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Heating Controls advice please for Ariston micro type C boiler

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2021 7:43 pm
by pcarbery
I have just bought a second hand house which is about 14 years old. It has an "Ariston micro Type C" gas boiler. There are 2 zones controlled by analogue thermostats but no separate hot water..i.e. if heating is on so is hot water. The system is gravity fed and vented. The radiators have TRV's on them.
I am looking to upgrade the heating controls while staying within a budget - so possibly DIY. I would like to be able to control the temp of each room individually - i.e. wireless TRV's.
I was thinking of going with the "Drayton wiser" but have read that my system is not suited because it is not "fully pumped".
I would be confident replacing the trv's and wiring a new control panel if there are decent instructions...
What would anyone recommend?

Re: Heating Controls advice please for Ariston micro type C boiler

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2021 5:39 pm
by ericmark
The first thing is look at boiler instructions I found these https://www.ariston.com/uk/media/files/ ... 20Serv.pdf and I looked for any ebus options and it seems there are non.

However confused as it seems it is a combi boiler, not the type of boiler used with the old C Plan.

I am going to assume it is a combi, although it makes little difference, there is one thermostat which is not connected to ebus, but instead uses a "demand for heat" system. It is called Hive, however Hive is not designed to work with systems already zoned, EPH is and so is Drayton Wiser but to be frank not sure the zoned system is really fit for purpose.

I don't know about you, but I have a craft room and office upstairs, which are used during the day, and the dinning room down stairs is only used for around 3 hours a day, well at moment not used at all.

So I do use zone valves to isolate the flat under main house which is hardly used, but for main house programmable TRV heads work far better than any zone valve.

So Hive TRV heads are not cheap, however I bought eQ-3 heads with blue tooth for £15 each and seen the non blue tooth at £10 each, seems since brexit prices have risen there is also the Terrier i30 TRV head.

So the Hive head sends a signal to hive to tell it to switch on even if the room where wall thermostat is has reached target temperature, so likely you want some Hive TRV's in critical rooms, but cheaper but still programmable TRV's in rooms where it is over heating that is a problem.

And the two motorised valves are switched on together, it does not matter if motorised valve is switched on, if the programmable TRV is not open, the room will not heat.

I got it wrong, I went for Nest, and Nest does not link to TRV heads. It should do, but does not. I will admit the Nest geofencing works well, and the motion detector does mean even if some one without a linked phone is in the house, the heating works. But for your boiler I think Hive would suit better, I would say likely 2 Hive TRV heads and rest cheap ones but electronic so can be programmed and set in degrees C so some silly *123456 setting.

So the Hive will connect to brown wires from motorised valves, so it opens both valves together, yes you could use two Hive wall units, but really no point let the TRV heads form the zones, no need for zone valves.