How to DIY Install a Smart Heating System: Drayton Wiser

Today's video is all about my recent DIY install of the Drayton Wiser Multi Zone Smart Heating System.

This project has been two years in the planning, and was accelerated when I was contacted by Drayton recently to ask if I would be interested in trying out their system. As I already had a Drayton Controller and Wiring Centre, and TRV valves on most of my radiators I jumped at the chance of giving it a go.

This video is a complete run through of the installation from a DIY perspective, with hopefully all conceivable issues covered!



Today's Toolkit

For advice on and to receive the right wiring configuration diagram for your system, you can contact Schneider (Drayton's parent company) here:

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LET'S CONNECT!
Charlie DIYte

#Drayton #smart #heating

[bpmills]

Excellent review Charlie, a long one so well done for sticking with it. I've had the Wiser system installed for two years now, and have found it great. Added bonus is that their customer service pick up the phone, answer emails, and you can get tech support, rather than a call centre.
As a tip to reduce the initial outlay, if you install the TRVs in the rooms you use LEAST (e.g. bedrooms), then the main living areas of the house are heated as normal, and then the least used rooms only when needed (e.g. bedrooms only in morning and evening).
As I'm working from home from a bedroom, I've that particular room set for all day heat, and goes off at 530, and back on around 10 - as you say, hearing the wirr of the thermostat is actually quite reassuring and satisfying. Also, as you, we don't have a TRV in the bathroom/ downstairs toilet as if you're in and want the living area warm, you probably want the loo warm too.

[hugecanaries]

Fantastic vid, Charlie. Many thanks. I installed the Wiser system two-and-a-half years ago after watching this, and thought I'd post a brief note. I had been agonizing over which system to go for, and opted for Wiser. In short it's been great. By chance I had an electrician in doing another job, so I asked him to fit the Hub. He just pulled off the old (Drayton) controller and stuck on the new one, having opened up the grips that hold the pins slightly. No charge. I won't go through the whole process of set-up, since it simply involved following the app instructions. I added the TRVs (4 bedrooms, 5 rooms downstairs, 2 bathrooms always on). We have had a dramatic (~30%) reduction in oil consumption, though of course I don't know how much of this is down to the weather. Just as important the house is now much more liveable-in. We heat only the rooms we need to be warm. Ideally you would add the remote room thermostats, too, but they are rather too pricey for my budget, so you have to be a bit creative, setting temps a little higher as the weather gets colder in larger rooms, since life by the TRVs is warmer than elsewhere in the room. The CH water pump is somewhat noisier than in the past – I wonder if we should reduce the speed, since the system is rarely all on at the same time, effectively meaning it is smaller than before? Only once have we completely lost the system. The Hub lost contact with all TRVs, and the helpdesk couldn't work out what was wrong. At that time there was a set of mobile traffic lights outside our house. Maybe they operate off RF, interfering with our system? Who knows. The lights were moved, the system reset itself, and all was well again.

[cjoy]

I've had this system for 2 years or so and it's paid for itself already. Highly recommended system..

[Stepbar]

I've had a Tado system for a few years now. Previously had it in a 1 zone house but moved to a 2 zone house: bought another thermostat and 3 more TRVs. Absolutely love it. It has saved us so much money by using the geofencing, open window and weather forecasting function. In our previous house our heating bills halved, so it has paid for itself many times over.

The one advantage of the Tado over the Drayton is that I had no rewiring to do: the thermostats simply replaced the existing manual thermostats.

When you set up each TRV you tell it which thermostat controls that TRV and you're good to go.

Other than that, everything seems similar to the Drayton. I do like having the temp displayed on the TRV : in our guest room, for example, the guests can manually adjust the temperature when they're staying and see what it's set to (not at the moment, obviously!)

I highly recommend smart heating: it saves you so much money over a standard install!

[desertpoj]

I concur with all you’ve said; and I’ve had the Wiser product running an oil system similar to yours for two years. One point is to remember to renew the batteries. We’ve been away for two weeks, working not holidaying in these COVID times, and a bedroom battery has failed causing the valve to fail to open; and that bedroom is currently like a sauna. And we’re not there! It’s also fabulous if you’ve got unexpected visitors when you’re away, or one of your family members is a technophobe. When I first had the system my wife returned home earlier than planned and didn’t know how to adjust the heating so texted me complaining of freezing. I just reset it remotely from 35, 000 feet over Nova Scotia; deeply satisfying. Great video and, having just updated the app your review will make me adjust how I use the system. As an aside we have Heatmiser system in another house running an underfloor air-source heat-pump system, and I definitely prefer the Schneider Drayton Wiser App. Having said that, the plugs on both systems are great for security. The house we are currently not at, with the sauna bedroom, has a series of plugs operating lights all over the house giving the impression someone is there. Finally, I was able to fit the Drayton system myself, but the Heatmiser system was fitted professionally. Thanks again for another great video.

