NEST thermostats

GeForce said:
Very nicely written. How did your hot water ever work with that wire in 2 instead of 3?!
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erm.....believe it or not, we never noticed in the 8 years we'd lived there :D

it was only when we had the boiler serviced, the plumer said the timer was faulty....hence me embarking on the nest

if you look closely at the diagram, when the central heating is off, the water comes on!!!!!!

don't ask
 
glen8 said:
erm.....believe it or not, we never noticed in the 8 years we'd lived there :D

it was only when we had the boiler serviced, the plumer said the timer was faulty....hence me embarking on the nest

if you look closely at the diagram, when the central heating is off, the water comes on!!!!!!

don't ask
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:D

Well you should save a tonne of gas just by having that fixed! Though the NEST will save you even more of course :)
 
Yes, it's amazing how much warmer the house feels despite the nest learning that the temperature can be lower, and even off longer than we had originally set

I walked in the other evening after work, warm house yet the nest was set at 17

Icing on the cake was driving back from a weekend in London, an hour away from home the mrs turned it on from her mobile
 
Psycho Sonny said:
Brilliant guide Glen8. Sure it will help a lot of people out there.
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Agreed, a good guide thanks Glen8.

Can you/someone just help me with a few questions:


  • My current setup I have the HW come on for an hour in the morning and again in the evening, can you still have HW on a timer or how does HW control work?
  • Again my CH is set to come on at different times of the day, controlled by the timer & thermostat, I take it there is not any requirement to have times set as the NEST has the CH always on and smartly controls the temp as required?
  • You put the NEST on a new wall, but is it possible to place it where the old thermostat was, and use those wires already there/can they also power it?
  • Can more than one person have the app on their phone and hows does it work if the other person is away? I work away in the week and not home every night, don't want my GF sitting in the cold because i'm out! guessing that the answer is simple that as long as there is one person in the house/near by with the app it would work off their location rather than mine?
 
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volt9291 said:
Agreed, a good guide thanks Glen8.

Can you/someone just help me with a few questions:


  • My current setup I have the HW come on for an hour in the morning and again in the evening, can you still have HW on a timer or how does HW control work?
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Yes you still configure a hot water schedule using the app/website.

volt9291 said:
  • Again my CH is set to come on at different times of the day, controlled by the timer & thermostat, I take it there is not any requirement to have times set as the NEST has the CH always on and smartly controls the temp as required?
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In theory the NEST learns your schedule, but you can set an initial one for it as a starting point. You can also fully override with a manual schedule if you wish (though the learning is really a big selling point of NEST, so give it a try first).


volt9291 said:
  • You put the NEST on a new wall, but is it possible to place it where the old thermostat was, and use those wires already there/can they also power it?
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Yes.

volt9291 said:
  • Can more than one person have the app on their phone and hows does it work if the other person is away? I work away in the week and not home every night, don't want my GF sitting in the cold because i'm out! guessing that the answer is simple that as long as there is one person in the house/near by with the app it would work off their location rather than mine?
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The NEST has a variety of features to detect when the house is empty or not, including a sensor in the thermostat, and they have recently added geolocation. Again, you can disable going into "Eco temperatures" mode entirely if it's not working out for you.
 
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volt9291 said:
Agreed, a good guide thanks Glen8.

Can you/someone just help me with a few questions:

  • You put the NEST on a new wall, but is it possible to place it where the old thermostat was, and use those wires already there/can they also power it?
Click to expand...

Depends on your house wiring, but usually the answer is no. You have to get the live feed from the nest hub to the boiler. Usually the route taken is from the timer to the thermostat, then onto the boiler. It's a long route as it usually goes via the main junction box which in new houses is in the top bedroom (airing cupboard). If you use existing wiring to power the display, I'm not sure how you can then get the live feed from the hub to the boiler.

In my case, I simply joined both live feeds together (step 3) meaning the live feed left the hub, went to the thermostat and then straight up to the junction box, then down to the boiler.

Now probably the most important point, is that my thermostat was 240v. Some are 12v. The nest display MUST be 12v.

If you are dead set on doing this, you will most probably have to install the hub near the junction box. Trace all the wires running to the thermostat and then interface them to the T1 and T2 ports on the hub. This will run the required 12v down to where you want to install the display.
 
How good is the signal strength between the Heat Link and the Thermostat?

