Evohome is Noisy - please help me

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  • Sentry1
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Oct 2016
    • 43

    #61
    Originally posted by paulockenden View Post
    Also bear in mind the point I made near the start of this thread about pipework and rads acting as resonators. Try wedging a towel down the back of the rad, as tightly as you can. Only as a temporary measure, of course, because it'll affect the performance. But it'll show whether the rad is amplifying the sound. Maybe also wedge something similar behind the pipes.
    I hear what you're saying, and I'm sure that the sound is travelling through the pipework to a degree. However the primary sound source is definitely the HR92s, not the rads or pipes.

    Comment

    • Arrghh!
      Automated Home Sr Member
      • Dec 2015
      • 73

      #62
      I've got some Valencia valves arriving today and I'm going to see if fitting one to one of our rads makes a difference. I'll do some before and after noise measurements and post the results here.

      Comment

      • Sentry1
        Automated Home Jr Member
        • Oct 2016
        • 43

        #63
        Originally posted by Arrghh! View Post
        I've got some Valencia valves arriving today and I'm going to see if fitting one to one of our rads makes a difference. I'll do some before and after noise measurements and post the results here.
        Wow that is great news! I'm so pleased you're going to share the results. If possible can you attach a HR92 to a valve before its fitted and then afterwards too?

        Thanks loads in advance.

        Comment

        • Arrghh!
          Automated Home Sr Member
          • Dec 2015
          • 73

          #64
          Originally posted by Sentry1 View Post
          Wow that is great news! I'm so pleased you're going to share the results. If possible can you attach a HR92 to a valve before its fitted and then afterwards too?

          Thanks loads in advance.
          Yes, I'll try all the combinations to see if we can draw some conclusions from the experiment.

          Comment

          • fulltopuk
            Automated Home Lurker
            • Oct 2004
            • 2

            #65
            Hi all

            Interesting read. I once had a long conversation with a Myson technical guy and he gave me a few pointers regarding TRV noise. Apologies if this is no use but it sounds that the HR92 may be making more noise for some and not others due to the pressure it is opening and closing against.

            First thing he said was the lock shield has a lot to do with noise both in radiator and the TRV (Manual or automatic), ticking in my case.

            Another issue which I came up against (not with Evohome though) with that fitting automatic valves is that the system may need balancing again, to ensure the pump is not over pressuring the system.

            Just a suggestion.

            Fulltopuk

            Comment

            • Arrghh!
              Automated Home Sr Member
              • Dec 2015
              • 73

              #66
              I've got the Valencia valves now, which interestingly have an integrated lockshield valve.

              I'd be interested to know if people here are using that feature and what differences, if any, they found. I do have issues with whistling valves in my house and I'm wondering if that could help. Also, who is balancing their radiators with Evohome installed? Is it necessary/a good idea?

              I've done some initial tests with my existing valves and a sound meter. There's a variation in noise level if I cycle it from fully open to fully closed or vice versa . The motor usually seems to take a moment to get up to speed and then slows down towards the end of the adjustment. I think that's due to the variation in load on the pin, due to the spring pressure and/or flow through the valve.

              The faster the motor speed, the louder the noise as you would expect but there's still a lot more to it. A big part of it is what some of us have said and that's the pipes, radiator and HR92 body acting as a loudspeaker and amplifying the sound.

              I'm not going to publish any actual figures until I can change the valves over as I want to make sure I do all the tests at the same time, but I'll be testing two HR92s on two different valves (Valencia & AN Other) on and off the radiator. I'll also put some sound deadening around the HR92 to see what difference that makes.

              I should be able to do all this at the weekend. In the meantime, as a little experiment, try cycling one of your HR92s with your hands cupped around the body of the unit (as though you were giving it a hug) and tell me how that affects the level of noise you can hear.

              Comment

              • paulockenden
                Automated Home Legend
                • Apr 2015
                • 1719

                #67
                I don't understand what you mean by integrated lockshield. I have Valencia valves, TRV (HR92) at one end, lockshield at the other.

                Can you explain?

                Comment

                • Arrghh!
                  Automated Home Sr Member
                  • Dec 2015
                  • 73

                  #68
                  This black plastic part _0003_Integrated-Balancing-Insert-Shot-1_150x150.jpg

                  "An Integrated radiator balancing insert retains the radiator balancing setting when the TRV and Lock Shield valves are closed for cleaning and decorating"

                  Comment

                  • chrisgare
                    Automated Home Guru
                    • Dec 2013
                    • 182

                    #69
                    I have DT92Es in all my rooms as having a remote sensor makes a room much more comfortable as discussed elsewhere on this chat. If one of these is used in the child's bedroom is should be possible to make a nice chunky cover to push over the actuator to deaden the noise by a few dB. Carve one out of a block of polystyrene? It works for Bose earphones so should work here.
                    Last edited by chrisgare; 7 December 2016, 08:28 PM.

                    Comment

                    • Sentry1
                      Automated Home Jr Member
                      • Oct 2016
                      • 43

                      #70
                      Originally posted by Arrghh! View Post
                      I've got the Valencia valves now, which interestingly have an integrated lockshield valve.

                      I'd be interested to know if people here are using that feature and what differences, if any, they found. I do have issues with whistling valves in my house and I'm wondering if that could help. Also, who is balancing their radiators with Evohome installed? Is it necessary/a good idea?

                      I've done some initial tests with my existing valves and a sound meter. There's a variation in noise level if I cycle it from fully open to fully closed or vice versa . The motor usually seems to take a moment to get up to speed and then slows down towards the end of the adjustment. I think that's due to the variation in load on the pin, due to the spring pressure and/or flow through the valve.

