It is fodder for late-night talk show hosts and part of cocktail party banter: it’s the proverbial battle over temperature so common between genders. In addition to individual comfort preferences, and perhaps regardless of gender, your home might have hot and cold zones that occur no matter where the thermostat is set. Zoning systems are a great solution to these problems.
It’s a wonder that families have survived this long with just one thermostat to control the temperature of one building. It doesn’t make much sense to expect one thermostat, which reads the temperature only in the area immediately surrounding it, to adequately heat and cool a home with two or more floors, for instance. Because warm air naturally rises, the upper floors are always hotter than the first floor and finished basement. And with the increasingly unique design factors of newer homes, such as rooms with large windows or cathedral ceilings, these elements require separate controls to accommodate the increased heating and cooling required.
You can liken zoning systems to the remote control. Instead of getting up to change the thermostat whenever someone’s preference or a cold zone requires, a zoning system allows homeowners to group rooms into zones, with a separate thermostat controlling each one. In this way, you can zone your great room with a cathedral ceiling as one zone, the upper and lower level as separate zones, and the space over the unconditioned garage as a third zone.
You can typically purchase zoning systems that allow you to select from two to four zones. Motorized dampers are installed in the ductwork, and each damper is connected to a thermostat. After you set a thermostat, it will open and close the damper accordingly to adjust for the necessary heating and cooling to that zone.
With zoning systems, you can overcome design factors and family thermostat battles. But you can also increase energy savings because you’re sending conditioned air to rooms only as needed, and you no longer waste nearly as much energy. Interested in zoning systems? Contact the experts at Donald P. Dick Air Conditioningto schedule a consultation.
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, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Donald P Dick Air Conditioning services the greater Fresno area in California. Visit our website to see our special offers and get started today!
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