Last year, we got a new heater in our living room. It’s got three heating channels inside the unit (I’m sure that’s not what they’re called but fins seem to be name for the old-fashioned radiators we have) and it heats up the living room in less than 30 minutes (maybe 180 sq ft or 18 sq m). This is an incredible feat since our old radiator running full blast plus the super expensive electric fireplace heater in the other corner of the room couldn’t achieve that in the same amount of time. They might have even needed an hour for the job. So I guess that just shows you that even if you think the old iron ones look cool, they are certainly not energy efficient.

Unfortunately, the living room faces mostly South and gets full sun almost all day. Now this is not a bad thing, especially during the winter when heating up the room is important–but it wreaks havoc with the temperatures in the room. The solar heat dramatically increases the temperature because of all the windows (two face South, one more faces mostly West so we really have sunlight coming in all day) and when the heater is running also, it quickly becomes a sauna in there.

Last week, I dropped by Lidl and picked up 2 Honeywell Rondostat electronic radiator controllers (that’s the official term for them). I call them automatic thermostats for the radiator. Whatever. The controllers were on sale for €29.95 each which is a few euros cheaper than the usual €32.95 sale price they have at the home improvement stores. Sometimes they’re as much as €40 full price.

I have to admit that I was not totally convinced about these things but since we have such crazy fluctations in our living room and master bedroom (the master sits right above the living room so it has the same daily sun issues) we figured it was worth a try. I don’t know why I doubted them but it just seemed that with the radiator controller sitting against the far wall of the room, it might be hard for it to recognize the temperature in the room.

We took on the task of installing one of them this weekend in the living room as a trial. I read the instructions and Stefan put the thing on. I have to admit that installing the batteries in the unit was probably the hardest part, because we couldn’t quite grasp what the instructions were telling us to do. But one we had that figured out, it was all very simple. You don’t need to drain the water from heaters or anything. Just use a wrench to remove the old thermostat from the radiator and screw the new one on. It did take a second adjustment to get the settings right with the pin of the radiator and the controller. It seemed to think it was off while heat was pouring from the radiator. But we got that sorted out eventually.

Then it was time to program the thing. According to wikipedia, the optimal temperature for your living room is 23°C (73.4°F). So that was the temperature I wanted during the majority of the day (since I work in there from my laptop and Mack plays in there). But I wanted it to start heating the room at 6am and turn off at about midnight on the weekends. As it turned out, I could even set a different time for it to go off and on each day of the week…or all the same throughout the week. Very, very simple programming and when you want to override it, you just turn the dial to the desired temperature. Once it reaches a time of day when a new program is starting, the thermostat will just take over again until you reset it or manually adjust it again.

I absolutely think these controllers are going to save us a lot of money this winter since we’re not constantly overheating the rooms anymore. And according to my room thermometer, it’s quite accurate even further away from the heater. I have a feeeling it will save us a lot more in heating oil than the €29.95 we paid for the units. So if you have radiators in your house and have considered getting these controllers, just stop thinking about it and go get them. It’s shaping up to be a cold winter here and elsewehere! Did you hear it’s SNOWING today in Munich? It’s only 45°F (8°C) here, there was frost on the cars this morning and it’s supposed to be below freezing over the weekend. In OCTOBER! This is just crazy.

Hope you stay warm out there & don’t forget to tell me about what projects you’re doing at home to keep warmed up without breaking the bank!