Multi-Zone HVAC System: What Is It and Do You Need One?

There are many different types of heating and cooling systems. Some of them are more energy efficient than others. If you would like to spend less money on heating and cooling bills, maybe you should swap out your current HVAC system for a multi-zone system.

Heating and Cooling

A multi-zone system heats and cools, but in a very different sort of way from heat pumps or furnaces and central air. Your home is split into regions or areas. Each one is cooled and heated separately from the other. You can do this for individual rooms, or zones, in your house. The separate thermostats for the rooms or zones can be set for individual temperatures or turned off completely.

Saving You Money

Do you need this type of HVAC system? That all depends on how you see the need. If you are currently spending exorbitant amounts of money trying to heat and/or cool your entire house, and there are areas you don’t use (e.g., extra bedrooms), then you could benefit financially from a multi-zone system. It becomes a need when the cost of maintaining the same temperature throughout your house is too high.

Closing Doors and Preventing Zones From Overloading

If you do choose a multi-zone HVAC system, and you do shut off the heat or air conditioning in certain zones of the house, be sure to close the doors. That way the other zones that are cooling or heating at the time are not straining to spread the cooled or heated air into those areas. The zones remain within their own restricted boundaries.

For example, say that the upstairs is all one zone controlled by one thermostat. Two or three more zones are downstairs. If you don’t use the upstairs, shut the door to the upstairs (if there is one) so that the downstairs zones are only working to cool or heat their respective areas downstairs. The cooled or heated air won’t travel upstairs.

Judah Byman