Retrofitting zone control
When the pandemic closed down businesses, I managed to restructure my responsibilities to work from home.
I realized that I actually prefer it. I no longer worry about traffic, driving conditions or finding a parking space. I’m able to set my own hours, work in sweatpants and avoid the distraction of coworkers. To reduce distractions and maximize productivity, I converted a spare room into my home office. I cleared the space and set up my desk, chair, monitor and keyboard. I used to head out of the house at 7 AM five days a week and not return until around 6 PM. I made sure to lower the thermostat before leaving to conserve energy. I’m now home almost all of the time. It didn’t take long to notice an increase in my monthly energy bills. Suddenly the air conditioner or furnace are running a lot more often and working way harder. The biggest problem was that I was heating or cooling the entire house to the ideal comfort level while I was occupying a single room. After some research into the many benefits of zone control, I reached out to a local HVAC contractor. To install zoning into my existing heating/cooling system I needed a central control that communicates between thermostats, dampers and the furnace and air conditioner. Thermostats were installed into each room that send a signal to the control panel and link to an app on my smartphone. Zone dampers were installed into the ducts to regulate the airflow to each room of the house. The dampers automatically open and close depending on the setting of the specific thermostat.