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I believe I have zero Alkaline batteries left in my house and I'm relatively surprised that pretty much everything works fine. If anything, I suspect the only p
by jchw 9mo ago
I believe I have zero Alkaline batteries left in my house and I'm relatively surprised that pretty much everything works fine. If anything, I suspect the only problem is that some devices have an inaccurate account of how dead the batteries are. But I use Eneloops on everything, even things surely not designed at all to run on them. (And I reckon you could probably make more devices work if you really wanted to; adding an additional cell or two in series would surely give you a voltage that's in range, if you can figure out a good way to do it.)
Of course not all rechargable batteries are the same; there are a few different rechargable battery chemistries in the AA form factor. I like Eneloop Pros, though; they've been very reliable for me. I've been using them for years and I've never had to throw one out yet; supposedly they last over a thousand cycles with most of their capacity.
- zabzonk 9mo agoI think I have only one device that uses AA - my central heating's radio thermostat. This thing has caused me untold hassle, which is only partially down to the batteries, but still... Totally OT, but does anyone have a good link on how the thermostat gets paired with the boiler? I'm thinking of getting replaced and would like to talk to the gas fitter from a vaguely informed point of view.
- ghaff 9mo agoPersonally, I keep things simple. Got a new (pretty basic) Honeywell thermostat after a kitchen fire; thermostat was pretty old anyway. For wiring, you mostly have 2-wire and 3-wire although there are a lot of variations as you get fancier: https://nassaunationalcable.com/blogs/blog/a-full-guide-to-thermostat-wiring-types-and-color-coding https://nassaunationalcable.com/blogs/blog/a-full-guide-to-t... Number of zones in the house may affect things as may boiler only or AC being in the picture as well.
- bluGill 9mo ago> good link on how the thermostat gets paired with the boiler? You should have a book with the boiler that says how your system is setup. They nearly always include schematics and are very helpful. Typically you can open a cover and see the wiring details as well. Forget about web sites, there are too many different ways a system can be setup, so even if they are not slop they can still be inapplicable for you. Once you know what you are looking at you can sometimes get useful information from the web, but until then you can't sort out what is useful for you.
- ghaff 9mo agoYeah. Have your manuals handy if you get a furnace guy/electrician in. My electrician actually wired up my thermostat wrong when I got a new thermostat in.
- zabzonk 9mo agoThanks, and to the other guys. But I am asking about a remote wireless thermostat. How does it know to talk to my boiler, and not her next door's? As I said totally OT, and I do have a couple of good C/H firms I can get in to sort it.
- ghaff 9mo agoSounds like an awful idea in general. Think KISS concept. But you'd have to look at manuals. There's probably no single answer. (I was thinking of wireless control of the thermostat itself.) I'd add that, where I live (New England), furnace failures can be basically catastrophic so any theoretical convenience advantages just aren't worth it.
- zabzonk 9mo agoWireless thermostats are really common in the UK. I don't know about elsewhere. I'm interested how they pair (like Bluetooth) with the boiler. Basically, the thermostat is in a living area and you set the temperature(s) to what you want, it senses them, and then talks to the boiler (in my case in the roof-space) to heat up (or not, via radio) the water in the radiators to satisfy that. It's a feedback loop.
- ghaff 9mo agoI'm maybe just a fuddy duddy but relying on wireless tech for critical systems unnecessarily seems like asking for trouble. Running wires to a boiler isn't generally that complicated and it's just one less point of failure.
- bluGill 9mo ago
- quickthrowman 9mo agoThermostats (aka space temperature sensors) can have between two and eight wires. A boiler will usually have three: 24V power, call for heat, and common. If your boiler has inputs on the terminal block for a thermostat, I would highly recommend buying a wired one, the 24V constant power removes the need for batteries. If you can provide a link to your boiler’s installation and operations manual, I can tell you.
- bxparks 9mo agoThree things prevent me from eliminating all alkalines: * smoke and CO detectors with low-battery voltage sensors calibrated to alkaline * some older electronics (e.g. multimeters) using 9V batteries * my non-contact voltage tester refuses to turn on using NiMH, for safety reasons presumably
- accounting2026 9mo agoI have a weather station that takes two 1.2 V. The LCD screen is a bit dim compared to when used with fresh 1.5 V alkalines. Other than that, most things take the 1.2 V well. But they better do because alkalines reach 1.2 V with >50% capacity left.