Get Comfort Control in Every Room With a Zoning System

Get Comfort Control in Every Room of Your Home With a Zoning System

September 3, 2019

If your home has just one thermostat, parts of the house are probably difficult to heat or cool, which can create varying climate conditions in different indoor areas. This is especially the case if your home has more than one level or you’ve built an addition to your house. Fortunately, there’s an effective solution for how to control the temperature in each room - an HVAC zoning system. Read on to learn how a smart zoning system can save you money and give you total control of the comfort in every room of your home.

Basics of HVAC Zone Control

The typical home is heated and cooled by one forced-air HVAC system. You set the temperature you want on the thermostat, and all of the rooms in your home are heated or cooled at the same time. In a home with just one thermostat, the device is usually installed on a wall in the living room or hallway on the main floor. When the temperature setting is reached on that floor, the thermostat shuts down the heating or cooling. Yet, other levels of the house may still be uncomfortably hot or cold. Typically, during warm weather, upstairs bedrooms take longer to cool off, while during the winter, finished basements are notoriously difficult to heat. This standard "one-zone" system has been used for decades and may get the job done. However, it doesn't leave any options for energy savings by fine-tuning your comfort and controlling temperature in each room.

A Lennox zoning system takes care of this dilemma by keeping the warm or cool air coming until the area reaches a comfortable temperature. With HVAC zone control, a house is divided into separate areas based on rooms which share similar climate characteristics. The most common HVAC zone control setup is one zone per floor, though other factors may influence how zones are devised (such as different building materials, the number of windows, orientation to the sun, etc.). Additionally, many of the room by room zoning systems that Lozier offers allow up to four zones to customize your heating and cooling even further.

When you install a smart zoning system, you suddenly have total control of the temperature in areas or multiple rooms of your home. Here's how it works:

  • A network of programmable thermostats and automated duct dampers are installed for each of the zones, giving you a room by room zoning system.
  • The thermostats in each zone continuously monitor temperature and signals when heating or cooling is needed in a particular zone.
  • The damper opens and sends conditioned air to the designated area based on your programs.

Benefits of Zoning Systems

It's usually difficult to keep every part of your home comfortable with a typical HVAC system that only has one thermostat. The system is limited by the temperature conditions of the room where the thermostat is located. With a room by room zoning system, different areas of your home have individual thermostats. Here's what you stand to gain by installing Lennox zoning in your home.

Increased Comfort Control. With just one thermostat to control heating and cooling in all the rooms and floors, your home may have hot and cold spots. As a result, the temperature can vary significantly as you move from one floor of your home to another. Add-on rooms are also notorious for getting less heat and conditioned air than the other rooms. A room by room zoning system lets you divide your home into different zones, each with its individual thermostat, and places control of heating and cooling the different parts of your home in your hands.

Easy to Manage. Once you have programmed your desired temperatures and times for each zone, you don't have to fiddle with switching the settings when you're away at work or when you’re sleeping. Not only does smart zoning save you time and energy, you enjoy your preferred comfort temperatures automatically. When you need to change settings, you can easily adjust the thermostat settings to control the temperature in each room by using a smartphone app or your online tablet or computer.

Energy Savings. There are probably certain rooms in your home that you only use at certain times of the day. You may also have some rooms, like a guest room, that you only use once in a long while. A traditional system will constantly heat and cool such rooms together with the rest of the house, causing a waste of energy. An HVAC zone control system allows you to limit heating and cooling of unoccupied rooms, which saves energy and reduces your utility costs.

Longer HVAC System Lifespan. HVAC zoning systems reduce strain on your furnace and air conditioner since it also works with other home comfort systems to provide total comfort. Our Lennox zoning systems are compatible with whole-home humidifiers, dehumidifiers and/or ventilation systems for complete control over your indoor environment. This means when your home is zoned correctly, you can control temperatures in each room and extend the life of your furnace and A/C.

Contact Lozier to Set Up Your Zoning System

Consider the total comfort and energy savings of HVAC zone control and decide whether this is the right fit for you. If you’re ready to move forward, only a licensed HVAC contractor should install a room-by-room zoning system—submit a service request online and our trained technicians can get started right away. If you would like to learn more about HVAC zoning systems, please call Lozier Heating & Cooling at (515) 267-1000, or get a quote online. Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Des Moines, Iowa area about energy and home comfort issues specific to HVAC systems.