Got some Siemens wireless thermostat at the moment that doesn't work at all, have it on override and just turn the boiler over to heating when it's needed. The boiler is in a cupboard in the bathroom, which is where the Heat Link would need to go, and ideally the thermostat would go downstairs somewhere maybe in the hall.
 
glen8 said:
Depends on your house wiring, but usually the answer is no. You have to get the live feed from the nest hub to the boiler. Usually the route taken is from the timer to the thermostat, then onto the boiler. It's a long route as it usually goes via the main junction box which in new houses is in the top bedroom (airing cupboard). If you use existing wiring to power the display, I'm not sure how you can then get the live feed from the hub to the boiler.

In my case, I simply joined both live feeds together (step 3) meaning the live feed left the hub, went to the thermostat and then straight up to the junction box, then down to the boiler.

Now probably the most important point, is that my thermostat was 240v. Some are 12v. The nest display MUST be 12v.

If you are dead set on doing this, you will most probably have to install the hub near the junction box. Trace all the wires running to the thermostat and then interface them to the T1 and T2 ports on the hub. This will run the required 12v down to where you want to install the display.
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Yes I should have been more clear here, what I meant was that you can use two of the existing L/N/SL wires to carry the 12V from T1/T2 (leave the third wire disconnected both ends).

In most cases all three wires will run from the wiring centre (where you will install the hub) to the thermostat, so the cable run is point-to-point, meaning you can reuse the wires as above.
 
Azza said:
How good is the signal strength between the Heat Link and the Thermostat?

Got some Siemens wireless thermostat at the moment that doesn't work at all, have it on override and just turn the boiler over to heating when it's needed. The boiler is in a cupboard in the bathroom, which is where the Heat Link would need to go, and ideally the thermostat would go downstairs somewhere maybe in the hall.
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i imagine they both use wifi. so how good is your wifi in those areas
 
Picked mine up this weekend and am going to install it later in the week when I have finished redecorating the hallway!
 
I had mine fitted about a month ago, although I'm not really satisfied with it. I've had mixed feedback about my boiler, so it's not really the nest's problem.

I have a worcester greenstar 42cdi.

The only way I can get the NEST to work properly is to leave it on a setting called 'day'. Although, on this setting. the heat pump stays on 24/7 and makes a constant whirl in the house. Especially since it's upstairs and next to a bedroom, that whirl is hard for me to sleep with.

If I turn the boiler to timer, then the heatpump is off until the timer comes on, which is how i've got it running. Not only is the heatpump off, the NEST cant call for heat... since the boiler is effectively off outside of the timer times i've set.

Anyone else got a similar boiler and can confirm this is how theirs is configured? I guess I'll have to live with it otherwise.
 
Successfully installed a Nest on my Y Plan heating system at the weekend, thanks to the info on here. Only took about 90 minuets to do.

I went to turn the heating down to 15 for the night and it had already done it for me :)

On my old system I use to leave the how water on 24/7 so it just reheated the tank when it cooled or was used. The Nest defaults to 2 hours in the morning and 2 early evening, Do you think this will be more efficient? Only two of in the house using the HW for showers and washing up.

Also what temp do you think is best to set the HW tank to. I'm currently set at 60 degrees, but this makes the water a little to hot to wash your hands with without adding cold?
 
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neilw said:
Do you think this will be more efficient? Only two of in the house using the HW for showers and washing up.
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Yes, but ensure that it provides sufficient hot water. 2 hours will easily heat the tank up, but once it has gone off and one of you has a bath (for example), it won't be reheating it.

Try it like it is for now, and adjust as required (e.g. 3 hours in the evening).
 
GeForce said:
Yes, but ensure that it provides sufficient hot water. 2 hours will easily heat the tank up, but once it has gone off and one of you has a bath (for example), it won't be reheating it.

Try it like it is for now, and adjust as required (e.g. 3 hours in the evening).
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Thanks! It hopefully it'll be fine. We don't use the bath so should all be good.
 
neilw said:
Thanks! It hopefully it'll be fine. We don't use the bath so should all be good.
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The heat loss from modern well insulated tanks is pretty minimal, and it will probably turn off on the tank 'stat well before the 2 hours is up.

So your savings here are likely to be minimal compared to what you save on the central heating.

You can always turn the hot water on from your phone if you want to boost it a bit (for example, if you do one day want a bath) :D
 
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