Improving the comfort of your Fresno area home could be as easy as installing a zoning system upgrade. In many cases, homeowners dissatisfied with home comfort are resigned to the idea that upgrading the HVAC equipment – whether furnace, A/C, boiler or heat pump – is the only solution to the problem. Before investing a large sum of money in a new system, talk to your HVAC contractor about a zoning system upgrade. A zoning system employs multiple thermostats for targeted indoor climate control, allowing home occupants to set temperatures in individual zones and saving energy by not providing heating or cooling to unoccupied areas.
What is a zoning system?
To understand how you’ll benefit from installing the system, it’s helpful to first learn how it works:
- Using motorized dampers installed in ducts, along with dedicated thermostats, your contractor will group your home into zones with similar design characteristics and heating/cooling loads.
- The ducts that lead to each zone are controlled by a damper and a thermostat.
- You can then set a unique temperature in each zone. The dampers to zone 1 will remain open as long as necessary. Once the air conditioner meets the cooling load of that space, the dampers close, while dampers to other zones remain open until the cooling loads of other zones are met.
When is it best to use the system?
The zoning system’s ability to deliver just enough conditioned air to each zone resolves challenging comfort problems. If your home design employs any of these features, you could probably benefit from installing a zoning system in your home:
- More than one floor.
- A large room with high ceilings.
- A great room that combines multiple areas.
- A room that features large windows especially on the sun-facing side of the house.
- A remodeled attic.
- A finished basement.
- An addition to the home that features more efficient building materials than the original home.
- A large floor plan that extends in several directions.
If you’d like to explore whether a zoning system will benefit your home, please contact us at Donald P. Dick Air Conditioning today. We serve homeowners in the greater Fresno area. Give us call today or visit our website for more information.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Fresno, California area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).