How Can a Zoning System Benefit You?

If you live in a home with more than one level, odds are you could benefit from a zoning system. Other special circumstances in a home also make HVAC zoning a good idea.

With a zoning system, the home is divided into two or more separate areas, in which the rooms share climate conditions. Using separate thermostats and automated duct dampers, the homeowner can control temperatures (and sometimes the humidity) in the separate zones. The dampers open when the thermostat calls for more heating or cooling, and close when the set temperature has been achieved.

In a home with just one thermostat, temperatures throughout the house are affected, for better or worse, by climate conditions or comfort preferences in the room where the thermostat is located. This is usually a living room or hallway on the main floor.

In a multi-floor home, this means a finished basement will stay chilly in the winter, since the thermostat in the living room shuts down the heat long before the basement is comfortable. Likewise, in the summer, upstairs and loft bedrooms never cool off since the A/C shuts down when the desired temperature is reached on the main floor. Homeowners resort to unsatisfactory solutions such as loud and clanky room air conditioners and energy-sucking space heaters.

Other situations that result in variable temperatures in a home include rooms or sections made with different building materials, more or fewer windows, orientation to the sun, and vaulted ceilings, among many others.Following are some basic benefits of a zoning system:

• You'll save energy (and money at the end of the month) by not heating or cooling unoccupied areas.

• Family harmony will prevail when different family members aren't arguing over the thermostat. If they don't like the temperature in one area in the house, they can move to another.

• You shouldn't have to tolerate a home where some rooms or areas are uncomfortable without space heating or cooling. Whole-house comfort should be a given.

To talk to an expert about a zoning system for your Broken Arrow area home, please contact us at Air Assurance.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Credit/Copyright Attribution: “geralt/Pixabay”

The Well-Designed Zoning System: Key Principles

Homeowners with multiple-story or larger houses can benefit greatly from a well-designed zoning system. These sophisticated home temperature-control systems allow you to divide your home into separate areas, or zones, that are controlled by individual thermostats. A series of motorized dampers in the ductwork system opens or closes the ducts to provide heating or cooling as desired within each zone.Here are some key principles for designing and implementing a well-designed zoning system in your home:

• Keep zones to an area no larger than a single floor: Zoning systems work best in smaller areas such as individual rooms. If you put more than one floor of your home in a single zone, you'll lose the primary benefit of the zoning system as rising warm air and sinking cool air will continue to cause inconsistent temperatures.

• Put newly constructed or remodeled rooms in the same zone: Newly constructed or remodeled rooms will probably have better levels of insulation and other thermal characteristics than older rooms, so keep them within the same zone.

• Put zone thermostats in the room that is used most often: It makes sense to keep a zone's most-used room comfortable and to install the temperature controller there. Thermostats in hallways won't always give the best level of temperature control since they might be affected by factors such as sunshine or extreme outdoor temperatures.

• Put rooms with outer perimeter walls in separate zones: Rooms with walls that make contact with the outdoor environment are more likely to be affected by exterior temperatures, resulting in inconsistent heating and cooling.

• Combine rooms with similar heating loads within the same zone: Rooms with different heating and cooling loads will still have inconsistent temperatures if they are placed within the same zone. Keep rooms with similar thermal characteristics in the same zone as much as possible.

Air Assurance has been a professional heating and air conditioning services provider in the Tulsa area for more than three decades. Contact us today for more information on well-designed zoning systems and the many benefits they can provide.Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Image courtesy of Shutterstock