Underfloor heating control recommendations
Underfloor heating control recommendations
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Discussion

chris_w

Original Poster:

2,568 posts

275 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
Hi all, we have a Polypipe UFH system fitted to our ground floor seven years ago during a front and rear extension project. There are two circuits, each with four room thermostats.
The wall control panels (one per circuit) have been unreliable and are now no longer supported, so I’m looking to swap out the control system (room stats and wiring control units), with added benefit that we’d like to add control via an App.
Heatmiser and Ember have been discussed with a ufh engineer - he steered me away from Heatmiser to Ember, but the app gets a lot of bad reviews for connectivity issues. Does anyone have good experience fitting either, or are there other options we should look at?
Thanks in advance!

essayer

10,196 posts

210 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
It's not the sleekest nowadays, but Evohome works well, especially if you have a mix of UFH + rads, and is reliable

John D.

19,328 posts

225 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
We've got Heatmiser in 4 zones. Just leave ours set to a constant 21C. Occasionally turn it off if we're airing out the kitchen or bump up to 22C. Don't bother with the time clock setting.

The ones we have are not App enabled, but that would be completely pointless for us.

outnumbered

4,616 posts

250 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
I'm dubious about the desirability of App control just for underfloor heating.

In our installation, which is fairly typical, the response time is measured in hours, so the most effective strategy is to set it up in more or less "constant heating" mode, with the setback temperatures only a couple of degrees off the target temps, then just leave it alone.

We have Nu-Heat room stats, which are rebranded Heatmiser. They've been installed for 10 years, and all still working with no issues.

AC43

12,738 posts

224 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
essayer said:
It's not the sleekest nowadays, but Evohome works well, especially if you have a mix of UFH + rads, and is reliable
I have Evohome for 6 x UFH zones + 5 x rooms (with rads) + HW.

Rock solid for 7 years.

WyrleyD

2,196 posts

164 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
I have Heatmiser with a UH8-RF wiring centre and Neo-HUB with two battery thermostats and one wired one. I use the app all the time and it's great to be able to turn on the system when we are on our way home after being away and the system has been sleeping on the frost setting, so house is nice and warm when we arrive.

a340driver

492 posts

171 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
We have 2 zone controller for our boiler. 1 for the 2 underfloor extensions and 1 for the rooms with radiators.

The underfloor zone is on always at the boiler but only fires it up when demanded by the in room thermostat controllers which have timers for different temperatures at different times of the day and different days for example the weekends.

The underfloor rooms take a significant time to respond to temperature changes so I find this a reliable system and wouldn't bother with Apps. It's also nice and simple.

John D.

19,328 posts

225 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
WyrleyD said:
I use the app all the time and it's great to be able to turn on the system when we are on our way home after being away and the system has been sleeping on the frost setting, so house is nice and warm when we arrive.
Yeah thats the only time an app would be useful for me.

AC43

12,738 posts

224 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
a340driver said:
We have 2 zone controller for our boiler. 1 for the 2 underfloor extensions and 1 for the rooms with radiators.

The underfloor zone is on always at the boiler but only fires it up when demanded by the in room thermostat controllers which have timers for different temperatures at different times of the day and different days for example the weekends.

The underfloor rooms take a significant time to respond to temperature changes so I find this a reliable system and wouldn't bother with Apps. It's also nice and simple.
The point of Evohome is not that it's controllable from an app; rather that it's a learning system that works out the most efficient way to get an are to any given temperature and also turns valves on and off in increments rather than fully on/fully off.

Overall, it's supposed to reduce bills by 25% or more. The app's just the skin, the clever bit's the controller.

chris_w

Original Poster:

2,568 posts

275 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
Thanks for all the responses.
We also run our system constantly and bounce off a minimum temp. So agree the app is prob slight overkill, ability to control all circuits (and potentially the upstairs rads if we wanted to convert to smart TRVs later) in one place, and whilst away from home the main benefit.

Good point raised on the lag to warm up - our rear extension (lots of glass) cools quicker than the floor can react when sun goes down, an external sensor might help (the current Polypipe controllers are meant to be learning, I’m not convinced…).

Will look up EvoHome thanks.

AC43

12,738 posts

224 months

Thursday 20th March
quotequote all
chris_w said:
Thanks for all the responses.
We also run our system constantly and bounce off a minimum temp. So agree the app is prob slight overkill, ability to control all circuits (and potentially the upstairs rads if we wanted to convert to smart TRVs later) in one place, and whilst away from home the main benefit.

Good point raised on the lag to warm up - our rear extension (lots of glass) cools quicker than the floor can react when sun goes down, an external sensor might help (the current Polypipe controllers are meant to be learning, I’m not convinced…).

Will look up EvoHome thanks.
I got a mate to put it in. He's a hugely eco-conscious heating engineer and chose Evohome as he was convinced that it was by far the most efficient answer back in 2017/18.

But he was struggling with a major moral dilemma in that Honeywall also have a massive arms manufacturing operation.

So it MUST have been good (in his view) to overcome that :-)