Unless you live with your family in a one-room cabin, you probably have conflicts over the best thermostat setting to keep everybody happy. Because of the layout of your house and the different uses of its areas, it doesn't make much sense to try to control the heating and cooling of the entire house with a single thermostat. Adding a zoning system to your central heating and air-conditioning system could solve your family's comfort problems and reduce your utility bills at the same time.
A zoning system uses motor-driven dampers in your ductwork controlled by separate thermostats to regulate the heating and cooling in several parts of your house. Most houses can be effectively zoned by grouping rooms into just two or three zones, but some systems provide up to four zones.
Basic physical laws explain why it is impossible to keep the same temperature throughout your home if you only have one thermostat. South-facing rooms, especially if they have big windows, will heat up more during the day than other areas of your house because of passive solar gain. Upper floors will be warmer than lower floors due to warm-air convection. Your kitchen may be warmer than the rest of your main floor because of heat generated by your stove, oven and dishwasher.
A zoning system can solve these uneven temperature problems. For example, a two-story house with a big south-facing picture window in the dining room might be split into three zones: one zone for the dining room and kitchen, a second zone for the rest of the main living area, and a third zone for the rooms upstairs. Each zone would have its own thermostat.
If your house already has central ductwork, adding zoning is relatively inexpensive. Your investment will pay for itself through lower energy bills and greater home comfort.
Interested in zoning systems? Call us at Joe Behr Plumbing & Heating with any questions you may have about adding a zoning system to your home. We help homeowners throughout the Mid-Ohio region find the most cost-effective ways to improve their year-round home comfort.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about zoning systems and other HVAC topics, visit our website.
Joe Behr Plumbing and Heating, Inc. services the Mid-Ohio area.
