For those that think the hr92 is too noisy.

[Dan_Robinson]

The HR91 are much quieter. Have installed more than 20 this week and thought the first dozen were broken.... Until I set one off calibrating itself and held it up to my ear.

We're now specifying them as default heads over the hr92.
Not that I thought they were noisy anyway.

Hope this helps.

[mtmcgavock]

The HR91 are much quieter. Have installed more than 20 this week and thought the first dozen were broken.... Until I set one off calibrating itself and held it up to my ear.

We're now specifying them as default heads over the hr92.
Not that I thought they were noisy anyway.

Hope this helps.

Are they much cheaper? When I was looking there was only a £10 saving on a multipack. For £10 more i'd rather have the displays and the noise

[Dan_Robinson]

Roughly the same AFAIK. But how and where I buy then will be different to you guys.

[Dan_Robinson]

[DBMandrake]

A small warning for anyone considering the HR91 - it does not have the Stroke setting option of the HR92 to increase the motor torque and rotation range for "difficult" valve bodies, and in fact the motor torque seems to be quite a bit less than the HR92 even in Stroke 0 mode let alone the stronger Stroke 1 mode. (It seems to have a lot less gearing down between the motor and the pin)

I found the HR91 was not compatible on several of my Peggler Bulldog valves - on some it could not fully close the valve reliably (the radiator would keep flowing even though the HR91 thought it had closed the valve) and on some it would not fully open them either. It also had difficulty calibrating itself on these valves. The same valves work with an HR92 in Stroke 1 mode.

If you have "easy" valves, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Dan_Robinson]

Interesting. I've never yet had to use that setting, yet have installed hr92 heads on dozens of Peglar (and Peglar clones) bodies.

[DBMandrake]

Interesting. I've never yet had to use that setting, yet have installed hr92 heads on dozens of Peglar (and Peglar clones) bodies.

They "work" with Stroke 0 on the HR92, after a fashion, but not properly. And not when they get old and sticky...

The main symptom I'm seeing now with my nearly 3 year old valve bodies is that they won't fully open on Stroke 0. This is because the sticky valve won't flow fully until the black wheel is within about half a turn of hitting the limit stop - and Stroke 0 will not turn it that far... Thus the radiator is not running at full output and struggles to reach the set point in the winter. At the point where the HR92 indicates "100%" open on option 10 you can lift it off the adaptor, give the black wheel another full 360 degree turn and get full flow.

Stroke 1 as well as increasing motor torque in the closing direction increases the number of turns that it turns the wheel in the opening direction and when aiming for 100% always turns it until it hits the open limit stop instead of stopping short of it. So for any valve where the black wheel really needs to be opened all the way, Stroke 1 is needed.

I'm also recently finding valves with a reported valve position as high as 65% (and a requested heat demand of 25%) where the valve still isn't flowing in stroke 0 mode. In stroke 1 mode it calibrates the valve pin travel range quite differently and seems to get around that problem on these sticking valves.

When the valve bodies were brand new I didn't see these problems and was able to use stroke 0 so if you have only seen them brand new and not come back and tested them critically or lived with them years later you might not have noticed, but after a while they don't work properly without stroke 1. (Which I only consider a workaround for a poor valve by the way)

The HR91 is completely unusable on these troublesome valves, it can't even complete a meaningful calibration on some of them - and I tried it on most of them.

I doubt that it's individual valve bodies or HR92's that have gone faulty either - I have 8 zones and one by one nearly all of them have started to misbehave in the same way, starting with the living room one, and I doubt there is anything wrong with the HR92's - I think the valve bodies are just starting to seize up and get sticky with age because they are, well, cheap crap...

One that I had removed to replace because it got damaged shows a lot of corrosion on the centre pin in the water gallery in only two years and that may be the source of the stickiness. (And the system has had good inhibitor in the whole time which suggests no or poor quality plating on the pin for it to corrode that quickly)

I didn't choose or install them and I've been wanting to replace them for a couple of years now, I'm hoping this summer is the year I'll be allowed to replace them with valencia's.

[Dan_Robinson]

The Valencia valves, while not as good as they were "back in the day", are still better than most of the others out there. The only real competition are the trv 4 and the Danfoss ones that can have the flow direction changed (I forget the model number).

Problematic bodies I just swap out. It takes a few minutes and saves many hassles.

[paulockenden]

When I was beta testing the HR91 about a year ago I don't remember it being /that/ much quieter. Perhaps it's changed since going into production.

Another thing missing is the setting for Lithium batteries. It assumes Alkaline, and the 'spent battery' monitoring is based on that voltage curve.

But for people who find the HR92 too expensive it's certainly a good option.

[DBMandrake]

The Valencia valves, while not as good as they were "back in the day", are still better than most of the others out there. The only real competition are the trv 4 and the Danfoss ones that can have the flow direction changed (I forget the model number).

Danfoss require the additional adaptor though right ? What about TR4 ? I want something that will work with the HR92 with the default adaptor.

As for bidirectional - the Valencia claim to be bidirectional, as do my existing Peggler Bulldog. Are you saying they aren't ? That would be a problem for me as a few of the valves are on the flow input side of the radiator and can't feasibly be changed to the return side...

Problematic bodies I just swap out. It takes a few minutes and saves many hassles.

Minutes per valve for a professional already in the middle of an install maybe.

For me I'm going to have to drain the system down, swap every valve in the house, fill up, check for leaks, add inhibitor, bleed etc... A good few hours work and not something to do in the middle of winter by choice.

[DBMandrake]

When I was beta testing the HR91 about a year ago I don't remember it being /that/ much quieter. Perhaps it's changed since going into production.

The one I tested was quieter than the HR92's, but not by a lot. The main difference in noise I found wasn't the motor, but the gearbox.

The HR92's have plastic gears with poor meshing tolerance and minimum lubrication that have a tendency to grind against each other and that's where most of the noise comes from. Some of mine grind/click periodically as they turn, some don't. The HR91 had no grinding/clicking noise, just a quiet whirr from the motor, but the motor whirr was only a little bit less.

The HR92's can be made a bit quieter by putting some white plastic gear grease on the gears.

[Dan_Robinson]

The motors are near silent, it is definitely the gears that make the difference.

The Valencia valves are bi directional. Trv4 too. But in all so things, it depends on the pump head.

Trv4 also do not need an adapter. Trv3's might though (there are different versions iirc).

[paulockenden]

I think for an Evohome refit Valencia makes loads of sense because they come from the same stable. You don't end up with one blaming t'other (like we see with OpenTherm boilers, SmartThings integration, etc. etc.)

[Dan_Robinson]

Minutes per valve for a professional already in the middle of an install maybe.

For me I'm going to have to drain the system down, swap every valve in the house, fill up, check for leaks, add inhibitor, bleed etc... A good few hours work and not something to do in the middle of winter by choice.

Did 5 on a system this morning in less than half an hour start to finish.

[MrBoy]

I've only seen the HR91s mentioned in hushed whispers, like they're a secret They show up on some suppliers but typically as single units, not in multi-packs or kits. I like the idea of them because the LCD screens on the 92s don't really seem to tell you very much... not even the current temperature.

I wouldn't say the 92s I fitted are loud but they're certainly very audible. My valves are all old - I can 'just' push the pins with a thumb if I don't mind it hurting For the valves I have which are not compatible with any adapters, I'm just going to buy a lot of Valencia units - we can do to drain our system anyway so might as well do that at the same time.