Smart Heating Controls
Control your heating from your phone and warm individual rooms with smart thermostats and eTRVs — Honeywell and Hive, fitted and set up for you.
Done properly, by a local team
Heat rooms individually
eTRVs let you warm the rooms you use and save on the ones you don't.
Control from anywhere
Turn the heating on from your phone so you come home to a warm house.
Honeywell & Hive
We fit and set up leading smart controls so they just work.
What smart heating controls actually do
A boiler fitted to a Merseyside semi is almost always more powerful than the house needs on all but the coldest few days of the year. A plain on/off room thermostat can only fire that burner at full output until the room reaches temperature, then shut it off completely. The house overshoots, cools, and overshoots again, and the boiler never settles into a steady rhythm. Modulating and compensating controls change the question the boiler is being asked. Instead of "on or off", they ask "how hot does the water leaving you need to be right now". A modern condensing boiler only condenses, recovering latent heat from its own flue gases, when the water returning to it is below roughly 55°C. Run the flow at 75°C and it behaves like a much older, less efficient appliance whatever the label on the front says. Holding the flow temperature as low as the house will tolerate is the largest single efficiency gain available, and that is what these controls exist to do.
Weather compensation: matching the flow temperature to the weather
Weather compensation gives the boiler an outside reference. It uses either a small external sensor fitted on a north-facing wall, or, on internet-connected controls such as Bosch EasyControl, a local weather feed. The control then follows a heating curve. At 12°C outside it might run the flow at 45°C; at minus 2°C it lifts it towards 70°C. The house is given back the heat it is actually losing and no more. Two things follow. The boiler spends far more hours in condensing mode, because on a mild November day on the Wirral the flow never needs to be hot. And room temperatures hold steadier, because the system stops swinging between full output and nothing. The trade-off is worth knowing before you buy. Radiators often feel warm rather than hot, and the house recovers from a setback more slowly. The curve also has to be matched to your radiators and insulation, which is a commissioning job rather than a factory default.
Load compensation and the OpenTherm connection
Load compensation works from inside the house rather than outside it. The thermostat measures how far the room is from its target and tells the boiler how much output to give. A wide gap on a cold morning brings high flow temperatures and quick recovery; as the room closes on the setpoint, the control winds the flame down to just enough to hold it there. For any of that to happen, the thermostat and boiler have to talk to each other. On most brands that link is OpenTherm, a two-wire digital connection. Worcester Bosch boilers use their own EMS bus with Bosch controls, and an adapter for other makes. This matters in a very practical way: the terminals have to be wired to the correct pair, and the protocol has to be enabled at commissioning. A control sold as OpenTherm-capable but wired to the standard switched-live terminals falls back to plain on/off, and most homeowners never find out. Ask which mode yours is running in at handover.
Zoning, TRVs and what the regulations now expect
Under the 2021 revision of Part L, in force in England since 15 June 2022, replacing a heat source triggers a requirement for thermostatic room control in every room the system serves. In practice that is usually TRVs on every radiator except the one in the room holding the wall thermostat — Approved Document L says TRVs should not be used in the same room as the thermostat, so that it can read the house correctly. Individual room thermostats, or networked controls on each radiator, are equally valid ways of meeting it. A fully replaced system — appliance, emitters and pipework together — must also be sized to run at a flow temperature of 55°C or lower wherever that is feasible; a boiler swap on its own does not trigger that. Zoning goes further, splitting the house so different areas run to different temperatures at different times. New dwellings of 150m² or more require at least two independently controlled circuits, usually upstairs and downstairs. Smart TRVs are the retrofit route. Bosch EasyControl supports up to 19 of them, each appearing as its own zone. They are worth having where rooms are genuinely used differently, though shutting too many at once leaves the boiler with nowhere to send its heat, so the system needs looking at as a whole.
Boiler Plus: what is required on a new combi in England
Since April 2018, Boiler Plus has set the standard for domestic gas boiler work in England. When a gas boiler is installed in an existing heating system it has to reach at least 92% ErP efficiency and include time and temperature control, meaning a programmer and a room thermostat as a minimum, where those are not already in place. Boilers combined with range cookers sit outside the standard, and there is a narrow exception where the government's condensing boiler installation assessment procedure permits a lower-efficiency appliance — in which case the extra combi requirement below does not apply either. If the appliance is a combi, one additional efficiency measure is required on top of that. Four options are accepted: weather compensation, load compensation, flue gas heat recovery, or a smart control offering both automation and optimisation. Automation means the control adjusts its time and temperature settings by itself, using occupancy detection and/or stored data from your own adjustments over time — the government has confirmed that preferences you enter manually count towards this. Optimisation means it works out how long your particular house takes to warm and starts early enough to arrive on time. A control has to do both to qualify on that route, so a smart control that only runs a fixed schedule you set, with no optimisation, does not meet it. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own building standards and the detail differs.
