I notice Nest have launched in the UK.

Anyone tried their UK offering yet?

I've had the British Gas system for a while now, not that impressed, actually costs me more money I think.

Keen to hear how the UK system installs and if it's a DIY job.

Cheers

Cris

Looks perfectly DIYable. Unlike the US it is a wireless Nest with a wired base station that just replaces your central heating current relay.

So looks like a fairly straight forward job for a confident DIYer.

It has no timer for your hot water though, which is causing some complaints from people who don't have a combi boiler.

Oh... can this be used in Ireland?

I don't have a combi boiler, but it's normally on all the time, the way we use hot water in this house it doesn't seem to make much difference to the cost.

I've got British Gas' Remote Central Heating in at the moment, I suppose the better question to ask would be how DIYable is the removal of that!

I take it I can power the Nest at the existing thermostat location, it will run off the voltage supplied there ???

Cheers

Cris

Easiest thing I've ever done!

Took little over an hour to wire it in. Most of the time confirming the wiring of my existing system as the guy who installed saw it fit not to follow the manufacturers prescribed wiring order on the terminal blocks.

Look great on the wall, worked straight away. Radiators warming up as I type!!!

Cheers

Cris

Nice one Cris! Looking forward to your opinion of it after about a week or so if you don't mind.

First impression is there is no way it's been around 22 degrees in my house for the past 2 days!

Something aint right with that !!!

That doesn't seem too unreasonable to me... 22 degrees Celsius = 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit, a nice comfortable temperature.

tanstaafl.

It's more that the temp seems to be not dropping much at night and is staying pretty constant.

The lowest I've see it so far is 19, and it's been colder than that in the house at night.

I think it takes a week or so to settle down.

I am finding myself wanting to fondle my thermostat, quite worrying !!!

Cheers

Cris

How is the actual thermostat bit setup ? Do you have it on the wall ? How are you supplying power ?

There are 2 parts to the UK system.

I have a hot water tank in my system, an there is a junction box there, one part of the Nest system goes there this is what they call the "Heat Link". It takes it's power from the 240v feed there and uses the cable that ran to the old thermostat to provide 12v to the nest wall unit.

So all I can see is my nice nest thermostat on the wall, no ugly cables just a straight swap for the old thermostat.

Take today for example the nest was saying it was 20 degrees this morning in the house, and it now says it's 21. But the swing I notice in the house is much greater than that.

The heating hasn't been on all day as I've set it to only heat to 18. So of course it is sat there waiting for it to get cooler than that.

I need to go buy another digital thermometer I think!

Cheers

Cris

It'll be interesting to see if it actually learns your habits. Our thermostat is in the living room, so relying solely on the motion sensor would actually be pretty accurate most of the time. If it was anywhere else in the house I'd imagine it would have a hard time determining whether we were in or not.

I think I'd rather rely on a fixed timer with programmable thermostatic valves on the radiators.

I think nest have picked a really stupid time of year to release this in the UK.

My heating basically will hardly need to come on now until September/October. Maybe for the odd boost.

So I guess I won't know if it actually learns our habits until later in the year.

Cheers

Cris

This look like a great system, but just too expensive for me at the moment...

http://www.evohome.info

Cheers

Cris

Releasing it now give the UK press some time learn about the product and start talking about, and for people to install it. The last thing you want to do at the beginning / middle of the heating season is impact your heating season. Getting a furnace replaced on a cold February day hard, and you are SOL if you don't have some sort of backup heat source.

The Honeywell system was covered in an article on the BBC website recently. An interconnected multi zone system seems to be the best way to do it.

It certainly does seem the best way to do it, but that comes at quite some extra cost.

Cheers

Cris