For Custom Cooling Throughout Your Home, A Zoning System Delivers

For Custom Cooling Throughout Your Home, A Zoning System Delivers

More than 50 percent of our annual electricity budget can be spent on running the HVAC system. Here in Southern California, that can seriously mount up. It makes sense to consider any tested innovation that can reduce the energy we use to cool our homes.

Zoned heating and cooling is one such innovation. This relatively new concept in indoor environmental control balances comfort with efficient energy use. Improving energy efficiency translates directly into savings on the utility bill.

Concept
A thermostat located centrally in a building treats that building as one space. This is less than ideal because different rooms may need to be at different temperatures, and the time of the day may also affect how cool you need a given location. Zoning divides your home into separate areas, rather than treating it as a single, vast environment.

Why zone?
Custom cooling addresses multiple problems. For instance, different walls, ceilings and windows insulate different spaces unevenly, and the effects of exposure change during the day. In Pasadena, rooms with a southern exposure are generally hotter than north-facing equivalents, and western exposure raises temperatures in the evening. Zoning can address all of these variables.

Hardware
Separate temperature sensors are required to monitor conditions in each individual zone. Because a zoned home is likely to still use only one central HVAC system to condition the interior environment, there must be mechanisms installed in the delivery system — the ducts — to divert treated air away from certain areas and into others. Motorized dampers are used to achieve this. The air handler should also be able to operate at variable speeds to supply adequate treated air to one zone or the entire house as required.

A zoned system can be installed in new construction homes or retrofitted to preexisting installations, and for custom cooling throughout your home, a zoning system really delivers.

Air-Tro Inc. has been keeping abreast of innovative ways to serve the Pasadena community since 1969. Our technicians can install and maintain all types of HVAC installations, including zoning systems, and we’re always happy to offer expert advice. To learn more, contact us today!

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about custom cooling and other HVAC topics, visit our website.

Air-Tro Inc. services the greater Los Angeles area as well as the metro areas of Riverside and San Bernardino County.