Why are we a nation of buffoons who can’t work thermostats?
Given that we spent centuries humping suitcases around before someone thought to put wheels on them, there is little hope that we will ever master our central heating.
Given that I can master mine just fine, would you like me to pop round (for a fee, natch) and give you lessons? Although, apparently, it is Robinson’s wife who needs the lessons…
Why is it that the Groan in particular, but it is not by any means alone in this, uses “we” when what they actually mean is “me” (or specifically here, “my wife”)? We are not all lumped in with you. You speak for yourself and yourself alone. Leave the rest of us out of your inadequacies, thanks very much.
We are not a nation unable to work the thermostat, there are some who can’t just as there are some who cannot do lots of things.
Tsk tsk… Longrider, you should try to display more compassion toward the poor tapeworm sufferers at the Groan…
– MJM
XX Why are we a nation of buffoons who can’t work thermostats? XX
But he is quite O.K with the concept, that “we” CAN work out “global warming….?” And come to an unquestionable “scientific” proof that it is happening, will happen, etc?
Dip shit. (But then, that is a plus point on the CV of a journalist…. isn’t it.)
Pah what pish I am the only person in our house who can work the heating and the boiler, and It was me a mere woman who fixed the leaking tap on it too so who ever wrote that article is clearly a knob married to a wally and they clearly have too much cash and usually pay a “little man” to come round.
Bloody overpaid elitist twerp.
Well at least they’d willingly climb onto the tumbril, if told it was “A nice cart ride, just like wot the peasants do”… 😉
Usual Grauniad collectivist thinking. Just because some ‘superior’ intellect like a Groan hack can’t find their own arse without a map, they think no one else can.
Point and laugh. It’s the only real defence against mind rape. 😈
Why do you need a thermostat? The article seems to be saying that too, indirectly.
Last year I had a new boiler fitted and I was asked where I wanted the thermostat. “I don’t want one” I said “the boiler sets the water temperature and the thermostatic valves on each radiator control the individual room temperatures so what does the thermostat actually DO?”. ‘Customer declines thermostat’ was duly entered on the worksheet.
Oh and the reason telephone cords get twisted is because right-handed people pick them up with their right hands then transfer the handset to the left to dial or write notes. The result is that they get replaced with their left hand.
More thermostat fun and games result if you have a double bed with a two-zone electric blanket and ‘someone’ puts it on the bed the wrong way up. Mum kept turning her side up and Dad kept turning his side down!
Our replacement heating came without a thermostat and so a programmable one was the first thing I fitted. Why?
The simpl boiler/rad stats mean the boiler runs all the time pumping water round the system and even if all the rad stats turn off the boiler still pumps, cuts in to keep the water temp up and turns the unregulated rad – and there MUST be at least one unregulated one for safety – on max all the time, so the bathroom was like a sauna. The stat means the boiler goes completely off when the key room is warm. That saves money and noise. In my case the boiler went completely off at least 50% of the time on a typical winter day.
The stat also allows different temps at different times, so cool at night, middling during the day, and comfortable in the evening and I never do anything. I don’t switch off for the summer or on for the winter, it sorts itself out.
So in effect only your living room is maintained at the required temperature and the radiator thermostatic valves serve no purpose and could be replaced by lockshield valves.
If your bathroom is ‘like a sauna’ then screw down the lockshield valve, that is what it is there for!
Ideally all rooms would have thermostats but that would require full zone control everywhere,TRVs are the cheapest way of achieving something approaching that ideal. A single point thermostat is always a compromise. It is a myth anyway that fancy controls save money, they just enable you to be warm when you want it. Our first central heating system had no time clock or anything so we came back to a cold house and switched it off when we went out. That saved a lot of money but the house wasn’t warm!
Not a wise thing to do. On systems retro-fitted with TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) one radiator is left without a TRV and must allow a decent flow. When all the TRVs shut off, this radiator allows some flow through the system. If the flow is reduced here the pump will be pumping against an effective blockage (not good for the pump and a cause of noise) and the boiler will literally “boil up” as hot water is not being removed from the heat exchanger. At best this will cause “blowing over” on a vented system (highly inefficient and noisy) or opening of the safety valve on an unvented system, with loss of primary circuit water leading to safety shutdown of the system which will then need manually “topping up” before restarting. At worst it will damage the boiler or, if safety devices are defective, may even lead to a burst or explosion.
Systems designed for TRVs and/or zone valves are fitted with a bypass valve set to a particular pressure which will allow “short-circuit” flow even with all radiators off. On some older systems this is crudely achieved with a partially-open gate valve (even older systems achieved this by having the hot water cylinder on a separate non-pumped “gravity” circuit). When the system is operating in this mode however, it results in unnecessary “cycling” of the boiler which is detrimental to life and efficiency – and also a residual degree of unnecessary room heating by emission from the pipes.
An electric room thermostat should be fitted in the coldest location (typically a hallway) which is heated with a small radiator without a TRV. The idea is that if this room is up to temperature then they all will be, therefore the boiler and pump can be turned off. An inappropriately-sited room thermostat will prematurely cut off the heating when some rooms may still be cold.
Complicated scenarios (e.g. large buildings and those with areas of different construction such as old, poorly-insulated houses with modern extensions) can benefit from multiple electric thermostats controlling the boiler in conjunction with electric zone valves.
These people want to control every aspect of our lives, but can’t control the heating in their own homes.
I’m not sure whether that’s hilarious, terrifying, or both.
Unfortunately Andrew, it’s “both”. 🙁
Heaven forbid they ever get into a position of actual effectiveness… 🙁 🙁
What do you mean”Ever”? the problem ‘we’ have is that they’re already there! Garnered, relentlessly, over the last 20 years.
Whilst I was thinking specifically of the intellectually crippled denizens of the Grauniad, I accept you have a point.
A very valid point.
Apologies,
Ted
Peter Hearty, who used to do a daily lampoon of the Radio 4 ‘Thought for the Day’ on his blog, coined the phrase: “We, and by we I do of course mean you” due to the fact that the daily God botherers would use the retorical “we” rather a lot.