Hi Everyone
I am really happy and really disappointed in equal measure with Honeywell Evohome. A few weeks ago I installed 10 x HR92 units throughout the house. Two of the radiator valves required adapters and all went fine.
I decided not to use hot water control - I don't really see the benefit for our family for this.
In terms of an Evohome review, I would state that this system is a revelation. We have a four storey house and the fine grained control in each room is wonderful. We have had much fun tweaking the settings to get this just right for each room. However the Evohome TRVs are incredibly noisy. This is really significant and pretty much means evohome is useless for us. I have two small children and they were a big reason for the investment - when necessary I wanted to keep their rooms warm at night without heating the whole house. However the noise from the HR92s wake them up on every adjustment. At some point I will post a link to a video to demonstrate how loud the Evohome TRVs actually are. There is seemingly nothing I can do - I have used a really thick silicone grease on the cogs, I have made sure each one is firmly screwed down, I have tried using the "optimise" mode, I have disassembled one of the units to see if I could replace the motor - nothing stops the whine that comes from the units.
Honeywell provided this response to me when I asked what could be done:
I simply do not believe that they invested that much in to the User Experience and ignored the noise issue. I do not believe their comment "designed with noise reduction in mind".
They mention gearing - if they seriously wanted to fix this issue they would use a far more favourable gearing ratio. This would mean it would take longer to open and close the valves but that wouldn't matter at all and the stress on the motor and the gearbox would be far less. Even if it took 1 minute to open or close the valves, this would have no major bearing on the performance of the system.
Come on Honeywell - if you want Evohome to be a serious contender then you have to address this issue.
My final plea (before I have to return this whole system) - has anyone solved this problem? Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how to silence the noise from the HR92? Any ideas would be gratefully received.
Cheers
Sentry1
I am really happy and really disappointed in equal measure with Honeywell Evohome. A few weeks ago I installed 10 x HR92 units throughout the house. Two of the radiator valves required adapters and all went fine.
I decided not to use hot water control - I don't really see the benefit for our family for this.
In terms of an Evohome review, I would state that this system is a revelation. We have a four storey house and the fine grained control in each room is wonderful. We have had much fun tweaking the settings to get this just right for each room. However the Evohome TRVs are incredibly noisy. This is really significant and pretty much means evohome is useless for us. I have two small children and they were a big reason for the investment - when necessary I wanted to keep their rooms warm at night without heating the whole house. However the noise from the HR92s wake them up on every adjustment. At some point I will post a link to a video to demonstrate how loud the Evohome TRVs actually are. There is seemingly nothing I can do - I have used a really thick silicone grease on the cogs, I have made sure each one is firmly screwed down, I have tried using the "optimise" mode, I have disassembled one of the units to see if I could replace the motor - nothing stops the whine that comes from the units.
Honeywell provided this response to me when I asked what could be done:
"The product was designed with noise reduction in mind and does compare favourably with both older designs and competitive products.
The force required to close some radiator valve is really quite high. The head needs a lot of torque to operate them, this need a high gear ratio to generate the force and puts a considerable strain on the gearbox, this is what generates the noise.
To minimise the operational noise the system was designed to only fully open or close the valve at the start and end of a heat demand at other times it minimised the adjustment to single steps and its operation is very quiet.
You can make some compromises to the operation:
The system will normally optimise the heating start so the room is warm when you wake, obviously this will mean opening while you are asleep. If optimisation is switched off it will operate like an old heating system and only open once you are already awake.
A second option would be to remove the head from a noise sensitive room but leave the rest of the house zoned.
Finally for silent operation the zone could be modified to use an electrically operated MT8 head. This is thermally operated and completely silent but would need a BDR91 relay and Room sensor T87RF. The BDR91 should be installed outside the sleeping area as the relay will click as it operates and if the owner is very sensitive to noise this will be heard."
The force required to close some radiator valve is really quite high. The head needs a lot of torque to operate them, this need a high gear ratio to generate the force and puts a considerable strain on the gearbox, this is what generates the noise.
To minimise the operational noise the system was designed to only fully open or close the valve at the start and end of a heat demand at other times it minimised the adjustment to single steps and its operation is very quiet.
You can make some compromises to the operation:
The system will normally optimise the heating start so the room is warm when you wake, obviously this will mean opening while you are asleep. If optimisation is switched off it will operate like an old heating system and only open once you are already awake.
A second option would be to remove the head from a noise sensitive room but leave the rest of the house zoned.
Finally for silent operation the zone could be modified to use an electrically operated MT8 head. This is thermally operated and completely silent but would need a BDR91 relay and Room sensor T87RF. The BDR91 should be installed outside the sleeping area as the relay will click as it operates and if the owner is very sensitive to noise this will be heard."
They mention gearing - if they seriously wanted to fix this issue they would use a far more favourable gearing ratio. This would mean it would take longer to open and close the valves but that wouldn't matter at all and the stress on the motor and the gearbox would be far less. Even if it took 1 minute to open or close the valves, this would have no major bearing on the performance of the system.
Come on Honeywell - if you want Evohome to be a serious contender then you have to address this issue.
My final plea (before I have to return this whole system) - has anyone solved this problem? Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how to silence the noise from the HR92? Any ideas would be gratefully received.
Cheers
Sentry1
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