Zoning 101: What Is Zoning And Why Does It Matter?

Earlier this year, we wrote a post about why a single-zone heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system will never keep your home comfortable. These systems don’t have the dynamic monitoring and control of ecovent, so they’re bound to over-heat and over-cool parts of your home.

But when talking to our customers, we realized most people don’t even think about whether their homes have “zones” or not. They usually just know how many thermostats they have and whether or not their homes are comfortable.

So what is zoning and why does it matter?

Zoning is the practice of separating your home into different areas and heating and cooling those areas individually, rather than trying to condition the whole house at the same time. The best analogy we know comes from lighting. Think about it: You’d never build a home with only one light switch. Instead, you’ve got one in every room and you can set the level of lighting you want individually. But most homes have only one thermostat, which means that you’re probably heating and cooling space you don’t use.

Zoning offers a few important benefits:

Increased Comfort

When you separate your home into different zones, you can finally be comfortable. Think about the temperature difference between your first floor and your second floor. Zoning can alleviate that problem by setting different temperature targets for each level. Zoned systems can do the same thing for different areas on the same floor. Say you only need to cool one area of your house at a certain time of day—for example, when the sun shines on that side of the house. A zoned HVAC system helps you differentiate between those areas and dial in the right temperature.

If you install ecovent for your zoning system, you get an extra level of comfort control. Our system doesn’t care if your home has two zones or 15. You can set the right temperature at the room level, not just floor-by-floor.

Increased Control

In that sense, zoning is all about control. In most zoned systems, you get the benefit of additional thermostats, which each serve as a different point of control. But what if you could control your entire home from a mobile phone or tablet? With ecovent’s mobile app, you can. Even better, the system adjusts automatically to keep you comfortable, so you can worry less and enjoy more.

Saving Energy

Possibly the biggest benefit of a zoned HVAC system is the opportunity to save energy. A well-designed zoning system can save you hundreds of dollars in energy costs each year, and it reduces wear-and-tear on your system by reducing run-times for your furnace or A/C unit. Your home runs more efficiently when you only heat and cool the rooms that need it.

But Is Zoning Worth It?

Most zoning systems require a complicated installation that can take days to complete. And hiring a contractor to tear into your walls to install the necessary ducting and dampers can be expensive. And if anything else in your home changes, it can quickly get out of whack.

ecovent does zoning differently. We’ve designed wireless system that anyone can install in a matter of hours. And it makes every room of your home its own zone. To us, that’s the only kind of zoning that’s truly worth it—because it’s easy, it’s smart, and you can control your comfort from the palm of your hand.

Image credit: Mikhail Golub/Flickr. CC license.