Associate
I was looking at these, but ultimately its not going to save me any money or add any features as we have the heating set to 16 hours all day every day 
NEST thermostats
- Thread starter Django x2
- Start date
Caporegime
- Joined
- 21 Jun 2006
- Posts
- 38,372
Gammawolf;30486990 said:I was looking at these, but ultimately its not going to save me any money or add any features as we have the heating set to 16 hours all day every day
and you never leave the house?
Soldato
Dynix;30486874 said:
Sorry to be a pain, but if you get it sorted/or are able to gain more information any chance you could post in here? We have the exact same layout, 100% identical here and am looking into the Nest option and the dual zone stuff has us a bit confused as well.
Associate
Psycho Sonny;30487000 said:
I do leave for the daily grind mon-fri, but there are always people in my house so theres never a reason to turn it off during the day or have features to turn it on remotely etc. Saying that it doesn't break the bank though, this winter we've averaged about 80Kwh a day (£2.20) in gas for a fairly large house of about 170sqm. Thats with a hot water tank on 24/7 and a 15 year old non condensing boiler with an efficiency rating of 74%.
Interestingly though, we used to have it on at 6am-8am, 12pm-1pm and 5pm-10pm. I did a few tests over several weeks across similar weather conditions and running it at a solid 6am-10pm (16 hours) hardly increased the costs at all (about 7 or 8% during the winter).
Caporegime
- Joined
- 21 Jun 2006
- Posts
- 38,372
VaderDSL;30487016 said:
miller home? new build?
Gammawolf;30487063 said:
why do you need so much hot water? i have mine on for 1 hour in the morning then an hour in the evening. i got a insulated jacket for the tank (£15) and that is plenty for us. it covers showers in the morning or after gym / before bed and also washing of dishes, etc.
leaving it on 24/7 is always going to be the least efficient way of doing it. i'd be amazed if you need that much hot water on demand 24/7. heating i can understand as i lived with my mum for many years who was (passed away) disabled for most of her days therefore it was pretty much on 16 hours a day like yourself. however no need for that much hot water unless your filling a couple of baths a day you are literally burning money there plus i imagine it's additional wear and tear on your system.
Soldato
Psycho Sonny;30487185 said:
Nah, Barratt, but it uses identical setup with the two zone master bedroom/utility and then rest of the house.
Associate
We don't need that much hot water, but its a convenience vs cost thing. As theres generally people in the house all the time, dishes could be done throughout the day, i take my shower at 8am, others might be later at 9 or 10. Weekends i'm a little lazy and might not have a shower until just before lunch etc so its a bit sporadic.
I did a 24/7 usage test and extrapolated the usage which equated to about £12 a month to keep the tank hot 24/7 and included a normal amount of cooking and two showers. So for the convenience of always having hot water i'm alright with paying a few quid a month for the constant heat loss. In the the winter the heat losses from the tank just heat the house anyway
I did a 24/7 usage test and extrapolated the usage which equated to about £12 a month to keep the tank hot 24/7 and included a normal amount of cooking and two showers. So for the convenience of always having hot water i'm alright with paying a few quid a month for the constant heat loss. In the the winter the heat losses from the tank just heat the house anyway
Caporegime
- Joined
- 21 Jun 2006
- Posts
- 38,372
VaderDSL;30487245 said:
yeah my dad has the exact same setup in a new build miller home.
his stat in the hallway is knackered so he's going to get them to fix it but i told him to ask if they can upgrade it to a smart system instead of replacing like for like for all the hassle he's had. the smoke and carbon monoxide sensors / alarms they fitted were faulty too.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 21 Jun 2006
- Posts
- 38,372
Gammawolf;30487258 said:
fair enough but you could save yourself £20 a month and still have hot water on demand all day long just by keeping the tank well insulated and having it on for say 1 hour in the morning an hour around lunch time and then another hour in the evening. i say £20 as you saved £12 using your previous timings and even that looks like too much IMO.
my wife has long showers and we never run out. she also wastes a lot of hot water doing dishes, etc where she just leaves it running. Same when she has a shower she will turn the shower on 2 minutes before she jumps in just to clear out all the cold water even though it only takes 10 seconds to do so.
hey guys
we got a nest in our home
system is new
I turn the hot water on for 1 hour in the morning
1 in the evening seems to do the trick
but it is the heating that's the problem, the gas is proving to be pretty expensive.
heating runs for 5/6 hours a day on a temperature of 21/22C - that seems to make the home cosy for us.
anyone got any tips on setting this thing up to be more cost effective!?#
we got a nest in our home
system is new
I turn the hot water on for 1 hour in the morning
1 in the evening seems to do the trick
but it is the heating that's the problem, the gas is proving to be pretty expensive.
heating runs for 5/6 hours a day on a temperature of 21/22C - that seems to make the home cosy for us.
anyone got any tips on setting this thing up to be more cost effective!?#
Soldato
psd99;30489355 said:
How much are we talking per month and what size of house?
If it's on only when you need it, and at the minimum comfortable temperature, there is not much more you can do without being colder or spending money on better insulation, more efficient boiler, etc.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 21 Jun 2006
- Posts
- 38,372
psd99;30489355 said:
21-22 seems high. Mine is set to 16 for when i wake up in the morning and 18-20 for when im at home in the evening.
