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Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

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Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#141

Post by static_motion »

looofooo0 wrote: post #117
sokoloff wrote: post #50

> I also have it so the heating turns off when I go into town and turns back on when I'm just a few train stops away so my place is nice and toasty for me getting home! If your goal is saving energy/money, you don’t want a system capable of going from cool to toasty in 20 minutes. Instead, you want a system that runs (much) lower water circulation temperatures (giving lower losses in the unconditioned spaces and more…

Agree, switching on and off is the worst way of heating. If you look into ISO 7730, then a lot of comfort comes from non cold walls: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_7730 This means that in a reasonable insulated home, your best bet for comfort is to just keep the temperature constant and low like 20°C. This also allows you to lower your water temperatures which improves efficiency of your heat pump or boiler.

Depending on the region, "reasonably insulated home" really is the factor that makes this not so viable for a lot of people. In my Mediterranean-adjacent climate country, most homes are just not well insulated at all, and having heat running 24/7 during winter is extremely costly and inefficient even if the heating is on a low setting.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#142

Post by dheera »

sokoloff wrote: post #50

> I also have it so the heating turns off when I go into town and turns back on when I'm just a few train stops away so my place is nice and toasty for me getting home! If your goal is saving energy/money, you don’t want a system capable of going from cool to toasty in 20 minutes. Instead, you want a system that runs (much) lower water circulation temperatures (giving lower losses in the unconditioned spaces and more…

Capable doesn't mean it always puts out that amount of heat.

A well-designed system would have good insulation, can dump 10000W watts of heat out and bring the room from cool to toasty in 5 minutes, and then scale back and maintain the temperature after that by putting out 500W after that.

This also tends to be more efficient in practice because if you know it only takes 5 minutes to heat up you are less likely to want to leave it on when you're not around.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#143

Post by organsnyder »

Benanov wrote: post #109
DamonHD wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved all my radiators away from under windows (and upgraded the windows to triple glazing) to avoid maximising the temperature differential and energy loss through the wall under the windows, while eliminating the cool drafts that the under-window radiator placement was intended to counter.

Radiators were originally designed to heat more than needed, so you could open the windows. In New York, at least - the standards were never changed to accomodate for closed windows in 1920. Snopes has a rundown. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/apartment-radiator-pandemi...

My house (built in 1916) was insanely over-provisioned. When we upgraded to a modulating-condensing boiler, we halved the BTUs and are still able to easily keep the house heated to any desired temperature even on the coldest winter days.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#144

Post by nkrisc »

glitchcrab wrote: post #14
yurishimo wrote: post #10

If OP ever shows up here, you probably could have just replaced the thermostat with one that is compatible with your boiler for less money and headache. The boiler market is fairly open to competition as evidenced by the fact that you could find a Honeywell signal in a random OSS project that also worked. Good luck with your future apartment customizations!

I think you missed where it was explained that the apartment is rented and therefore you cannot modify anything.

Depends on jurisdiction, of course, but often you’re allowed to modify things as long as you return it to how it was before when you leave. Obviously not quite as simple as that always but I would guess in many placing temporarily replacing a simple thermostat would fall under that.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#145

Post by nkrisc »

glitchcrab wrote: post #44
odiroot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing a thermostat is very easy to do though. And very easy to revert too. Usually it's just acting as a simple relay (on-off switch) so there's two physical wires. I've got my Hive thermostat running great with various Bosch and Vaillant boilers. And it works great with HA. Some newer boilers have 12V "smart" controls but still expose 230V "dumb" call for heating pins.

Agreed (I set up our dual zone Nest-controllee heating so I know it's not difficult), but what happens if the landlord visits and isn't happy with you having done this? It would be a pain to have to revert this if you knew the landlord was coming.

Check your local laws. You may be allowed to do something like this by law.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#146

Post by organsnyder »

dheera wrote: post #142
sokoloff wrote: post #50

> I also have it so the heating turns off when I go into town and turns back on when I'm just a few train stops away so my place is nice and toasty for me getting home! If your goal is saving energy/money, you don’t want a system capable of going from cool to toasty in 20 minutes. Instead, you want a system that runs (much) lower water circulation temperatures (giving lower losses in the unconditioned spaces and more…

Capable doesn't mean it always puts out that amount of heat. A well-designed system would have good insulation, can dump 10000W watts of heat out and bring the room from cool to toasty in 5 minutes, and then scale back and maintain the temperature after that by putting out 500W after that. This also tends to be more efficient in practice because if you know it only takes 5 minutes to heat up you are less likely to wa…

But it can't heat up the walls and other surfaces in that amount of time. The building will feel colder for the same air temperature setting until those objects have had time to warm up as well.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#147

Post by looofooo0 »

Retric wrote: post #139
looofooo0 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at ISO 7730, a lot of comfort comes from non-cold walls and their radiant heat and small difference of wall temperatures to air temperatures. So having a thoroughly heated home allows you to lower your air temperature. Apart from that modern gas and even more heat pumps greatly gain efficiency by lowering flow water temperatures.

