Central heating controls

Thankfully we can turn ours to "continuous" when we wish; and just close off those radiators we do not need. The sort of gobbledygook you have before you is mind-numbing.

We took delivery of a new fridge yesterday and had to turn the door round so that it opened on the other side. The directions were translated from Italian and were pretty funny - it took us all evening. And then, when all was done, we found a screw and a tiny spring on the floor. We have put it in a drawer and out of our minds!

I do hope that you manage to make some sense of these instructions and get to keep warm in the afternoons.

JessM, oh how I know how you feel. Until we had our boiler replaced a few years ago we just pushed a button on the boiler and we could override the clock.

The new boiler was installed and then the gas fitter explained that the boiler could only be controlled from the programmable thermostat. He didn't know how it worked. The leaflet was in such small print we had to scan it into the computer and enlarge it and print it out. DH is an engineer and even then it took us all afternoon to read the instructions, make sense of them and programme the thermostat to our requirements, but over riding the set programme was really complicated.

After a couple of years, after seeing the simple to operate thermostat DD had on her new system, we paid several hubdred pounds to have the thermostat supplied by British Gas taken out and replaced by one like DD's.

There are simple to understand programmable thermostats around, but you have to look for them.

Our timer which is situated in the hall has never worked. We simply turn the dial on the boiler itself from water (pic of tap) to water and heat (pic of tap and a radiator) Bit inconvenient as it obviously doesn't come on before we get up but at least we can turn it on and off whenever we want during the day.

If you search the internet for instructions for your thermostst, you migh find there are more than one, and that might explain better.

I know that is the case with our system

It seems everything comes with complicated instructions these days! I bought a new clock/radio - it has 7 buttons on the top which each carry out several different functions. If I want to change the alarm time I have to get the instruction book and go through a complicated sequence in order to do so. Even tuning into a different station or adjusting the sound levels involves pressing several different buttons - whatever happened to just turning a knob!!!

Jess I can sympathise! I am not good at reading instructions at the best of times, but the instructions for my underfloor heating thermostat/timer are so complicated that even my computer 'guru' couldn't make head or tail of them. I just keep it on the sunshine icon and manually up or down the temperature, which I expect is completely the wrong way to go about it..

I don't have this problem. The radiator in our bedroom is turned down, but the rest of the bungalow is kept at 21 degrees 24 hrs a day.

we have a "boost" button on our heating and it puts the boiler on for an hour in between the timer settings

The controls for our boiler require an engineering degree. The plumber set up the controls ( a remote panel ) when he fitted the boiler and DH managed to operate the heating . Unfortunately DH dropped the remote unit and had to order a new one, he thought he would set it up himself but the reality was that the wifi unit would not talk to the boiler. Several hours of me hiding working in the study and DH talking to the boiler he eventually managed to get it to work.

On my boiler I press the little wine glass (party time) if I want the heat to stop on longer than it is programmed for and the little pig (piggy bank) if I want the programmed heat to cut back because I am going out. Sounds idyllic? But I have no thermostatic control anywhere in the house. Instead, when the temperature drops outside, my heating comes on. This external thermostat is on the north (cold) side of the building, but my kitchen and lounge face due south. So on some occasions, when sunlight is streaming into my living space, the thermostat is still telling the boiler to churn out heat. The old system I had with a thermostat up the hall was much better.

Ours is very basic thank goodness, it has a 1hr boost if we need it or we out it on constant and then just turn the thermostat up or down according to how chilly OH is feeling... I sometimes need a 'cooling' walk up the garden

I was thinking of getting a Hive which you can operate remotely via an app. Anyone got one, any good?

We have the same problem with the heating controls we inherited with this house. We can set the water and the heating to come on twice a day, once a day or continuously. Fine. But if we want to have the heating on once a day and the water on twice a day, you can't make it happen, despite what the instructions say. Even our heating engineer, after much fiddling around and scratching his head, can't make it happen. So we have to have the heating on continuously, and control it with the thermostat in the hall.

We have a Hive Chelsea. We find it really good and there is a boost button on the app for both the heating and the water. There are lots of 'slots' for different times and each day is capable of being programmed separately for both heating and water.

We have a hive. It is very easy to control the heating and hot water from your phone even when you are away from home. I am now able to tell my husband that our house is NOT hot but actually cooler than others near by with a Hive.

I really couldn't be bothered with a Hive. I have heard all the adverts and read the press reports. I do not want to have to think about when and how I want the heating on or off on a daily basis. I just want it to come on and off twice a day without any involvement on my part so that the house is warm when I need it and thats that. Our current programmable thermostat makes it possible to quite easily turn the heating down or off if we are a way for more than 24 hours.

Anyway I live in a mobile black hole, so using anything that depends on mobile phone reception is a non-starter anyway

My hive enables me to do whatever I want and is more programmable than the digital programmer we had before. And it depends on internet not mobile.

I have my water on an economy setting so it only heats water when you turn on a hot tap. The heat is on Constant from 6am to 10pm and I click it on and off as required from the thermostat in the hall, which is usually turned to 15. If there's snow I might go to the giddy heights of 17.
I cannot programme anything.

15 degrees???

DH says that our brand new boiler/ thermostat is all set up now ( took him ages to do it) but when I asked a simple question about changing something he almost had a fit and said it was too complicated to change it now

I like it set at 20, and it comes on at 6 am and goes off at 11 pm.

We have heating on from 6.00 - 9.30am and 4.00 - 10.00pm. The thermostat is set at 18.5. If the temperature outside looks like staying around 5 degrees or below all day, we light the log stove.

If we go away we put the programmer on the 'holifay' setting and the heating only comes on if the internal temperature falls below 10 degrees.

Thanks for responses 're the Hive. Need some other work doing on boiler so might have to delay getting one.

Way back when, I was told that during a cold snap it was more economical to leave the heating on continuously during a cold snap. the house is then kept at a constant temperature. Any ideas?