How Does a Zoned HVAC System Work?

You may not associate enhanced home comfort with lower energy bills, but you can have both if you install a zoned HVAC system to handle all your heating and cooling needs. HVAC zoning brings ample energy savings while improving home comfort, making it the ideal technology for those who insist on having their cake and eating it too.

How Zoning Works

Central HVAC systems distribute heated or cooled air throughout a home based on temperature readings in a single room, which doesn’t guarantee that rooms on the periphery will ever reach the preferred temperatures. Even worse, with a traditional system you’ll waste prodigious quantities of energy heating or cooling rooms you aren’t occupying.

But once you install an HVAC zoning system, these problems will vanish in an instant. Zoning technology features multiple thermostats that control output to designated zones throughout the home, with zones generally divided by room, floor, or a combination of both. With zoning’s decentralized system of control you can set temperatures to preferred levels in each zone, creating perfectly customized home comfort and impressive energy savings simultaneously—which is a neat trick, to say the least.

Benefits of HVAC Zoning

In comparison to traditional heating and cooling delivery systems, HVAC zoning technology offers several important benefits, including:

Greater convenience

With a zoning system installed, your days of fiddling with the downstairs thermostat and hoping for the best will be long gone. When you want a specific temperature in a specific room, you’ll be able to choose it directly and feel the results almost immediately. Zoning brings precise temperature control to your fingertips, wherever you are in your home.

Reduced energy bills

As long as you program each thermostat based on usage needs, significant energy savings are inevitable with an HVAC zoning system. No longer will you waste even the smallest fraction of a kilowatt-hour of energy on rooms or floors with no human or animal occupants, and if you merge your zoned heating and cooling system with programmable smart thermostats your energy savings will be off-the-charts (up to 30 percent or more, if you’re diligent).

Greater home comfort

Each room in your home has different architectural, design, and material characteristics, and there’s no way you can achieve total home comfort in any of them if you rely on a traditional heating-and-cooling delivery system. But HVAC zoning technology allows for precisely calibrated temperature modulation in the rooms you occupy, guaranteeing 100 percent home comfort at all times.

Reduced wear and tear on HVAC equipment

It’s a simple matter of physics: the more strain you put on your furnace or air conditioner pushing it to heat or cool rooms you don’t use, the faster you will wear that equipment out, or damage it to the point where it requires repairs. HVAC zoning systems minimize furnace and air conditioner usage as much as possible, extending their lifespan significantly in the process.

When to Install an HVAC Zoning System

If you’re building a new home, HVAC zoning technology is a fantastic choice for new homes, but forced-air heating and cooling systems in existing homes can be converted to zoning as well.

HVAC zoning can bring impressive energy savings and upgraded home comfort anywhere, but the technology is especially ideal for homes with:

• Multiple floors
• High ceilings
• New additions
• A loft or sunroom
• Living spaces above garages
• Many large windows
• Attics or basements used as living spaces

Zoned heating and cooling systems are a superior choice for houses built in locations that experience summer and/or winter temperature extremes, which makes them ideal for Colorado homeowners.

Get ‘in the Zone’ with Northern Climate Control

If you need a new heating and cooling system in the Denver Metro Area, please contact Northern Climate Control, Inc. today to discuss your options. We can introduce you to the wonders of HVAC zoning systems, and if you decide to go in that direction we offer outstanding heating and cooling products from the most honored names in the industry, along with expert installation services that will leave you delighted you turned to Northern Climate Control to handle your heating and cooling needs.