Heating programmer/room stat.

[AudiPartner]

So I just had a new boiler installed, Vaillant Ecotec 837, and its been fitted on my request with the basic timeSWITCH 150. Not even turned it on yet as it only controls the heating, the hot water is activated by turning on the tap.

But now I want to find out which programmer to get. I have also read about weather compensation systems but not sure that would be right for me in my inefficient 1700s house.

One of the guys who came round to quote explained to me how wrong we all use our heating. We set it to burn burn burn for a couple of hours in the morning, have it turned off for most of the day, then burn burn burn again for a few hours in the evening. He said that by having it burning constant throughout the day, on a much lower setting is more efficient. This I sort of get (bit like cruising at speed on a motorway as opposed to start/stop in the city), but at the same time I knew he was also trying to sell me his flash £900 weather compensation system.

Now I know you can also just get a digital programmer to do a similar thing, using the multiple on/off's over the course of the day. For instance (as far as I understand) you could set to say 16 degrees all through the night, up it to say 20 degrees at 7am until 9am, switch it back down to say 17 at 9am until 5pm, then crank it up a notch or two for the evening.

But those who actually know what they're talking about, what should I really do??

PS. I like the look of these...

VRC 470f Wireless Weather Compensator | Vaillant

VRT 392f | Vaillant

[Calm Chris]

If you really want to get into Eco homes, then seal up the house and anyone of half a dozen solutions will work.

Standard heating is a house loop with one area stat and rad stats.

Better heating is two loops, ground and first, extra valves by the pump and two area stats- the idea being that at certain times bedroom /1st floor heating isn't required and ground floor is.

The crucial part of your post is how you intend to use your heating and what you think you need, both depend on attitude to bills and attitude to immediate spend.

Energy will not be getting cheaper, nor will work cost.

[m4ttm4son]

Whether you keep it on all day or not depends how often you're home. It won't be more efficient if you only need it three hours a day. Insulating the house will give you a much better payback than boiler timing, but understand why you might not want to. It can be major work.

[Paul]

I bought a touchscreen heatmiser programmable room stat. At the time they did not do a wifi one, that you could control with a smart phone, now they do.

www.heatmiser.co.uk