bedrooms as only 2 are occupied.
Hive radiator valves
- Thread starter ChrisD.
- Start date
All my radiators are set to the desired temp using mechanical thermostatic valves (bit of trial and error required) heating comes on and all the rooms reach desired temperature.
If one room doesn't heat up a quickly as the others or to my preference, I open the non-thermosatic valve end until it does.
google thermostatic radiator valves and balancing a heating system.
If one room doesn't heat up a quickly as the others or to my preference, I open the non-thermosatic valve end until it does.
google thermostatic radiator valves and balancing a heating system.
Mechanical thermostatic valves are amazing things.
Inside each one is a wax capsule which pushes a metal rod out (with a lot of force, but only about 1cm max) as it heats up and screwing it up or down regulates how far the capsule has to heat up/push the rod out to close the radiator valve.
It needs a bit of effort to dial in what you want but once done it completely runs off the heat of the radiator.
Electric TRVs try to do the same job with more components, a battery and they have to "learn" how much to open a valve over several days, which I suppose is the equivalent of balancing a regular system.
Inside each one is a wax capsule which pushes a metal rod out (with a lot of force, but only about 1cm max) as it heats up and screwing it up or down regulates how far the capsule has to heat up/push the rod out to close the radiator valve.
It needs a bit of effort to dial in what you want but once done it completely runs off the heat of the radiator.
Electric TRVs try to do the same job with more components, a battery and they have to "learn" how much to open a valve over several days, which I suppose is the equivalent of balancing a regular system.
Sounds like you need to balance your heating system.
Just read your post again, you can also turn off the radiators in the rooms you dont want to heat.
We've had 3 different brands over the years and there's always one (in any of the rooms) that ends up making a high pitched whistle and to stop it you have to be up or down half a notch so the room ends up hotter or colder than you wish and at least 4 occasions the pins have stuck down and had to be belted with a nail tip and hammer to free them again.
So unless there is a particular brand that stands out from the rest that doesn't have these issues they have not been amazing for us.
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Soldato
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We have standard thermostatic valves in most rooms and they do they job, some rooms don't have them though such as the living room because that's where the temperature control panel is so that regulates it.
Rooms that are not used much are just set low, I don't turn them off fully.
Rooms that are not used much are just set low, I don't turn them off fully.
Soldato
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I use the energenie eTRVs with Nest, work a treat - not sure if they will interact with Hive though (IFTTT maybe?). Batteries last 2 years. HTH
Been there done that along with the other long standing suggestion of using a soft pencil to get graphite on the pins but was told by the engineer that it's a falsehood , fallacy and a complete waste of time as it's the sealing washer under the pin that gets stuck down and causes it to drop.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...ing-washers/&usg=AOvVaw0hXib5loj_BKDQ5lDsP5iP
There's loads of vids on youtube with various ideas from tapping the pin down to knocking on the side to try and free the sealing washer so it pops up.
Tapping the pin worked on 2 of our valves and they have never stuck again but 2 others got replaced , not sure if you can replace the washer as the engineer just changed them.
Tapping the pin worked on 2 of our valves and they have never stuck again but 2 others got replaced , not sure if you can replace the washer as the engineer just changed them.
I had the Hive system installed yesterday and did the radiator valves myself afterwards. What a bloody faff. They are right pain to set up and the app crashes constantly when adding them.
One tip I discovered - when the app just hangs and says it can't find the valves - just click back until you are back at the homescreen, then the valve will magically appear.
What should have taken no more than 30 mins to do 6 valves ended up taking about 4 hours with loads of time resetting the damned things and adding them again.
Anyway, they are in now but I'm not sure that they are very useful. I would expect the boiler to fire up if I turn up one of the valves manually but it doesn't.
One tip I discovered - when the app just hangs and says it can't find the valves - just click back until you are back at the homescreen, then the valve will magically appear.
What should have taken no more than 30 mins to do 6 valves ended up taking about 4 hours with loads of time resetting the damned things and adding them again.
Anyway, they are in now but I'm not sure that they are very useful. I would expect the boiler to fire up if I turn up one of the valves manually but it doesn't.
Electric TRVs presumably have the benefit of being able to set different temperatures at different times of day though (e.g. reducing heating in Kids bedrooms during School hours etc).
Have you looked at this?
https://www.hivehome.com/radiator-valve-guide/using-your-hive-radiator-valve