UKH

Anybody use a Nest thermostat?

If you do, are they all hype or do they actually help reduce your energy costs?

We’ve got one. It’s mega handy, but pretty sure it’s not reduced our energy consumption. 

One big convenience / advantage, but environmental / cost disadvantage, is the ability to be able to remotely turn on the heating in advance of coming home, which I’m led to believe many people do, including us; I’m afraid to say...

Got a Hive, basically the same thing 

Energy bill’s not reduced as Plyometrics has said. It is nice to come home to a warm house

Other fun things are linking with a smart plug and having the kettle brew as soon as I wake or linking it with a motion sensor and having the bathroom light come on for the little one in the middle of the night. 

Total first word luxuries

We've got one - we had it installed very shortly after we moved in, so can't really comment about how it's affected our bills. It probably depends on your lifestyle really - we probably save some money because we're often away at weekends, and so it will keep the heating turned down if we're not in. Like the others, we use it to get the house warm for our arrival, which probably mitigates some of the savings - and because it's easy to use and in the hall it probably gets turned up more than a standard thermostat would be.

Evohome is good. You can set every room to a different temperature from the app.  

I'll look into that.

cheers

*tin foil hat on*

It's worth considering the data implications of using these devices, so that if you decide to use them you do so in an informed way.  https://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/blog/2017/10/25/where-does-your-data-go-m....

*tin foil hat off*

Or you could just ignore this and go "Meh, someone else knowing what temperature I like my house is really not that big a deal!"

We’ve got two to manage a two storey house and the dhw. I only got them as I was replacing the boiler and this seemed like a smart upgrade at the same time. 

I’ve been left ambivalent. Our lifestyle is too chaotic to take advantage of the learning function. It was creating all sorts of oddities as I sensed people moving at 3am in the morning and put the heating on for them. The next day it hearing comes on 2hrs earlier so it can pre-heat to the desired temperature when someone is up at 3am. We gave up on that but found you had to soft reset the units to clear the memory. We know use them as programmable thermostats that we can control remotely and that seems to work fine. 

Conclusion, not life changing for us but could work well for creatures of habit.

+1 for evohome. Quite a capital investment, cheapest I found was on Amazon. Worth it in a larger old house that lacks insulation I think though we have only had it in 4 months thus far.

Other than the remote control facility, what's the advantage compared to a conventional programmer and TRV set up?

Another evohome user here. There is no room thermostat like the Nest. Each radiator has a programmable thermostatic valve. So for example the main bathroom radiator goes on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. The systems relies on room doors to be kept closed thus cutting down heat waste, why have your hall warm. I have no doubt that this system has saved me money over a traditional system. Once you have programmed the radiator valves thats it, no need to change the settings for the warmer seasons.

These devices all depend on your current behaviour when it comes to heating, if you avoid automatic mode and turn it on when you come home and off when you leave (and never forget this step) then the savings will be negligible.

If you currently make use of the automatic scheduling and end up heating your empty house when you are at the wall/working late/dinner out etc. then the savings can be reasonable per year, maybe £50-£100 depending on the insulation, house size etc.

If you are currently in the second group then the savings plus other benefits are worth considering IMO.

I think being able to have some rooms warmer than others at different times can save money.  

No point in heating the bedrooms until just before bedtime.  

That depends on what you have in mind when you get there. Sleeping is only one option . . .

T.

I meant when the room wasn’t occupied.  Equally it doesn’t have to be the bedroom...

I don't see the problem with setting the heating to come on an hour before you come home. What is the point of coming home to a cold house and having to sit and wait an hour or so while it warms up?

I guess if you are delayed it's wasteful.  Or if you don't have a consistent routine.  

Each radiator is controlled independently and can call for heat. I have a 6 bedroom poorly insulated Victorian house. We don't heat upstairs in the day nor do we heat the front rooms just the kitchen and sitting room. In the later evening I can warm the office and/or lounge up if I'm going to use it.

Room temperatures are stable and react to door openings. You are not reliant on turning up the roomstat to ensure the TRVs can throttle everything back. Comfort is definitely improved.