If your home has serious comfort problems, you might blame furnace efficiency or a faulty thermostat. However, it’s also possible that your home has design elements that make it difficult for nearly any system to adequately heat or cool the space, and this can be true whether you have a new or old home. A zoning system can alleviate home comfort issues, without adding to your home’s energy requirements.
The problem
- Older homes — These types of homes often have ductwork, the air-distribution system for your home, that operates on outdated heating and cooling principles. The ducts may be too large for your home, or even too small — both of which can lead to impaired comfort.
- Newer homes — Homes today are often designed without consideration of basic, common-sense design principles and comfort factors, and they often don’t, for instance, use heat gain and heat loss from the sun to their advantage. A cathedral ceiling, for instance, is aesthetically pleasing, but requires significant heating and cooling to ensure comfort. The same goes for large window expanses. They enhance the feel of a home, but often allow too much sun in during the summer, for example, increasing the cooling load of that room.
How a zoning system works
A zoning system uses motorized dampers, located in the ductwork, that control each “zone” in the home. And with individualized thermostats managing each zone, you can effectively control the heating and cooling of each zone’s rooms.
Benefits of a zoning system
With a zoning system, you can set the upstairs thermostat, one zone, lower than the downstairs, another zone, during the winter. Because heat rises, the second floor is almost always warmer than the first floor, so managing each zone separately can save energy.
Zoning systems are also convenient, because you can use them to accommodate different family members’ needs by adjusting the thermostats in occupied zones.
Interested in finding out how a zoning system can increase your home’s comfort? Contact the experts at Ernst Heating & Cooling today, and we’ll walk you through the options that will take your home comfort to the next level. We’ve been serving Edwardsville homeowners since 1951.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about zoning systems and other HVAC topics, visit our blog.
Ernst Heating & Cooling services Hamel, Illinois and the surrounding areas. Visit our website to see our special offers and get started today!