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Is your smart home ready for winter?
If you’re anything like us, you probably can’t wait for winter, when you can throw on your comfiest tracky bottoms and softest hoody, and cosy up in front of the latest box set with a nice hot cuppa.
But before all that fun begins, it’s a good idea to check your home is ready for the cold. And this starts with your heating.
So we’ve prepared this guide full of top tips and useful links to help you get the most from your Hive Thermostat’s smart features and make sure it has the full support of your boiler and radiators.
- A quick radiator and boiler health check you can do yourself
Your Hive Thermostat can tell your boiler and radiators what to do, but what’s the point if they’re not working to their full potential? Here’s how to quickly test them yourself:
- Pick a cool evening, preferably when your thermostat is reading below 20°C.
- Turn your smart thermostat to Schedule or Manual mode and boost your heating to 22°C for 30 minutes.
- Check your boiler is on and happily burning away.
- Check all your radiators are warming up. If they’re cold, see if the radiator valves are on.
- If your radiators are warm at the bottom but cold at the top, they may need bleeding. This is pretty straightforward to do, as the video below demonstrates.
Watch: How To Bleed A Radiator
2. Stay wonderfully warm with these Hive features
Now that your hub is online and your boiler and radiators are eagerly awaiting orders, let’s look at some super smart Hive features that’ll make your winter wonderfully warm.
Check or set your schedules
Already set some smart schedules? Why not check to make sure they’re ready for cold winter mornings? If you haven’t yet created any, give it a go. With up to six time slots a day, they’ll have your heating working around your life so well, you’ll forget it’s there.
Get a quick blast with ‘Boost’
Up earlier than usual? Back from work before your schedule fires up? Simply press Boost in the Hive app and your heating will give you a nice warm blast for as little as 30 minutes or as long as six hours.
Take advantage of Geolocation
It will notify you if you’ve left the heating on when you’ve gone out or if the temperature is higher or lower than you’d like when you’re on your way home. You can then turn your heating off to save energy or adjust it so it’s just right for when you get in.
“Alexa, turn my heating on”
Don’t forget, if you have Amazon Echo or Google Home, you can control your heating with your voice. Perfect for when you have your hands full.
Activate Frost Protection
It’s our way of looking after your home while you’re away. For example, if the temperature drops below 7°C, your Hive Active Heating will automatically turn your boiler on to protect your pipes from freezing. This means you don’t have to keep it running all the time and waste energy heating an empty home.
3. Be prepared with these handy videos and tips
Unfortunately, things like boilers and radiators can play up from time to time. But don’t worry, here are some videos and lists containing checks, fixes and preventative measures you can make yourself.
Heating and/or hot water not working?
Here are some checks and possible fixes you can try before calling out an engineer.
Watch: What To Do If Your Hot Water or Central Heating Isn’t Working
If you still can’t fix the problem, you can get more heating and hot water help from our friends at British Gas.
Boiler not working?
See British Gas’s 5 boiler fixes before calling out an engineer.
How to check water pressure
A healthy heating system must have the correct water pressure. Luckily, this is easy to do.
Watch: How To Check Water Pressure
We hope this guide helps your home beat the brrrrrr
If you have any questions or need some help with your Hive Active Heating, check out our Hive support section.