How Zoning Systems Can Boost Comfort While Saving Energy

If you turn on a reading lamp and all of the lights in your home turn on at the same time, you wouldn’t be happy about wasting the electricity. Fortunately, there are home control systems that allow you to avoid this issue by letting you program your lighting to your needs so you can save energy. Zoning systems extend the same energy-saving common sense to your cooling and heating systems, zone by zone. Here’s how zoning works.

Total Environmental Control

A zoning system gives you total control of airflow distribution in your home. Thermostats and a network of motorized duct dampers convey or restrict conditioned air to specific zones of your home — 24 hours a day, every day of the year — based on household comfort needs. After all, why cool or heat your entire home when it’s not needed? With a zoning system, you don’t have to.

Each thermostat signals duct dampers in the respective zone to open or close based on your settings and the zone temperature. For example, a home with upstairs bedrooms designated to one zone may be inactive or “off” during the day when the zone is unoccupied. An occupied downstairs zone could, at the same time, be cooled or heated to the occupant’s liking. The household’s solo occupant is comfortable and saving a considerable amount of energy.

Zoning Your Home

Zoning systems are available as basic two-zone configurations, with up to eight zones possible. How many zones you need depends on your home’s design, heat gain/loss values, number of occupants and their schedules, and your comfort needs. A zone could be an entire floor in a multi-level home, a single room used as a home office, or you may have multiple zones on each floor. Your zoning system is designed specifically for your needs.

Zoning systems work well for both the cooling and heating months, so you’re assured energy savings and maximum comfort year-round.

To learn more about zoning systems or for a home zoning evaluation, call the experts at C.R. Wolfe Heating & Air Conditioning. We’ve provided 70 years of service to Middletown homeowners.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Middletown, New York 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.

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