The Lemon Fool

My elderly mother had a central heating refresh last year and has been struggling with the controls ever since. It's a 'Danfoss' wall mounted unit and has tiny buttons and display and it's very user unfriendly, even for me. The engineer is coming out next week to talk about a replacement so can anyone suggest a super easy control that an elderly person would find easy to use. Nothing complicated, just an easy way of adjusting the temperature up or down a degree and a 'boost' button that turns on the heating by a set period of an hour etc. Anything 'smart' is definitely out, as she doesn't have internet or mobile/smart phone. A wireless control would be considered though so she can move it from room to room. Unfortunately, we live 200 miles away so cannot be present when the engineer turns up.

TIA

My mum lost her mobility a few years ago and was a total technophobe, so I fitted one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1

It's only a thermostat, but it suited her fine. She had the thermostat on the table next to her, and there were no RF connection problems to the base unit next to the boiler, through a few concrete walls. We had the boiler on a timer so it was always off from 21:00 to 06:00. Outwith those hours, she turned it all the way to the right if she was too cold, and all the way to the left if she was too hot. She could never get to grips with the idea of a thermostat where you just set the temperature to 20deg or whatever. It was either on or off.

I wired it in parallel with the existing wall-mounted thermostat in the hall, which was set to 16deg so that if the new unit failed due to a flat battery or whatever, the temperature could never drop too low.

--kiloran

My elderly mother has a Honeywell controller that has a tabletop/hand held unit. Large display and large up and down buttons. The boiler can be on 24/7 and just turned on/off on the controller by temperature. Really easy. I keep an eye on the gas consumption and she gets a warning from me if her gas consumption is unusually low in cold weather. One advantage of having smart meters. I couldn't do that with a regular meter.

My mum can't cope with a 24/7 7 day programmable timer so we've just had to accept that the heating is switched to constant all the time and she just controls it on and off with an old fashioned turn dial type room stat on the wall. Not ideal because it relies on her remembering to turn the dial down to zero before bedtime and when she goes out but she tells me she's very good at that...

Thanks all. Sounds like complex controls are a common issue for elderly folks. We have an 'Ideal PRT 2' control which would do the job nicely for her but they don't seem to make simple electro-mechanical ones any more. She has an annual contract with the local firm that installed it and I've asked them to call round and see her. I've told them to make a couple of recommendations (with cost) and I'll read the manuals to see how easy they are to operate before a decision is made.

On the subject of boiler controls for those who have a combi boiler with an integral Graslin type 7 day timer, and do do smart phones, I bought one of these WiFi timers from amazon last year. If you can wire a plug you can replace your old timer with this one.
It surely paid for itself last winter because instead of having daily programmed on/off times for heating, wherever I was each day I could turn the heating on 15 minutes before I arrived home and set the off time at the same time. Also got into the habit of firing up the boiler from bed in the morning 15 minutes before getting up to make my morning cafe. Worth every penny of the 40 quid

Deal: Optimum OP-BM/IHTWF01 Wi-Fi Enabled Universal Boiler Module/Immersion Heater Control, 230 V, White https://amzn.eu/d/9mSR0kZ

Logically, one should just set the temperature once and leave it.

However, all the good retailers like Screwfix still sell the old fashioned thermostats with a rotating dial. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

As for timers, mine by Danfoss has a programmer and a +1 hour button, which can run the heating for an extra hour. This is also quite simple, as you can programme it once and use the +1 hour button for any exceptional additional needs.

jaizan wrote:
Logically, one should just set the temperature once and leave it.

I can see some logic in that, except for one crucial element that would certainly mean it wouldn't suit my own comfort requirements, and that's the simple fact that we're not normally only in one single 'mode' when utilising a home.

What I mean by that is that normally, daylight periods might be spent around the home in fairly light-weight in-home clothing, which I agree might only require a simple, single-setting temperature configuration during those periods, but it's the night-time periods that would throw that into a situation where I wouldn't actually be comfortable with normal day-time temperatures in my home, because for long periods I'll be in bed using a duvet scheme that is by default a lot warmer than the day-time clothing I'd normally be covered with.

So I definitely don't want a single-temperature setting for my home to be a 24-hour affair, and I at least want to be able to configure my home heating to cater for a much lower night-time configuration, or as I like to call it - OFF...

As it happens, I go beyond that, and in winter periods where I've turned all my home radiators back on after being shut down all summer, I'll have an additional digital-timer TRV (non-SMART) on our main bedroom radiator, to close that one completely off at 5pm, to cool the main bedroom down even in winter whilst the rest of the living areas might continue to see warmer radiators until 8pm, so even a simple two-configuration temperature setting can be improved on quite simply, to help cope with individual needs on a room-to-room basis...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

jaizan wrote:As for timers, mine by Danfoss has a programmer and a +1 hour button, which can run the heating for an extra hour. This is also quite simple, as you can programme it once and use the +1 hour button for any exceptional additional needs.

That's the one thing I miss with my oh-so-clever Nest.

Just a way of switching on for an hour then going back to the previous setting without intervention.