How well is your house insulated?
Keep blinds, curtains (heavier the better) shutters, etc closed in the evenings.
Keep doors closed around the house.
Turn trvs in rooms that you don't use down slightly. Not fully but slightly.
Get more loft insulation.
Change your energy supplier to the cheapest on the market using moneysavingexpert website and pay by direct debit monthly to get the best rates.
Im in a large 3 bed detached with an attached single garage which has been built on top of so upstairs of my home is larger than downstairs. My gas bill has been building up due to me living in scotland and it being much colder but my monthly breakdown for the past few months is £39, £48, £60 and £73. This months prediction is £59 but i reckon it will be less due to me not being in as much.
Where you live matters a lot as a house in iceland is going to be more expensive to heat than those in africa.
If you have done all of the above then the only thing you can do is move into a newer home with lower ceilings, better insulation and more efficient boiler, etc.
My house was built circa 97-99, this makes a difference too. Newer homes are far more efficiebt due to regulations changing every 3-6 years
Soldato
My Home/Away assist has not been working recently - I've got it set to 2 mobile phones and it seems to just not be going to away. Read that it's a bit broken and only works with 1 phone at the moment. Annoying.
Annoying.
Annoying.
GeForce;30489383 said:
its a big 3 bed semi. Costing somewhere between £5-7 a day on gas but bear in mind the ball and chain has been home recently too..
Psycho Sonny;30489444 said:
thanks the insulation in the loft needs more rolling out good shout I will do that on the weekend.
It's a 3 bed semi with pretty big and high rooms .
we still do not have all internal doors on especially the dining room door that is crucial so we are not in full throttle.
I found 16C to be cold the problem is the thermostat is actually in the cupboard in a kitchen so it will get warm their quicker compared to upstairs in the bedrooms for instance.
i might see if this can be moved to be next to the nest itself. that might help us a lot.
Associate
Psycho Sonny;30487284 said:
£12 a month is the portion of cost to run the tank 24/7 with washing and 2 showers (ran the house with no heating during the test), with 20 min showers being the main usage. So realistically i'd be amazed if we save more than a quid or two per month. But it is already very well insulated so this makes sense as theoretically if the system had no heatloss then it wouldn't matter setting the hot water to 24/7 as you'd only pay for exactly what you use. So getting closer to this with good insulation means running 24/7 becomes less of an issue.
Few more numbers i dug up from meter readings. For the period of the 23rd Dec 2016 to the 19th Jan 2017 (27 days) we used 212m3 of gas, which equates to about 2372Kwh (87Kwh or £2.41 per day) so scaling that up to a 31 days we would have used £74.71 of gas in an average winter month. With a use case of hot water on 24/7, heating set to 21.5c for 16 hours a day, in quite a large detached house. As mentioned before the boiler isn't the newest at actually 17 years old and is a non condenser. The reason why I think it doesn't make a huge difference in this particular house is that it is well enough insulated that the greater heat loss due to higher average temperatures inside is balanced out mostly by being able to run the system a lot cooler. It tops up the heat lost across a greater time frame rather than having to heat the house suddenly by several degrees and having to run he CH system hotter (I've also carefully balanced the system so everything heats up evenly and the return water is coolest). Running it cooler will increase the energy transfer efficiency of the boiler as the delta is greater. So once they house is up to temp the return flow to the boiler is always around below 30c (26c checking just now). Now i do appreciated running it this way cycles stuff a lot more and potentially could wear things out faster, given the other benefits and the energy bill not being extortionate i'm willing to take that risk, its not like the boiler owes me anything
Dynix;30486874 said:
I emailed Nest to get their thoughts on how I would go about changing over from the current set up to Nest which has left me even more confused:
I'm not sure why I would need three thermostats unless they're confused and assume that the TP9000 itself is a thermostat? I assumed I would need two Nest Thermostats and two Heat Links - one for each zone - rather than one for everything I'm replacing.
I'm starting to consider whether Hive or Tado will be a better option due to the battery powered thermostat in the second zone. I did test and it has no power going to it which means the Nest would need to be plugged in and the nearest socket is over and around a door frame - would rather not have a wire!
Tado helpfully emailed back and said I'd need 2x Smart Thermostats, both which are wireless to replace the TS2/TP5000 Si, and 1x 'Extension Kit' which replaces the TP9000 which sounds like a much cleaner set up.
Sorry for the double bump.
I've decided to go for the Tado instead. The thing which put me off ultimately from Nest/Hive was the need to have the two of the Heat Links for two zones and the lack of power source availability for Zone 2. I spoke with the electrician who set our heating system up and the TP5000 programmer/thermostat is wired direct to the valve in the airing cupboard and doesn't communicate with the TP9000 at all - yours may also be the same if the airing cupboard is close by? The Tado system is a straight simple swap over for all the units and only requires the 1 Heat Link equivalent which will be a cleaner set up compared to the others. Will be a week or two before delivered but I'll post a walkthrough of the swap in the relevant Tado topic.
Soldato
Just a little heads up that Nest has today made two-step verification available when logging in to your Nest account. It's a nice extra layer of security.
https://nest.com/blog/2017/03/07/extra-security-for-your-nest-account/
https://nest.com/blog/2017/03/07/extra-security-for-your-nest-account/