I’m Simon, an engineer at Genius Hub and here’s how I installed a Genius Hub system in a one bedroom city centre flat.
Why Did I Want It?
A few reasons:
- To get remote control of the heating. Now I can turn on the heating when I’m on the way back home, so that it’s warm when I arrive.
- To get better temperature control. The existing radiators do a good job of warming up the room, but usually it gets too hot, so there is a regular process of turning up or down the thermostat on the radiator, or just turning the radiator on or off.
- To be able to set up a schedule. Pre Genius Hub, it was fiddly to set a schedule, and it had to be done on each radiator individually, by pushing in pins, and was not possible at all on one of the radiators.
Setup & Kit
The property is a typical one bedroom flat in Birmingham City Centre. In addition to the bedroom (1 radiator), there is one bathroom (1 towel rail), one living room (two radiators), an entrance hall (no radiators), and a hot water tank.
I used the following Genius Hub kit:
- 1x Genius Hub
- 2x Room Sensors
- 4x Electric Switches
- 1x Hot water temperature controller
Install Process
The Genius Hub
The Hub was easy enough – it just plugs into the broadband router with a network cable, and into a wall socket for power.
Room Sensors
Also very easy – they just stick to the wall with a sticky pad. One in the bedroom, and one in the living room.
Remember to remove the little black battery tab from the back of the sensor, before sticking it to the wall!
Electric Radiators
This is a bit more involved as it requires rewiring electrics.
Please note that I am a trained electrician, and you should not undertake any electrical work unless you are an ‘electrically competent person’.
The process involves removing the fused spur that is used to turn off power to the radiator, then fitting a ‘dual dry lining box‘ so that the electric switch can sit next to the fused spur.
In order to do this, the old single dry lining box needed to be removed, the hole in the wall enlarged, and the dry dry lining box fitted. See the attached video for this.
The towel rail is the same as the electric radiators.
Hot Water Tank
Again, this required some rewiring, as the switch replaces the existing programmer.
In this case the switch was mounted to a ‘1 gang surface pattress box’, rather than embedded into the wall.
The electric switch was connected directly to the immersion heater, that heats up the hot water tank, as it can switch up to 3kW, which is the same rating as the immersion heater.
Additionally, the temperature probe was inserted into the tank jacketing, and pressed against the side of the tank, to measure the water temperature.
Setting Up The System
The kit came with the devices already ‘paired’ to, and tested with the Genius Hub, so as soon as it was all powered on it was good to go.
Each device is labelled with a sticker that says which ‘zone’ it is assigned to, so as long as the device goes into the right room, everything will be fine.
The first time you use the app, you have to register it, choosing a username and password, and entering a postcode, so that the weather information for your area can be retrieved.
The install took approximately two and a half hours to complete.
In Summary...
It took me a couple of hours to install the kit – if you would like an engineer to install it, then ‘pro-install’ can be arranged (see this link).
Also in this particular property, all of the devices that were being controlled were electric radiators. Genius Hub can also be used to control traditional ‘wet radiators’ (central heating radiators) and underfloor heating too. Check out the website for more information on these.
If you’ve got any questions about this install, please drop us a message using the form below.
Ways to get in touch...
Call our friendly sales team between 09:00 – 17:00
0121 667 8000
or fill in the form to the left
or use the live chat icon on the web page
or send email to enquiry@heatgenius.co.uk