Can't be done.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

jaizan wrote:
As for timers, mine by Danfoss has a programmer and a +1 hour button, which can run the heating for an extra hour. This is also quite simple, as you can programme it once and use the +1 hour button for any exceptional additional needs.

That's the one thing I miss with my oh-so-clever Nest.

Just a way of switching on for an hour then going back to the previous setting without intervention.

Can't be done.

I built my own one-hour boost switch using these -

Electronic Timer Adjustable - 2 Mins - 2 hours - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/EK320A.html

1 Gang 2 Way Press Plateswitch 10 Amp - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/MKK4878P.html

I just wired in the above across the 'call for heat' terminals in my boiler, in parallel with the existing controls, and everything works very well.

When operated, it ignores the house thermostat and just uses the boiler-return heat setting to control circuit-water temperatures, but given it's use-case of a one-hour boost in cold conditions, I'm happy that the house-thermostat wouldn't normally be of any use for single-hour boost periods anyway...

I'm not familiar with the Nest wiring configuration, but there's normally two terminals that have a 'calling for heat' function, so it might be worth investigating.

We use it quite often in the winter, and it's a useful control option to have available where I'm looking to create multi-layered heating controls whilst staying SMART-free...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

swill453 wrote:

jaizan wrote:As for timers, mine by Danfoss has a programmer and a +1 hour button, which can run the heating for an extra hour. This is also quite simple, as you can programme it once and use the +1 hour button for any exceptional additional needs.

That's the one thing I miss with my oh-so-clever Nest.

Just a way of switching on for an hour then going back to the previous setting without intervention.

Can't be done.

Scott.

Several of the central heating programmers I see out and about in my work have a +1 hr 'override' facility, after which they revert to the programme, so they do exist. Nearly all have an "advance' button, which brings forward the next switching event.

Next time I notice one with +1hr button I'll take a note. I agree, it's very useful.

Mike4 wrote:

swill453 wrote:That's the one thing I miss with my oh-so-clever Nest.

Just a way of switching on for an hour then going back to the previous setting without intervention.

Can't be done.

Several of the central heating programmers I see out and about in my work have a +1 hr 'override' facility, after which they revert to the programme, so they do exist. Nearly all have an "advance' button, which brings forward the next switching event.

Next time I notice one with +1hr button I'll take a note. I agree, it's very useful.

The best I can do with my Nest is to manually whack up the temperature to make it come on. If it's in timer-mode then it will revert to the programme at the next switching event, which is not too bad.

But in summer when the system is generally off, then it would stay on forever until I turn it down again.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Several of the central heating programmers I see out and about in my work have a +1 hr 'override' facility, after which they revert to the programme, so they do exist. Nearly all have an "advance' button, which brings forward the next switching event.

Next time I notice one with +1hr button I'll take a note. I agree, it's very useful.

The best I can do with my Nest is to manually whack up the temperature to make it come on. If it's in timer-mode then it will revert to the programme at the next switching event, which is not too bad.

But in summer when the system is generally off, then it would stay on forever until I turn it down again.

Scott.

Ah now that's interesting. If I turn my Nest up in the summer it still reverts to the programme, sometimes annoyingly quickly.

Another thing about Nests is I've had several myself and see them in customers' houses too, and they are never the same! There seems to be loads of different versions of Nest out there, all working slightly differently. Or very differently I find, when trying to turn someone's heating or hot water ON!

Mike4 wrote:Ah now that's interesting. If I turn my Nest up in the summer it still reverts to the programme, sometimes annoyingly quickly.

I wanted full manual control in the summer, so I deleted all the programming, knowing I'll have to enter it again in autumn.

What I really want is to be able to switch to manual without having to do the above, and have a 1 hour boost available.

(I know I should trust the programming, I just didn't want the heating kicking in on a cool summer morning without me saying so.)

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Ah now that's interesting. If I turn my Nest up in the summer it still reverts to the programme, sometimes annoyingly quickly.

I wanted full manual control in the summer, so I deleted all the programming, knowing I'll have to enter it again in autumn.

What I really want is to be able to switch to manual without having to do the above, and have a 1 hour boost available.

(I know I should trust the programming, I just didn't want the heating kicking in on a cool summer morning without me saying so.)

Scott.

Sounds like you wanted Hive. You get a "boost" button for both CH and HW, configurable as to how long the boost will actually last. You can switch between schedule/manual ( separately for each of CH/HW ) without having to delete all the scheduling detail.

genou wrote:Sounds like you wanted Hive. You get a "boost" button for both CH and HW, configurable as to how long the boost will actually last. You can switch between schedule/manual ( separately for each of CH/HW ) without having to delete all the scheduling detail.

You're right, I had Hive in my last house, and am probably suffering by trying to force Nest to imitate it.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:That's the one thing I miss with my oh-so-clever Nest.Just a way of switching on for an hour then going back to the previous setting without intervention.Can't be done.

That's one of the reasons why I've not changed to one of these fancy hive or nest type things. They tend to lack the nice basic features that my older system has.
I use the + 1 hour on the programme.
Also, the thermostat has a feature where I can set an upper limit for the temperature which cannot be changed without entering the advanced setting mode.