How does Hive Heating Work?

Hive is now one of the most popular heating options across the UK. It’s a smart thermostat system that can connect to most central heating setups but let’s dive into the details.

Essentially, by using an internet-based system, you can control the temperature of your house, even when you’re not inside it. And, it can even save on your energy bills as you begin to monitor temperature, useage and more.

Understanding Central Heating

Although Hive may be the latest advancement in traditional heating, it does not overthrow the system and change the way we heat our homes.

Regardless of whether or not you have Hive, some mechanisms are the same. The main one is how your central heating actually operates.

In most homes in the UK, the primary source of your home heat is the boiler. This is a giant mechanism that heats up the water and then sends it throughout the house via a network of pipes. This heat usually comes from a gas source, but in some cases, it can also come from electricity or oil.

What is Hive Heating?

Hive markets itself as “Smart Heating”. And it has two main benefits. 

The first benefit is that it allows you to control and customise the heating for each room via an app on your phone or smart device. So, if you’re out on a cold walk and know you’ll want to come home to a warm house, you can turn the heat up whilst you’re out. Essentially, you can control your central heating remotely.

Or, you can set a schedule for the heating to turn on and off at certain times.

Another key benefit is that due to this increased control, you save energy. As a smart thermostat Hive knows when to turn the boiler off at just the right moment. So, you don’t use more power than you need to get the room to your desired temperature.

How does Hive Control the Temperature?

Most central heating systems work by you deciding the temperature of the radiator. However, Hive flips this and works by you determining the temperature of the entire room.

Smart thermometers placed throughout your home will detect any rooms temperature. If the room is too cold, the thermometer will relay that information to the boiler, which will produce the extra heat required and send it to the room in question, via the central heating system.

The Hive system knows when enough heat has been given, and the boiler will be turned off.

How does Hive Heating Work?

How does the Hive Thermostat App Work?

Unlike regular central heating, Hive is a “smart” device. And like all smart devices, it uses the internet to improve your experience.

Here’s what you get when you order Smart Heating with Hive.

  • Hub – device that plugs into your broadband router
  • Receiver – device which is wired to your boiler
  • Smart Thermometers – detect the temperature of the room

Because the system is plugged into your broadband, the heating is controlled via the internet. Hence, you can control it remotely, even outside the house.

Let’s say you’re walking in the rain and want to return to a warm house. The first thing to do is increase the temperature on the app. This will send a signal to the Hub via the internet. The Hub sends a signal (again via the internet) to the receiver.

The receiver then tells the boiler to heat up, and the boiler sends hot water throughout the house until the thermometers say the room is at the right temperature.

Multi-Zone Heating

One of the many great things about Hive is that you can set each room at a different temperature. Perhaps you are a landlord, and each person pays for their own heating. Or maybe, within your own home, some rooms get colder than others and need more heat.

This system works similarly to how a regular central heating system might work. The wiring centre controls the zone valves. And the zone valves send water from the boiler to the manifold – which makes the water the desired temperature.

Once the water is at the correct temperature, a pump will then send it to the correct room.

How to Install Hive:

When you order Hive Smart Heating, the price you pay will include an engineer coming to your house and installing the system for you. However, if you’d rather do it yourself, that’s also possible.

We strongly recommend against doing DIY, not only because it can be highly dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing (and if you do, you probably wouldn’t need to read this article), but because Hive will send someone to install it as part of the package.

The key actions are as follows:

1. Plug the Hub into your wi-fi router

2. Remove your old boiler’s programmer

3. Place Hive programmer in its place

4. Turn the power off

5. Put the programmer cover on

6. Install smart thermometers and thermostats into the walls

7. Turn the power back on

Smart thermostats are becoming more and more common, and Hive happens to be one of the most popular currently on the market at the time of writing.

We hope this provides more context and help, and for everything else home heating stick with CosyWarmer.com