My 90 year old dad is doing his best to keep warm with the soaring heating costs. He could probably afford to keep his heating on 24/7 but pride and principles stops him from giving all his money to the utility companies.
He is very cold in bed at night even with thick quilt etc and would probably benefit from having room heating on all night. But he won’t as he doesn’t want to go round the rest of the house turning all the other radiators off every night and then repeat in morning.
He is very tech savvy with his Apple Watch, iPhone. iPad, Alexa everywhere, ring cameras etc. Thinking of whether we could get him the smart radiator thermostats so that he could just either ask Alexa or control from an app what radiator should be on.
I have Hive myself though I don’t have the radiator thermostats, just the basic controller and the app. But also aware that there are loads of these types of things on market.
Anyone with these and have any suggestions on best way forward? Probably talking about 6 radiators that would want controlled though in total there are 8 and a bathroom but the other two rooms are rarely used.
Do these individual thermostats actually give you each room temperature on the app? Though I guess the temp at skirting board level probably isn’t a true temp?
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I don't know much about the radiator thermostat except they seem incredibly expensive to me - was it £40 or £80 per radiator? - and I think they are pretty pointless - certainly sound like a sledgehammer to crack a nut in this case.
SWMBO feels the cold a lot and last year got an electric underblanket which is designed to be slept on. Here's a for instance, on Amazon tinyurl.com/2uchenhk - someone on the Q&A says it's 60w.
Or there are electric overblankets. Neither are that expensive to run.
And of course Black Friday is looming.
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I too think an electric blanket is the answer.
However if that’s unsuitable and he is just trying to heat one room at night perhaps he could ignore the CH and just use an electric heater in the bedroom. I know the cost per kwh will be much more for electric but the oil filled rad I use for spot heating has an onboard thermostat. This means that when it’s reached temperature it only comes on a few times an hour so the rated kwh is an overestimate. Contrast this with running a whole central heating system and pipe work to heat a sole rad and I think the cost gap will be closer again. An electric heater can also be easily attached to a plug in timer, smart control or room thermostat at relatively low cost.
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£30 for a double electric blanket at Lidl - It's a branded make. Silentnight???
3 heat levels - say level 3 to warm the bed for 20 mins (say). Then on on level 1 it will burn very little electricity but keep him cosy all night.
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A single smart radiator thermostat wont work. It has to control the CH boiler to command heat when it gets too cold, which in turn heats up ALL the rads. If you want this system to work the only way you could work it would be to install smart rad stats on all radiators and have all the other rads turn down at night.
They are only useful for keeping one room cooler.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 23 Nov 22 at 10:04
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" install smart rad stats on all radiators and have all the other rads turn down at night" - must admit that's what I thought Bobby was thinking.
If you do go for an electric underblanket just make sure it is suitable to be left on all night as some aren't designed to be slept on.
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>> " install smart rad stats on all radiators and have all the other rads turn
>> down at night" - must admit that's what I thought Bobby was thinking.
Indeed so you have to put rad stats on ALL radiators. Reread his post and thats what he wanted. Expensive. Best to install hive or nest for that level of control, wont add much more to the expense of changing all rad valves.
>> If you do go for an electric underblanket just make sure it is suitable to
>> be left on all night as some aren't designed to be slept on.
>>
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 23 Nov 22 at 10:14
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Cheers, for some reason he refuses to have an electric blanket.
But when he is sitting on his recliner chair in the living room he has one of these plug in heated throws over the top of him. Maybe a throwback to the old days when I believe electric blankets were fire risks.
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What would it take to make him happy with the electric underblanket? Is he concerned about shocks?
I haven't used one since maybe 1982 when our first house had no CH, no heating at all upstairs. We had a paraffin heater in the bathroom when it was proper cold later we used a fan heater for the time we were in there each morning.
The most luxurious thing I have ever experienced is still the electric blanket, and I became an evangelist.
More than ever, it must be the answer. Running cost maybe 25p/night? About 120W max draw.
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Really don’t know is the answer.
I have tasked big brother to have the chat with him tomorrow to try and find reason why.
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Smart radiator thermostats - smokie