It’s a deep rabbit hole as condensation, humidity, etc also enter the picture. Efficiently lowering temperatures for sleeping further complicates things. That said, heat loss is through exterior surfaces so you really want to avoid spot heating of poorly insulated exterior walls. Thus the design of baseboard heaters can make a larger impact than you’d think.

Baseboard heaters need very high temperatures. I would not recommend installing this anywhere. Having big Typ 33 heaters for temperatures below 45°C will greatly increase efficiency of your heating system. Otherwise, a split air con is also an efficient way of heating.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#148

Post by looofooo0 »

static_motion wrote: post #141
looofooo0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, switching on and off is the worst way of heating. If you look into ISO 7730, then a lot of comfort comes from non cold walls: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_7730 This means that in a reasonable insulated home, your best bet for comfort is to just keep the temperature constant and low like 20°C. This also allows you to lower your water temperatures which improves efficiency of your heat pump or boiler.

Depending on the region, "reasonably insulated home" really is the factor that makes this not so viable for a lot of people. In my Mediterranean-adjacent climate country, most homes are just not well insulated at all, and having heat running 24/7 during winter is extremely costly and inefficient even if the heating is on a low setting.

These home will most likely have a split air con, which will be the most efficient way of heating them. Also there is so much other room for improvement like drafty windows and doors etc.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#149

Post by Syzygies »

looofooo0 wrote: post #117
sokoloff wrote: post #50

> I also have it so the heating turns off when I go into town and turns back on when I'm just a few train stops away so my place is nice and toasty for me getting home! If your goal is saving energy/money, you don’t want a system capable of going from cool to toasty in 20 minutes. Instead, you want a system that runs (much) lower water circulation temperatures (giving lower losses in the unconditioned spaces and more…

Agree, switching on and off is the worst way of heating. If you look into ISO 7730, then a lot of comfort comes from non cold walls: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_7730 This means that in a reasonable insulated home, your best bet for comfort is to just keep the temperature constant and low like 20°C. This also allows you to lower your water temperatures which improves efficiency of your heat pump or boiler.

Yes!

I used to divide my time between a concrete hulk of a NYC apartment building, and a California home insulated to notoriously poor California standards. I was plenty warm in New York winters just from my neighbors' heat nearly all of the time. In California, there was a narrow window (think "Apollo 13 re-entry") between too cold and too warm.

Then we modernized ceiling fans, and I hit on running them in "winter mode" drawing hot air up to flow back down the walls. Bingo! I love that ISO 7730 confirms this.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#150

Post by 542354234235 »

smelendez wrote: post #11

I wonder what the ideal one-size fits all thermostat looks like. The one in my apartment has a “feature” a lot of US thermostats now have, where you set four ordered times called wake, leave, return, and sleep and the temperature you want the space in each interval. I know very few people who actually live in a household where everyone wakes, leaves, returns, and sleeps on the same schedule every day. I work from hom…

I have an Ecobee and I like it. It comes standard with Home, Away, and Sleep but you can put in as many or as few as you want. You can manually change the temp and you can also set how long you want your manual temp to “stick”. Either until you cancel it, or until the next preprogrammed change. I like it cooler at night, so I have it change temp around my normal bedtime, which includes if I adjusted the daytime temp because I don’t want to have to remember to change it back myself, that’s why I have a smart thermostat. It detects when I leave the house and sets it to away, because I don’t need it running as if I am at home. If I go on vacation I can set it to keep the house safe, but not comfortable, and change back around the time my flight lands.

Unless you have a crazy random schedule, or you want the temp the same whether you are asleep, awake, or not at home, or i guess if you have different temp preferences every day. Otherwise you can program in a basic schedule and just adjust manually as needed. Nothing stops you from changing the temp manually if you wake up an hour early, but if you wake up on time, then you don’t even have to think about it.

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