Installing CM Zone - so easy

Wow... It didn't take me all this time to install it. It's been in almost a year, and I have to say.. I'd not want a home without.

Installation was quite simple. There are 3 components to the pack:
- A wireless programmer for setting what temperature you want for each zone, at varying times of day, and for each day of the week. It might sound complicated, but it's really easy to program.
- Six remote controlled rad-stats, pre-programmed 3 for each of zone 1 and 2.
- A wireless receiver. This replaces the wall thermostat, and receives signals from the rad-stats.

The programmer was easy to set up. You can allow 3 minutes. Open the battery compartment, and pull out the tab between the batteries and the contact, so that it then powers up. Then, open the front cover, switch to time, and set the current date and time. That's it for now, as it's got sensible defaults.

Next, replace existing radiator rad-stats with the CM Zone remote ones. There are 3 for each zone, so I decided to make zone 1 the bedrooms, and zone 2 the lounge, kitchen and bathroom. Each valve is labelled as to which zone they're preset to. Again, they have their batteries supplied, so just pull the tab out from between the contacts. The instructions for installing each valve are simple, but you have to pay attention for the first one - follow the steps, and you'll find it's actually quite easy. Once you've done the first you'll breeze through the rest.

Lastly, there is the thermostat receiver. Some people won't want to do this themself, or might even find they're not allowed. It needs wiring in to the boiler, and to the mains. For me, it was just a case of unplugging the boiler, wiring in the relay bit where the old programmer/thermostat was wired in, and then hooking up some mains cable to a fused plug. If in doubt, please get an electrician in to do this for you. You may also find that the thermostat is no where near a mains supply. In this case, as it no longer needs to be in a room, you can have the electrician wire it in back at the boiler.

So... that's it. Once set up, the first thing you'll find is that the temperatures in the rooms suddenly become much more uniform. You can even turn things down a bit, and not feel cold, because you don't keep going from warmer to slightly colder rooms.

And.. the best bit - the knob and display on each rad-stat. You twiddle the knob and it overrides the programmer until the next programmed change.