Evohome - Heating Off and Manual Override

[wilfman]

Hi.

Config
- EvoHome wireless controller
- Y Plan (3 port Valve) System.
- 2 x BDR92 (Heating/Hot Water + wireless thermostat).
- HR92 Thermostats across house.

We have seen issues in our house where heating is set to off, but manual settings on radiators turn heating on. What is the expected behaviour of how the HR92s can operate when heating schedule set to Off?
- Should radiators allow manual override and turn heating on?
- How long will the manual override take effect for?
- Should radiators which have been manually set show up in Mobile App. When I looked it was still marked as off.

Cheers

[basiluk]

In my experience:

- Should radiators allow manual override and turn heating on?
Yes

- How long will the manual override take effect for?
Until the next manual change(heating off, zone change, economy mod, etc) (i.e. not a set point time arrival)

- Should radiators which have been manually set show up in Mobile App. When I looked it was still marked as off.
Yes.

[basiluk]

Sorry - I was wrong on the set points, they will reset a manual setting at the HR92 - Just tested it!

[G4RHL]

It depends what is meant by off. If the temperature is below the set point, even if you think it is low and therefore off, it will switch on. If you really want off use the custom menu or other pre-see menus.

[DBMandrake]

We have seen issues in our house where heating is set to off, but manual settings on radiators turn heating on. What is the expected behaviour of how the HR92s can operate when heating schedule set to Off?
- Should radiators allow manual override and turn heating on?

Yes, adjusting the dial on an HR92 while the system is in heating off mode will cause the boiler to come on and that radiator to heat up.

- How long will the manual override take effect for?

If the system is in heating off mode, that manual override at the HR92 will, I believe, last forever, because the schedule is not running in Heating Off mode.

- Should radiators which have been manually set show up in Mobile App. When I looked it was still marked as off.

No, they will still show up as Off in the mobile app and on the controller, so there is no way to know from either of these that the radiator is actually heating up.

By the way, these shortcomings have been addressed in the beta firmware that is currently being tested in another thread - in this new firmware heating off really means heating off and manually adjusting an HR92 in heating off mode will not bring on the boiler.

So if that change makes it through to the final release of the software update then this problem will be resolved when your controller eventually gets this update.

[wilfman]

Thanks for all the responses. Behaviour not ideal in current firmware but am testing the beta and much improved. Ideally beta should lock TRVs to prevent changes when heating off to prevent confusion.

[bruce_miranda]

One of the side effects of the bug being fixed is that if you spin the knob on the TRV, it actually opens the valve. But because the Controller is set to Heating Off, nothing happens. Now if you have no CH valve and when your HW comes on, all these manually overridden radiators will start getting hot with absolutely no indication this is happening. This could go on for the entire Summer period! Because that manual override is never being reset by the Controller.

[wilfman]

One of the side effects of the bug being fixed is that if you spin the knob on the TRV, it actually opens the valve. But because the Controller is set to Heating Off, nothing happens. Now if you have no CH valve and when your HW comes on, all these manually overridden radiators will start getting hot with absolutely no indication this is happening. This could go on for the entire Summer period! Because that manual override is never being reset by the Controller.

Lol! In the short term I have resorted to using the custom schedule as my heating off. e.g. I have a schedule set to 4 times/day all set to 5 degrees. So if someone overrides a radiator it only takes effect for a few hours.

Of course the simpler thing to do in the new firmware would be to turn off local override for all zones when heating is off.

[DorrisMancer]

One of the side effects of the bug being fixed is that if you spin the knob on the TRV, it actually opens the valve. But because the Controller is set to Heating Off, nothing happens. Now if you have no CH valve and when your HW comes on, all these manually overridden radiators will start getting hot with absolutely no indication this is happening. This could go on for the entire Summer period! Because that manual override is never being reset by the Controller.

A benefit of having a CH zone valve.

[DorrisMancer]

I was about to start a new thread to moan about overrides in the "off" condition not being reset, having found that someone had turned-up a rad on a cold evening and that it was still pumping-out heat, but then I saw this thread.

I don't think that the ideal "fix" to this issue is to have off meaning off. There are two reasons: there is no way to prevent the valve operating (and many people will not have a CH zone valve), and it's a useful feature to be able to add a bit of heat on a cold evening or when having a shower. A better fix would be to reset all overrides to off at midnight.