Choosing the right heating controls for your boiler is very important. It can save you time and money and is good for the environment as you can turn the boiler on and off at your leisure without constantly having the boiler running.
Building Regulations Part L
As part of the building regulations you are required to have some sort of programmer to control your heating within the home. This can be a simple thermostat to a Hive or Nest where you can control them through your phone.
Choosing the right heating controls?
There is a lot of choice out there in the market and it’s important you choose the right one for your requirements. Some people prefer the mechanical style but then others like the digital programmers. You can have the choice of ones that link to your phone, even Alexa or just basic controls that you can set your required comfort level and the boiler switches on and off accordingly.
Nest
This programmer retails around £200.
- Thermostat that lets you control temperature within your home. Control up to 20 thermostats in one home.
- Change the temperature and more with your phone
- Smart programming means more economical. The thermostat smartly adjusts itself to your preferred temperatures, your home, and the weather outside
- Uses your phone’s location and built-in activity sensors to automatically avoid heating an empty home
- Compatible with most heating systems
- Either fit it yourself or have a professional installer like ourselves to fit it
Hive
This thermostat retails around £150.00
- Come back to a nice warm house – Hive Active Heating lets you control your heating from your smartphone with the thermostat
- Hive App – Manage your heating and hot water from your smartphone and set up to 6 schedules a day
- Get your devices working together – With just a tap of the app you can turn your heating on when the sun sets each day
- Know when you’ve left the heating on – With Geo-location your Thermostat knows if you’ve gone out and left the heating on
- Adjust your heating hands free – Hive works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
Hive or Nest?
Depending on preference It doesn’t really matter they both do the same job, can run them off your phone so no difference in our opinion. Although the Hive is roughly £50 cheaper so gets our vote.
What is a room thermostat?
This is a gauge on the wall which is either digital or analogue that you can set room temperature. Ranging from 0-30 degrees C the ideal comfort setting is around 21 degrees. Linked to your boiler will switch the boiler on and off but keep the temperature at the desired setting. They are very economical and can save you a lot of money throughout the year.
They tend to be located in your living room or landing and away from windows and radiators so not to affect the temperatures too much.
Programmer
This is so you can set the times to come on in the day/night for heating and hot water. This type of programmer is mainly used with a conventional system, i.e with a hot water cylinder. They can be used with a combi system but heating only as the hot water is instant from the taps.
Programmable/thermostat
Very popular with combi boilers, you can set the time for your heating to come on or off. It also acts as a thermostat so if you set the desired temperature to 21 degrees the boiler will go off automatically once this temperature is reached.
Please contact us on the above number if you would like to discuss anything further. We’re more than happy to call out and give you a free quote on any of the options available.