Has anyone bought one of these for £99 via the N-Power promotion?
Great posting @Mr X & @jouster
I have 1 nest unit downstairs and nothing upstairs. I'd like to be able to control them as zones and could do with some help. I currently have honeywell radiator valves, but guess I need something else here rather then just purchase another nest unit?
Hi there.It all depends on how your heating is piped up.
If it's piped in two zones.Ie you have/had two existing thermostats.Then you'd need two Nests, like myself.But if you only have one thermostat in the house.Which is very normal for houses more than say 7 years old.Then you'd need to have thermostatically controlled vales on each radio taro and a separate system to control each radiator.Along the lines of Evohome but this works out very expensive and is determined by the type of rads you have.I intended to go that was originally but for my install at home it would havebeen around £1500 and it would have taken a long long time to get that back.Luckily I then waited and NEST appeared.
I also now have 4 Nesp protects and already had the Harmony Ultimate.So handy with all of that as well. Loving the system and now just hoping some sort of home alarm system comes out so I can upgrade my Prime wireless system.
It's almost def piped into one zone. I have thermostatically controlled vales on all radiators.
Do I need to look into getting pipes changed around then to create a zone?
Depending on where your pipes are run it may be expensive and disruptive to modify the pipework to create two zones. you might be lucky and find the pipes are split in such away that you can simply have a new zone valve fitted and the existing valve moved, so it is worth checking.
Another option is to fit wired actuators onto the existing TRV valve bodies, which are wired back to their respective Nest controller (running cables is often much easier than major changes to plumbing). This allows you to zone however you like, depending on how you group the actuators wiring. This is a wired equivalent of how the Honeywell Evo system zones up a radiator system using their wireless actuators.
This may sound like a daft question but what are the benefits of having two zones apart from having say up stairs warmer than downstairs would thermostatic valves on the radiators not do the same job?
Building regs now require upstairs and downstairs to be different zones when the property is over a certain floor area. This is because a single heating circuit with TRVs cannot prevent all rooms being heated unless the rads are manually switched off. Zone valves let you choose which groups of rooms are heated, and room zone control takes this to the point of allowing only the rooms you occupy to be heated at the times you use them. This improves energy efficiency and comfort at the expense of more sophisticated controls. TRVs are relatively crude devices due to the thermostat-mechanical head which is reflected in their performance, so it is not difficult to significantly improve this element without spending huge amounts of money.
Has anyone noticed the claimed 5-30% reduction in gas bills using nest?
Yes! I haven't had the heating on all summer!
I think I'll have to wait until the winter to see any savings. If anything it does look nice.