If your house has noticeable differences in temperatures between rooms or even within a room, you may want to consider HVAC zoning. Zoning provides an even distribution of heating and cooling throughout your house. The available solutions range from the simple to the advanced. Here is a closer look at what zoning is and its advantages.
What Is an HVAC Zone?
An HVAC zone is a targeted area in a house. For example, many people develop their bedroom into a separate zone because they find sleeping in a cooler room to be more restful. People who cook a lot often create a zone for their kitchen. Guest bedrooms, storage spaces, craft rooms and many other areas all make excellent zoning candidates.
You can create different HVAC zones using a variety of technologies. The classic zoning solution is the damper. A damper acts as a flap in your home’s ductwork that restricts airflow to certain areas. If you have one room that’s blasted with air because it’s close to the HVAC system, a damper can reduce the airflow. Electronically controlled dampers are also becoming more popular as they allow for automatic adjustments and better control over the zoned areas in your home.
Inline fans are another common zoning system. If you have a distant part of your house that barely gets any air, a fan in the ductwork can encourage airflow to that area.
Many modern HVAC systems also regulate the main blower motor. This reduces overall airflow and makes it easier for dampers and fans to control conditions in your home.
Air return registers are important to zoning a house, too. The registers collect the conditioned air and send it back to the HVAC system. Well-positioned returns can create a draw that encourages airflow without the need for aggressive fan designs.
Finally, a lot of modern systems have control panels for specific zones. These advanced HVAC products use sensors and specialized thermostats that feed data back to the HVAC system. Also, some of the high-quality versions allow you to specifically control conditions in a room. For example, you might want to limit heating and cooling most of the time to a home theater. However, you would probably also like to easily change the conditions for movie night.
Support for HVAC Technologies
Today’s zone control systems are compatible with virtually all HVAC systems. Furnaces, heat pumps, AC units and mini-split systems are all compatible with common zonal solutions. Likewise, most zone controls are compatible with common smart home technologies. This means you can easily control zones using your phone or tablet. Some zone methods also integrate with home security and entertainment systems to provide unified solutions. You will find plenty of options that work with Amazon Alexa, Google Nest and Apple HomeKit as well.
Notably, most HVAC systems will also accommodate a zoning retrofit. With a few changes to the control system, you can usually add zoning to an existing system.
Is Your Home Suited to Zoning?
Zoning is useful in many homes. However, the benefits of zoning tend to be more evident in larger houses. A two-story house is more likely to benefit from zoning than a one-story residence, for example. This is because rooms on the second story, especially at spots away from the main HVAC ducts, often don’t have good airflow.
Houses with auxiliary rooms tend to also benefit more from zoning. If your house has an attached garage, for example, you might want to create a zone there. Zones are great for improving efficiency by reducing heating and cooling in low-use rooms, too. You might limit airflow to a home office except during work hours.
A good way to determine if your house is a solid candidate for zoning is to check every room on a noticeably hot or cold day. Have the HVAC system run normally. See which rooms seem to be problematic. One room might get cold on a cool fall night, while a room that gets a lot of sunlight could roast during a heat wave.
Saving Money With Zoning
One of the major reasons that homeowners adopt HVAC zoning is to improve energy efficiency. Balancing the heating and cooling in your home reduces draftiness. If the conditions in your house feel more even and comfortable, you’re less likely to fiddle with the thermostat. Similarly, drafts can trigger the HVAC system more often.
Eliminating hot and cold spots also improves efficiency. The hot and cold areas of your house will constantly try to equalize on their own. As this happens, it draws air away from one space and into another. This process is unstable, and it tends to trigger more HVAC system cycling. Additional HVAC system cycles are costly because ramping up for heating and cooling is the most expensive part of the process. A more efficient zoning system may save you as much as 30% per year in utility bills.
Similarly, extra cycling is harder on the HVAC’s components. More cycles mean more time with bearings spinning up and then down. The same goes for fans and blower motors. Extra heating and cooling cycles can also stress and potentially crack the condenser and evaporator coils. Also, additional cycles push more air through filtration units, leading to more frequent replacements. Depending on the severity of the problem, this kind of cycling can shorten your HVAC system’s projected lifespan by as much as 20%.
Personalization
Zones also offer the ability to provide personalized heating and cooling. Suppose someone in your home prefers a temperature that you consider downright arctic. You can let them have their chilly bedroom while you stay warm in yours. Some respiratory conditions benefit from tight control of HVAC systems, and zoning is a superb way to accommodate those needs without inconveniencing anyone in your household.
The number of zones is also highly configurable. For a house that has minimal issues, you might only configure two zones. For example, many people establish zones upstairs and downstairs. Conversely, you could set up zones for every room. In a particularly large space, such as a living room, you may even configure additional zones within that room. The number of zones is only limited by your needs.
Installation Considerations
HVAC zoning is a job for a professional technician. Our technicians have testing equipment that allows them to quickly identify issues with temperature imbalance and airflow limits. We also understand how to connect the various systems, such as control panels, sensors, fans, thermostats and dampers. Likewise, we can tweak your HVAC ductwork to improve airflow.
Our heating and cooling services company recommends targeting zones based on the local environment and specific use cases for rooms. For example, a house with a large and exposed south face may get more sunlight. Establishing at least one zone on the sun-facing side would be a good idea. Similarly, this is a good idea for rooms with large windows. Many people also target finished basements, bedrooms and kitchens for zoning.
We also strongly recommend adopting electronic zoning solutions. Smart thermostats are hard to compete with in terms of efficiency, and they work very well when they can also control fans and dampers.
Homeowners in Benicia, Roseville, and nearby areas who want zoned HVAC systems should contact Environmental Heating & Air Solutions today to make an appointment.
