Evohome - temperature dropping below the away value

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  • gpaolo79
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Nov 2020
    • 19

    Evohome - temperature dropping below the away value

    Hi all,
    I am away and I have set the heating at 10 degrees until I'm back. This has been working perfectly for the past 10 days, house took a few day to cool down but then I could see in the plots that temperature was going up when it was dropping below 10 in each zone.
    Since today, three zones out of four have fallen below 10 degrees, two are at 9.5 and one is down to 9. I have not received any notification of any error.
    Should I start panicking that something has gone wrong with the boiler? Since the evohome is not giving any indication if the relays are on or off I can't understand if the heating is not being switched on and it's not working or for some reason evohome is not heating up the house! Not even Domoticz shows this information and in the log of the controller the last event is just the setting of Away.
    Does anyone has any suggestion?
  • mtmcgavock
    Automated Home Legend
    • Mar 2017
    • 507

    #2
    Originally posted by gpaolo79 View Post
    Hi all,
    I am away and I have set the heating at 10 degrees until I'm back. This has been working perfectly for the past 10 days, house took a few day to cool down but then I could see in the plots that temperature was going up when it was dropping below 10 in each zone.
    Since today, three zones out of four have fallen below 10 degrees, two are at 9.5 and one is down to 9. I have not received any notification of any error.
    Should I start panicking that something has gone wrong with the boiler? Since the evohome is not giving any indication if the relays are on or off I can't understand if the heating is not being switched on and it's not working or for some reason evohome is not heating up the house! Not even Domoticz shows this information and in the log of the controller the last event is just the setting of Away.
    Does anyone has any suggestion?
    Sounds like the boiler isn't working....at a wild guess if it's a condensing boiler and your somewhere chilly is it possible the condensate will have frozen up?

    Should be a feature on EvoHome. to notify you of failed heating. Tado will notify you if there's an issue with a zone not heating, Evohome should be able to do the same.

    Comment

    • gpaolo79
      Automated Home Jr Member
      • Nov 2020
      • 19

      #3
      Originally posted by mtmcgavock View Post
      Sounds like the boiler isn't working....at a wild guess if it's a condensing boiler and your somewhere chilly is it possible the condensate will have frozen up?
      It's definitely not working. I had an idea about what could be happening. When I got the house, the boiler had a wireless thermostat that I could not remove, because it was a module inside the boiler. So to control it with my other thermostat I had to leave the old one always set to 30 degrees (always on, basically) and wired the relay box to the boiler.
      What could have happened is that the original wireless thermostat run out of battery and the boiler is ignoring the relay. I just hope it won't freeze inside the house. In any case, the first night will be an interesting one, since I'm arriving in the evening...

      Should be a feature on EvoHome. to notify you of failed heating. Tado will notify you if there's an issue with a zone not heating, Evohome should be able to do the same.
      It definitely should. Even simpler, an indication that the relay is switched is missing, this is something that I can't really understand.

      Comment

      • Fly100
        Automated Home Jr Member
        • Sep 2018
        • 29

        #4
        Not sure if this is a red herring, but in the 'Away' mode does the temp differential still come into play ?

        ie if the rooms set to 10C with a differential on 2C it might not fire until the room reaches 8C.

        Happy to be corrected.

        Comment

        • gpaolo79
          Automated Home Jr Member
          • Nov 2020
          • 19

          #5
          Originally posted by Fly100 View Post
          Not sure if this is a red herring, but in the 'Away' mode does the temp differential still come into play ?

          ie if the rooms set to 10C with a differential on 2C it might not fire until the room reaches 8C.

          Happy to be corrected.
          No, as far as I could see in the past days when it was working, the moment it was going 0.5 degrees below the set temperature it was heating.

          Comment

          • bruce_miranda
            Automated Home Legend
            • Jul 2014
            • 2307

            #6
            It could also have something to do with the new Load Scaling which has just been rolled out to all users and switched by default.

            Comment

            • gpaolo79
              Automated Home Jr Member
              • Nov 2020
              • 19

              #7
              Originally posted by bruce_miranda View Post
              It could also have something to do with the new Load Scaling which has just been rolled out to all users and switched by default.
              Any way to check it remotely?

              Comment

              • bruce_miranda
                Automated Home Legend
                • Jul 2014
                • 2307

                #8
                Unfortunately not, the Load Scaling feature is in the Installer menu.

