The Efficient Home Forum

Thanks for looking.

I have spent months researching the best heating controls for the house I am building and think I have settled on Evohome, albeit that Genius Hub is probably more suitable from a technical point of view.

My main issue is that the plumbing is already installed and has multiple zone valves which includes five zones controlled by motorised valves:

Hot water
Upstairs radiators
Downstairs radiators
Towel radiator circuit
UFH circuit

I am confident I understand how to control all but the towel radiator circuit. I don’t want to fit TRVs to these rads, mainly for aesthetic reasons but also because I want the towel rails to switch on irrespective of the room temperature.

This seems to be something that can’t be done with Evohome so I am wondering whether I can simply control the towel radiator circuit with a traditional time clock, sitting alongside the Evohome boiler controls. Does anyone know if this would cause a problem, my concern being the mains power that would essentially be sent to the Evohome boiler controller. I hope this makes sense!

Thank you in advance for any input.

Hi and welcome to our forum.

Essentially, evohome needs to be in control of the heating/boiler demand to be at its most efficient. If you create a towel radiator circuit outside of the evohome system, with a separate zone/timed demand to the boiler, you will bypass any intelligence the evohome system is using with regards to boiler firing and cycle rate.

Personally I leave towel radiators open circuit, so they come on with any other zone demand. The alternative is to control them with HR91's.

I hope that helps.

Thank you very much for your response. If I’m understanding correctly, it would work, but while in ‘on’ mode would override the energy saving functions of Evohome.

In the last house we renovated we had a dedicated towel rail circuit on a morning and evening timer, all year round, and it was one of the best comfort features we had. Having a warm dry towel guaranteed every morning and night is a brilliant luxury and not one we would want to lose with the new house. The house will be well insulated so relying on other demands is not an ideal solution for us, as I am anticipating not needing any heating at all for around 4 months a year. The bathrooms have electric UFH for comfort and to minimise damp / condensation issues (with stand alone smart controls)

It is such a shame that the Evohome system does not accommodate a dedicated towel rail circuit as it’s such a great feature to have.

If a standalone time clock for the 4 hours a day (max) we want the towel radiators to work will work alongside Evohome then I think we would still go with this solution.

Thanks again.

GBJB wrote:Thank you very much for your response. If I’m understanding correctly, it would work, but while in ‘on’ mode would override the energy saving functions of Evohome.

In the last house we renovated we had a dedicated towel rail circuit on a morning and evening timer, all year round, and it was one of the best comfort features we had. Having a warm dry towel guaranteed every morning and night is a brilliant luxury and not one we would want to lose with the new house. The house will be well insulated so relying on other demands is not an ideal solution for us, as I am anticipating not needing any heating at all for around 4 months a year. The bathrooms have electric UFH for comfort and to minimise damp / condensation issues (with stand alone smart controls)

It is such a shame that the Evohome system does not accommodate a dedicated towel rail circuit as it’s such a great feature to have.

If a standalone time clock for the 4 hours a day (max) we want the towel radiators to work will work alongside Evohome then I think we would still go with this solution.

Thanks again.

I'll be honest, towel radiator circuits off central heating systems are becoming a thing of the past, as they are highly inefficient (as the boiler is normally working out of condensing mode when these are on). Much better to have electrically heated towel radiators imho for the small amount of energy they consume.