My parents, in their 80s, are struggling with their heating controls. They've recently had the traditional pin circular timer on the fairly new boiler (it's maybe 2 years old) and separate wired in thermostat replaced with a digital controller and thermostat in one because they couldn't get the heating to do what they wanted it to. I had to go round at short notice at the weekend because the heating hadn't come on.
Well it wasn't on because the temperature in the house wasn't below the temperature the heating is set to come on at. They had the boiler on the incorrect setting too so it wasn't communicating with the controller. Anyway, I demonstrated correct setting and showed them how to manually put the heating on when they need it.
I've now realised there's a fundamental lack of understanding of how the thermostat works. Added to which, 21 or 22 degrees is not warm enough for them. I feel like I'm going mad because I've suggested turning up the setting to 24 or 25 degrees if they're not warm enough, but there's a reluctance to do this, which I think is because they're worried they'll get it wrong and either break it or get a huge gas bill. I'm going to have to go round again (50 mile round trip. I work full time in a demanding job and my sibling is 200 miles away) to change it. It's a two minute job.
Does anyone have any tips for how to deal with this? I think a large format display controller would be helpful as both were struggling to read the controls. Maybe they should get something like Hive and I can control the bloody thing from a distance? It's not even particularly cold yet.