Bosch EasyControl, Nest and Hive
Bosch EasyControl is built for Worcester Bosch boilers and talks to them over the EMS bus rather than through an adapter. It takes weather data from the internet rather than an external sensor, controls hot water as well as heating, detects when the household leaves and returns, and pairs with Bosch smart TRVs. Bosch rates it as a 4% uplift to system ErP efficiency on its own, or 5% with three or more smart TRVs, in both cases on a compatible boiler with weather compensation enabled. It sits alongside the extended guarantee Worcester offer when a boiler is fitted by an accredited installer — up to 12 years on the Greenstar 8000+ range when it is installed with a Greenstar System Filter, and shorter on other models in the range. Google Nest is the most developed learning control, building a schedule from how you actually use the house, and the 3rd-generation Learning Thermostat and the Thermostat E both support OpenTherm modulation through the Heat Link on compatible boilers. One thing to know before you commit: Google announced in 2025 that it will not launch new Nest thermostats in Europe, and is selling the remaining UK models while stocks last, so ask us about long-term availability and support. Hive is the app most households already recognise, and its V4 range includes OpenTherm versions — Hive's own guidance notes OpenTherm works only on combi boilers and only with a single-channel receiver, so the OpenTherm variant has to be specified deliberately rather than assumed. Any of the three will do the job. Which one suits you comes down to your boiler's protocol, whether you want per-room control, and how much you want to think about it.
What they realistically save, and who gains most
The most reliable independent figures come from the University of Salford's Energy House, where BEAMA ran controlled tests across two phases — first on a typical oversized 30kW combi, then on a better-matched 24kW system with balanced radiators and a lower flow temperature. Measured against a standard on/off (Class I) thermostat, a room thermostat with on/off load compensation cut heating gas use by around 10%, and a directly modulating load or weather compensating thermostat by around 12%. Those are heating-season estimates extrapolated from seven-hour laboratory tests rather than a promise about your annual bill, and we have not been able to find evidence of comparable quality behind the 25% or 30% headline figures quoted elsewhere. The homes that gain most are large, older, solid-walled or poorly insulated properties with long heating hours and generously sized radiators, which describes a great deal of the housing stock across Liverpool, Sefton and St Helens. The gains are smallest in a compact, well-insulated flat that is occupied consistently and warms up in twenty minutes. No control can correct an oversized boiler or undersized radiators.
Simple, from quote to comfort
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Free survey & fixed quote
We visit, assess your home and give a clear fixed price — no pressure, no jargon.
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Pick a date that suits you
Choose a day that works. We confirm everything up front and answer any questions.
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Tidy, Gas Safe install
Our engineers fit your system cleanly and safely — and leave your home spotless.
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Aftercare & guarantee
You're covered by the manufacturer guarantee, with our local team a phone call away.
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Common questions
Do I have to have a smart thermostat with a new combi boiler?
No. Boiler Plus requires one additional efficiency measure on a new gas combi in England, and a smart control is only one of the four ways to meet it. Weather compensation, load compensation and flue gas heat recovery all qualify equally. If you would rather not have an app involved in your heating, tell us at the survey and we will specify a compensating control instead. Every installation needs time and temperature control regardless of which route is chosen.
Will a smart control work with my existing boiler?
Usually, but the detail decides how well it works. Almost any boiler will accept a smart control as a straightforward on/off switch. Getting true modulation needs a boiler with an OpenTherm terminal, or a Worcester Bosch appliance on the EMS bus, and it has to be enabled at commissioning. Older non-condensing boilers and some system boilers with separate hot water control narrow the options considerably. Give us the make and model when you call and we can tell you before anyone visits.
Will weather compensation leave my radiators feeling cold?
They will often feel warm rather than hot, and that is the intention. A radiator running at 50°C for four hours puts more heat into a room than one running at 75°C for ninety minutes, and it keeps the boiler condensing throughout. What you should not accept is a house that fails to reach the temperature you set. If that happens, the heating curve needs adjusting rather than abandoning, and we will come back and reset it.
Do I need smart TRVs on every radiator?
No, and fitting them everywhere is rarely the best value. They earn their keep on rooms with genuinely different patterns, such as a spare bedroom, a home office or a dining room used at weekends. Rooms sharing the same schedule are better served by standard TRVs, which are the usual way of meeting the thermostatic room control the regulations require on a boiler replacement. Approved Document L says the radiator in the room with the main thermostat should not have a TRV fitted at all, so the thermostat reads the house accurately.
How much will smart controls actually save me?
Independent testing at Salford's Energy House estimated roughly 10 to 12% less heating gas from compensating controls compared with a standard on/off thermostat — heating-season figures projected from controlled seven-hour tests, not a measurement of anyone's annual bill. Your own result depends on how large and how leaky the house is, how many hours the heating runs and how the radiators are sized. A big older Merseyside property heated for long hours will see more than a compact modern flat. We would rather set that expectation than quote a headline figure we cannot stand behind.
Can controls be fitted at the same time as a new boiler, and what about the guarantee?
Yes, and doing both together costs less than a separate visit, because the wiring, commissioning and Gas Safe notification all happen once. Our boilers are £2,000 to £2,850 fitted, depending on the appliance and the work involved. As a Worcester Bosch Accredited Installer we can register their boilers for an extended guarantee — up to 12 years on the Greenstar 8000+ range when it is fitted with a Greenstar System Filter, and shorter terms on other models. Worcester require the boiler to be registered within 30 days of installation and serviced annually for the guarantee to remain valid, and we will confirm the exact guarantee length for the boiler we quote you. Finance is available, subject to status; please see our finance page for the details.
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