Rinnai iHeat or Brivis (and Nest thermostat)

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8701dg

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#221422 10-Aug-2017 11:09

Hi - just looking for some advice and recommendation in installing a ducted gas central heating system.

Ultimately choosing between the iHeat or Brivis systems (either 4 or 6 star). Has anyone had either installed in their house?

Will be installed in a new build house (around 210sqm - excluding garage).

I am drawn to the iHeat given I will already be installing a Rinnai Infinity system so suspect this may come in slightly cheaper up front than the Brivis.

A further consideration is that I would ideally like to use with a Nest thermostat - is anyone operating the Nest with either the Brivis or iHeat?

Much appreciated

Lizard1977

2061 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1843509 10-Aug-2017 13:03

I had the 6-star Brivis installed in March this year, alongside a Rinnai Infinity system. The main reason for not going with iHeat, based on installer recommendation, is that it needed to be installed internally and needed a certain amount of clearance which I didn't have in the roofspace. I suppose if space isn't an issue then it probably makes sense to look at a combined system, but after learning that we didn't have the space for iHeat, I didn't look at it any further.

I can't speak to the Nest thermostat. I don't know anything about them, but I do know that the Brivis controller and thermostats are "dumb", in that there aren't any smarts to speak of. I did discuss it briefly with our installer, but other than a new controller "maybe" coming out in the future, there wasn't much to say. I don't know how Nest interacts with other equipment, but the Brivis controller doesn't have any bluetooth/wifi function, so I suspect there's no easy way to integrate them.

That said, the controller is pretty good, and for the past 5 months its mostly been set & forget. For a while we used the program to have it come on/turn off at certain times of the day, but since our youngest child was born in June we've had someone home all day, and so we just set the whole house to a comfortable temp and let the system keep it at a steady temperature. It does a pretty good job at this.

As for the system overall, I'm pretty happy with it. There are some small niggles, but they pale in comparison to what we had before (2 x flued gas heaters in our main living areas, oil fin heaters in other rooms - a patchy solution), and probably are more to do with our house than the system. For instance, in our kitchen area, which is especially cold in winter, the system just raises the temp to a tolerable level, whereas the rest of the house is comfortable and even. This is likely due to the greater glass exposure, no underfloor insulation/vinyl vs carpet. We've replaced an old small louvre window with a new double-glazed unit which has helped a lot, but it's still the cooler of the rooms in our house. Another niggle is that the floor vents can be a bit noisy sometimes when "boosting" to bring the temperature back up. Sometimes its enough to drown out the TV, but it's reasonably infrequent and doesn't last long. However, I'm happy to live with those niggles for warm, comfortable, affordable heating throughout the house. This time next year, when the whole family will be at work/in childcare during the day, I'm going to be very happy to have a system that comes on automatically so we can come home to a warm house.

8701dg

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1843598 10-Aug-2017 15:09

Thanks Lizard - the Brivis does sound good. Funnily enough, I've approached two local plumbers and they have both tried to put me off the iHeat - but without any justification, rather preference or what appears to be an affiliation with the Brivis brand (although incidentally Rinnai recently bought Brivis). I have plenty of roof space so that shouldn't be an issue.

Without having received formal quotes, I'm personally leaning towards the iHeat on my understanding that it will be $2k - $3k cheaper. Unless I can be persuaded otherwise - still very keen to hear peoples experience with the product.

struct

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1887078 20-Oct-2017 17:54

Did you get any where with the iHeat and the Nest thermostat?

I have a iHeat but I wish it had a better thermostat than the Honeywell it came with.