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by Techbotch 1332 days ago
I don't get it. How does this improve on the outside temperature sensor that comes with every heating system? Or is that not standard in the UK? Here in Germany it has been a standard feature for – well as long as I can think (several decades)...
7 comments
odiroot 1332 days ago
Most of these Worcester (Bosch) boilers don't come with these sensors. The one installed by my landlord is so cheap it doesn't offer any regulation interface besides the one knob in the front. It also lacks any temperature display, so I had to tune it with external thermocouple.

Usually the boilers are also oversized for houses here. The temperature differential is not big enough and you waste quite a lot of energy through steam.

Finally, the system boilers are also the most common (as opposed to combi-boilers) and for that reason you are not supposed set them below 60 degrees.

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Nextgrid 1332 days ago
The other day I had a conversation with an expat colleague about the UK building "standards". Most of what we consider in Europe as table stakes is unfortunately unheard of in the UK.

Building insulation for one was a shocking factor. It's 2022 and stuff that was considered "normal" in Europe 10 years ago is still a problem in a lot of UK buildings. Worse, it doesn't even require rebuilding - you can improve the situation incrementally, so it should be a no-brainer for a government to subsidize, yet they aren't doing so.

I've lived in social housing in France that was much better insulated (it would be considered "good" even by today's standards) than places here that rent privately for 2k+/month.

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walthamstow 1332 days ago
An external thermostat on the outside of your house? This is unheard of in the UK
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jessaustin 1332 days ago
My parents got the highest-tech HVAC system locally available (rural midwest USA, "Lennox iComfort") five years ago, and rather than external temperature sensing it requires an internet connection so that it can talk to a weather service. Seemed sort of Rube Goldberg to me, but it seems to work?
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oakesm9 1332 days ago
I've never had this in the UK, even with fairly new ones. Looking at the models offered there doesn't seem to be any mentione of a feature like that, even on the higher end models.
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twobitshifter 1332 days ago
Yeah, I have an older Viessman boiler and it already does this. There are a variety of ramp patterns that can be set.
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tony_cannistra 1332 days ago
It doesn't. It's the same thing. Lots of combis don't come with one.
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