                Comment

                • gpaolo79
                  Automated Home Jr Member
                  • Nov 2020
                  • 19

                  #9
                  Originally posted by bruce_miranda View Post
                  Unfortunately not, the Load Scaling feature is in the Installer menu.
                  I have to say that this system is quite limited for the remote control...

                  Comment

                  • bruce_miranda
                    Automated Home Legend
                    • Jul 2014
                    • 2307

                    #10
                    None of the Installer settings are available remotely. I think that is understandable.

                    Comment

                    • gpaolo79
                      Automated Home Jr Member
                      • Nov 2020
                      • 19

                      #11
                      Originally posted by bruce_miranda View Post
                      None of the Installer settings are available remotely. I think that is understandable.
                      Well, this setting seems more related to operation than installation...
                      But yes, definitely that seems to be the approach: you set everything on the system and just monitor temperature and enable programs remotely.

                      Comment

                      • bruce_miranda
                        Automated Home Legend
                        • Jul 2014
                        • 2307

                        #12
                        Load Scaling isn't and shouldn't be an everyday operation

                        Comment

                        • DBMandrake
                          Automated Home Legend
                          • Sep 2014
                          • 2361

                          #13
                          Originally posted by gpaolo79 View Post
                          It's definitely not working. I had an idea about what could be happening. When I got the house, the boiler had a wireless thermostat that I could not remove, because it was a module inside the boiler. So to control it with my other thermostat I had to leave the old one always set to 30 degrees (always on, basically) and wired the relay box to the boiler.
                          What could have happened is that the original wireless thermostat run out of battery and the boiler is ignoring the relay. I just hope it won't freeze inside the house. In any case, the first night will be an interesting one, since I'm arriving in the evening...
                          Wow, I really don't like the sound of that. There must be a way to bypass the original wireless thermostat in the future...you don't want to be relying on it especially if it is battery powered.

                          My suggestion would be - use the app to turn your heating back on to its normal schedule for example using day off mode and leave it like that for a few hours to see if it warms up or whether there is no change. Better to use a little bit more gas than have freezing pipes if you're unsure if there is a fault.

                          Originally posted by Fly100 View Post
                          Not sure if this is a red herring, but in the 'Away' mode does the temp differential still come into play ?

                          ie if the rooms set to 10C with a differential on 2C it might not fire until the room reaches 8C.
                          I don't know what temperature differential you're referring to here. Away mode is just a set point like any other and doesn't behave any differently.
                          Originally posted by bruce_miranda View Post
                          It could also have something to do with the new Load Scaling which has just been rolled out to all users and switched by default.
                          When my firmware updated load scaling was off by default - I had to go in and manually enable it, so I doubt this has happened. As far as I know all the new user configurable features in 19.33 are off by default but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

                          Comment

                          • anniesboy
                            Automated Home Sr Member
                            • Aug 2019
                            • 71

                            #14
                            I have only had 19.33 for about ten days,load scaling was off.

                            Comment

                            • gpaolo79
                              Automated Home Jr Member
                              • Nov 2020
                              • 19

                              #15
                              Originally posted by DBMandrake View Post
                              Wow, I really don't like the sound of that. There must be a way to bypass the original wireless thermostat in the future...you don't want to be relying on it especially if it is battery powered.
                              I know, but from what I understood the previous owner of the house put this wireless module in the boiler in substitution of the original one (which they didn't keep). This module has also all sort of other controls for enabling hot water, heating, etc., so I can't just unplug it. So, even if the hardwired switch still works, it is in an AND configuration with the wireless one.
                              Big lesson learned here, plus some good old Murphy law applied: I need to move the old wireless thermostat in a place where I can see it instead of keeping it in the loft or I won't know when batteries are low. Obviously it happened while I was away, probably batteries were near the limit and with the colder temperature they just gave up.

                              My suggestion would be - use the app to turn your heating back on to its normal schedule for example using day off mode and leave it like that for a few hours to see if it warms up or whether there is no change. Better to use a little bit more gas than have freezing pipes if you're unsure if there is a fault.
                              I tried that the other day -nothing. I have even checked the smart meter readings and there is no gas consumption, so boiler is not firing up.
                              What is odd, checking on the smart meter, is that I have some more power consumption since this issue started, I went from 4.1kWh/day to 5.7kWh/day. Now I have switched off the heating (well, switched off the relay is more precise...) for a few hours and tomorrow I should be able to see on the smart meter readings if this excess of power is due to this situation. I'm down to 7.5 degrees as lowest temperature, hopefully the coldest days are gone and it should remain above zero, according to forecasts...

                              Comment

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