If you have difficulty providing sufficient heating and cooling in different parts of your Northeast Ohio home, upgrading to a zoning system should address this problem by separating the house into different zones, each one independently heated and cooled.
It’s impossible to use one thermostat and expect to properly cool and heat each space in the home, since every room doesn’t have the same cooling or heating load. Upgrading to a zoning system lets you control temperatures in different zone according to their needs (and the preferences of occupants). Heating and cooling loads differ throughout the home as a result of a variety of factors, though the most common is the fact that warm air rises. This means that your finished basement is likely to be much cooler than the upstairs bedrooms, with the main floor (where the single thermostat is located) in between. Other factors that can create different temperature needs include solar heating on south- and west-facing sides of the home, large windows, extended wings of the house, different building materials, and rooms with high, vaulted ceilings.
First, your contractor will assess the cooling/heating loads of the rooms in the home, and create “zones” by grouping together rooms with similar loads. Then, the contractor will install motorized dampers in the supply ducts leading to each zone. A thermostat installed in each zone controls the damper, opening to allow more conditioned air into the space as needed, and closing when enough conditioned air has entered the space to meet the load.
Upgrading to a zoning system gives you more options: No longer will you have to avoid hanging out in your new attic space in the summer, for example, because it never gets cool enough. When the other zones in the home reach the preset temperature, the dampers to these zones will close, but the damper to the attic will remain open.
If you’re interested in upgrading to a zoning system, please contact us at Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning. We serve homeowners in Lorain, Erie and Cuyahoga counties.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio 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.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning
1 (440) 246-5440
Serving the Lorain, OH Area