One of the drawbacks of a standard forced-air central heater—such as a furnace or heat pump—is that it is an “all or nothing” device: when it comes on, it sends heated air to every room connected to the ventilation system, regardless of whether the room actually requires heat at the time. For smaller homes, this is often not a serious issue. But for larger ones, heating rooms needlessly contributes to significant energy waste during the year.
There is a solution to this problem that doesn’t involve using a completely different type of heater: you can have heating experts install a zone control system in your house. Zone control divides up the ventilation system into separate regions (or zones) using dampers inside the ducts, each of which connects to a local thermostat. The dampers can shut off heat to their zones, allowing for specific heat control. If you are interested in having zone control installed with a new heater, or if you want your current HVAC system retro-fit for zone control, call Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning today and speak to our Evanston, IL heating professionals.
Here are some of the ways that zone control will benefit a home’s heating:
- Energy saving: Keeping a home warm in the Chicagoland area can get expensive during the winter. Using zone control lets you cut back on these cost by only providing warmth for occupied rooms. This is especially beneficial for larger homes, or homes that have a guest room that only receives use for short periods of time during the year.
- Individual comfort: People have differing climate needs; an indoor temperature that may feel too warm to one person will feel too cold to another. This makes it difficult to please everyone within one household. With zone control, the people in a house can adjust the temperatures to fit their own comfort needs wherever they are by simply setting the local thermostat.
- Even heating distribution: Zone control grants you finer control over how heat spreads out through a home, making it easier to have even levels of comfort. For example, if you heat the upstairs and the downstairs with separate zones, you can heat the upstairs first, then shut it off and heat the downstairs; the heat from the downstairs will rise to the second floor, providing even heat instead of making the upstairs too hot.
Also keep in mind that if your air conditioning uses the same sets of ducts as your heater, you will have zone control for your cooling during the summer as well.
If you would like to find out more about zone control and how it can benefit your home, contact Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning. We have provided Evanston, IL with heating excellence for more than a century.