Limit your thermostats#
Thermostats are common in community spaces, either on the wall to control the temperature in the whole room or on electric and wet system radiators (as “thermostatic radiator valves”, or TRVs).
Almost everyone thinks that if you turn a thermostat all the way up, the room will heat up faster. That’s not true – it just means that the system will try to heat the room to a high temperature. Usually the top limit is around 26C, which is dangerously warm for people with heart conditions.
Some thermostats, including wet system TRVs, will let you adjust or insert pins that keep them from being turned too high or too low. It’s also sometimes possible to find “low range” TRVs that limit the top temperature to, for instance, 18C. There are also tamper-proof caps and covers that will keep people from altering TRVs and thermostats at all.
Updating your heating controls so users can do exactly what they need and no more is an even better idea, but limiting your thermostats is often a very cheap fix.