                      The faster the motor speed, the louder the noise as you would expect but there's still a lot more to it. A big part of it is what some of us have said and that's the pipes, radiator and HR92 body acting as a loudspeaker and amplifying the sound.

                      I'm not going to publish any actual figures until I can change the valves over as I want to make sure I do all the tests at the same time, but I'll be testing two HR92s on two different valves (Valencia & AN Other) on and off the radiator. I'll also put some sound deadening around the HR92 to see what difference that makes.

                      I should be able to do all this at the weekend. In the meantime, as a little experiment, try cycling one of your HR92s with your hands cupped around the body of the unit (as though you were giving it a hug) and tell me how that affects the level of noise you can hear.
                      I'm looking forward to the results of this after the weekend. Good work!

                      As for sound deadening, one of the first things I did was to see what impact it made to place some pressure on the unit itself. It did make a difference insofar as the plastic is quite thin and the unit itself is not very weighty. When I took one of the units completely apart I was trying to find a way to reduce vibration internally (there isn't of course!). In our case there is very limited resonance through the pipes and rads - by that I mean that the source of the noise in the room is definitely directly from the HR92.

                      I wait for your results with anticipation and with car keys in hand to go buy some Valencia TRVs :-)

                      Can I be really clear here. I'm not looking for or expecting silence from the HR92s. I really do hope that the noise can be reduced to an acceptable level which doesn't wake up the kids (boy nearly 2 and girl nearly 5.....both rads the other side of the room to their beds) and doesn't prompt comments from guests (and gritted teeth from me) on every adjustment (and especially at the time of "the dawn chorus" when all valves get opened upstairs simultaneously).

                      Good luck in the experiments!
                      Last edited by Sentry1; 8 December 2016, 12:46 PM.

                      Comment

                      • DBMandrake
                        Automated Home Legend
                        • Sep 2014
                        • 2361

                        #71
                        Originally posted by Sentry1 View Post
                        (and especially at the time of "the dawn chorus" when all valves get opened upstairs simultaneously).
                        I take it you don't use optimal start then ?

                        With optimal start enabled even if all the rooms are scheduled for the same time because the predicted warm up time for each room will be different the actual start times of all radiators will be staggered instead of all occurring at once.

                        Comment

                        • Sentry1
                          Automated Home Jr Member
                          • Oct 2016
                          • 43

                          #72
                          Originally posted by DBMandrake View Post
                          I take it you don't use optimal start then ?

                          With optimal start enabled even if all the rooms are scheduled for the same time because the predicted warm up time for each room will be different the actual start times of all radiators will be staggered instead of all occurring at once.
                          No - and there's a reason for that......I don't want to wake the kids any earlier than absolutely necessary!

                          I had hoped to use optimal start - it was one of the interesting features that made me make the purchase - but no, I think that will have to wait until I can quieten these things down.

                          Comment

                          • MrB
                            Automated Home Sr Member
                            • Oct 2015
                            • 80

                            #73
                            Just been reading this thread and here's a thought.
                            We have Evohome for about a year - it is a good thing!
                            Has some wrinkles and API access could be a lot better.

                            After the complete silence from old mechanical TRV's the motor driven Evo's were immediately noticeable. Teenager daughter complained the most (of course)...
                            But I knew it's like people living next to train lines or under flight paths - given time your brain simply accepts it as background noise and no longer will react to it.

                            ok - we all know that of course, but after reading this thread I realised our Evo TRVs were quiter now than at the beginning, and it wasn't just the acoustic acclimatisation.
                            What had happened during this first year was the water pressure in the heating system have been slowly been increased from 1 Bar to 1.5-1.8 Bar - this was because of residual micro bubbles and our mains water pressure had increased so that the "top-up" had allowed increase filling pressure (we now have about 2 Bar mains water pressure).

                            Could it be that the increased rad/pipe pressure had increased the load on the rad Honeywell valves such that the force required from the Evo TRV pin meant the component parts have been squeezed together and actually reduced the noise level (akin to not "rattling"). Of course, the other side of the fence to this is that the battery life will be shorter due to the increased power requirement.

                            Thoughts?
                            Last edited by MrB; 8 December 2016, 05:26 PM.

                            Comment

                            • paulockenden
                              Automated Home Legend
                              • Apr 2015
                              • 1719

                              #74
                              The increased pressure might also reduce the resonance from the rads and piework?

                              Comment

                              • Arrghh!
                                Automated Home Sr Member
                                • Dec 2015
                                • 73

                                #75
                                So, the plot thickens....

                                I was at my mother's house today where I also have an Evohome system installed. I tested two of her HR92s and they were considerably quieter than the ones in my house.

                                This is a good thing, potentially, as I now should be able to swap some components between systems which may help to work out what's happening.

                                First of all, is there a difference in the HR92s? Visually, I would say not.

                                The ID number under the LCD display is

                                "HR92UK" - same for all of them
                                "1.01" - same for all of them
                                The numbers which differ are then formatted "XXXX X STX" but there's no real pattern between the ones in each house other then mine are "161X X ST2" and in my mother's house they are "153X X ST3", so make of that what you will.

                                Possibly more relevant are the valves. In my house, I have valves with no obvious manufacturer's markings on them, but they don't need adapters to take the HR92s. In my mother's house, the valves are TPK 43 (Travis Perkins) valves with plastic adapters to allow the HR92s to be fitted.

                                I'm not saying the valves are making the difference (testing required first!) but it's one thing to consider.

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