[markwells]

Fantastic explanations, wished I'd come across this chap before as I spent a loooong time messing around with humidity monitors and analysis to do virtually what he had painstakingly done on another video (only he was more thorough).
Our house is constantly either too hot or too cold & in different parts of the house. I had narrowed down smart heating systems between Netamo and Drayton mainly for cost, DIY installation & strangely enough the other more expensive systems not having radiator specific management seemed like they were missing a trick.
I had been erring towards Drayton, but this video convinced me it wont be a bad choice so i installed it on our combi bosch greenstar 24i boiler replacing the existing DanFoss thermostat controller.
The change was unbelievably easy, so easy I actually spent a ridiculously long time investigating whether I was missing something.
Connecting the Drayton Hub controller to the boiler was literally a 5 minute job, most of that time was spent looking for my screwdrivers. I actually only had to move 2 wires to different connection points on the existing wall plate.
As I already had themostatic control valves on the radiators it was a very quick job to swap over, though I'd forgotten it can take up to a minute for the valve to respond to changes on the app (polls very minute) so I spent a frustratingly long time on the first valve disconnecting and reconnecting to see it respond to changes.
The total cost for our 3 bedroomed house was about 300 pounds which is a well worth the investment.
My only quibble is the app does seem to freeze from time to time, so setting schedules was a bit of a pain - though not something I'll do often.
Thanks so much for doing these videos Charlie, gave me the confidence to do it all DIY & I was able to show my partner there was somebody out there even more anal than me in analysing the hell out of something. She was particularly impressed you went through all this to find you didn't need the radiator on in the toilet :)

[UltimateAccuracy]

A 1 year update would be really interesting. Nothing like a long term review to show any issues. Many thanks.

[adrianappleyard]

I installed Wiser system myself 2 years ago and it's the best decision I made. Detached house with 9 valves on all but one radiator, this being a small rad in the on suite bath room. Linked Open Therm has been the icing on the cake. Easy to install and control. This system is a no brainer. When leaving the house it's programmed to close down and re start when I get close to home. I expect it will pay for itself in about 3 to 4 years. All linked to Alexa. Simples.

[guylachlan]

Thanks Charlie - much more useful than anything I’ve seen elsewhere, including the big manufacturers!

[evilqueen]

Fantastic review Charlie - thank you very much. This convinced me to take the plunge and go the Wiser route. Just finished my own installation using the opentherm connections and I must say that I love the system. Two room thermostats and 17 rad thermostats. Very, very good and clearly well thought through by Wiser. The rad thermostats make a massive difference to such systems giving incredibly fine control over the entire environment. Jury is still out for me as to whether it is best to microzone as people appear to call it - i.e. individually control and schedule each rad as heating is required around the house or to instead use the rad thermostats to either heat to temp as required but to fall back to a setback temp rather than turn off the rad entirely. All to do with what is most efficient in terms of heat loss and for the boiler to remain in condensing mode. The beauty of this system though is that it gives you the fine control to be able to do either so I will be tesing both over a similar period of time and comparing the result in terms of both cost and comfort. Only thing I might do is add a couple more room stats so that the rest of the family find it easier to adjust when I am not around (although it is also possible to control temps via the rad stat controls and voice assistant too). Overall though, I could not be happier. Well done Drayton.

[rodp]

Just spent a couple of hours looking at new/smart heating system reviews on you tube as ours is on its way out. Charlie your timing is spot on. 👍😄

[Edward-G-ic]

Another great video Charlie. I bought the Drayton starter kit one year ago, (hub, thermostat, two TRVs, combi boiler). I have had boiler issues and we are having an extension and new boiler installed some time this year. I will ask the heating engineer to wire my hub and following your video and all the info on the TRV valves I am now confident I can install these myself. Incidentally I also watch Johnny's channel which I have found helpful.

[cengiz]

After watching this video I bought a 2 thermostat system. 2 weeks in and I'm so pleased.

[lewisflewin]

I have just had mains gas installed and so was starting from scratch with everything including new boiler, radiators and all new piping throughout. I bought the wiser heat system based on your very informative video!

[ianbusby]

Have been using this system since autumn 2019 & recommend it.I bought the starter kit when on offer which seems to happen now & then on Amazon.All our radiators had conventional trv’s.Started off replacing the hall & upstairs bathroom as they still needed heat long after the lounge was ok.Gradually added to system as could afford.Only 1 more trv to go.Great review & mirrors my experience of wiser.

[Famouss]

I installed Wiser in ~2017, because having a baby meant that we need rooms heating at different times without blindly heating the whole house. It worked brilliantly, was very straight forward. I left many "communal" areas, like hallways, on dumb/TRV thermostats... and as you said, the bathroom.

Having a loft conversion last year, we changed the combi to an unvented system. They whacked on a Nest. Pretty thermostat, but utterly useless!

Last month swapped out to a 2 channel system as previously 1 channel, just controlling heating. It works perfectly, makes it easy to control kids' bedrooms, heat office while working from home and set week day versus weekend schedules. The automation quick prompts ("finished work", "rainy day"... are great).

Anyway, needless to say, I'm a complete convert.

As said, even with ropey Internet, it works!

[opentrail]

Great video full of detail for the whole 30 minutes - very much enjoyed it. You nailed it. Glad to see Jimmy from Plumberparts. Top duo.

[barclay]

We’ve been using it for two years and really like it, we don’t have it in the bedrooms have trv’s, always wondered about the valve noise.

[mikehall]

I love the Wiser system. It works really well. I'm running 14 TRVs in 11 zones.
However, ... I've had 4 TRV failures of varying types. 2 units were replaced by Amazon, but two were just out of warranty. Keep a close eye on TRVs draining batteries quickly or intermittently giving no signal errors. It's not a range issue, as the failing TRVs are in line of sight of the controller. A bit of work needed on product quality and more interest from customer support to look into these particular issues would be good. That said, I'd recommend it.
If there was a way to do away with the batteries, maybe a 3D printed battery cover replacement to get the 3V from a power supply, it would be perfect.

[BobForrester]

Excellent Video. Like you, we live in a cottage and have a similar heating system as you had previously - conventional boiler, Drayton LP722 programmer, thermostat in the coldest part of the house and, fortunately, Drayton thermostatic radiator valves. Your video has convinced me to purchase and install a Drayton Wiser Multi Zone 2 kit plus additional thermostatic radiator valves to enable me to have more control of our heating. Many thanks