Home Zone Heating (and cooling) basics
Home zoning consists in dividing the home in different areas, for heating and cooling purposes, often to get energy savings. Through zoning you will have different temperatures in different rooms, depending on the schedules and the way the occupants use the different parts of the house.
Zone Heating and Cooling Alternatives
Zone heating can be implemented with central systems controlled with thermostats and using powered duct dampers (or radiator valves).
Home zone heating (and cooling) can also be based in electric portable heaters, gas stoves (room air conditioners and mini-splits), etc. In this case, zone heating is an alternative to the use of central systems, based on ductwork.
See:
Home Zoning & Space Heaters and Room Air Conditioners
Home Zoning & Central Furnaces and other HVAC systems
Home Heating strategies
Home Zone Control
Zone is an individual room or group of rooms with common cooling and heating needs. With that zoning you may get energy savings, either using central HAVC systems (and duct dampers and thermostats) or by replacing HAVC systems totally or partially by space heaters (or mini-split AC or room air conditioners…).
Home Zoning & Small space heaters
Small space heaters (or room AC and ductless AC/mini-splits) can be central pieces of zone heating (or cooling). Besides being cheaper, space heaters, room AC and ductless AC/mini-splits are also less expensive to operate than central systems...
See:
Room air conditioners and
Ductless Split Systems
Home Zoning & Space Heaters
Home zoning & central heating
To get energy savings, you may use zone heating in conjunction with central systems. Thermostats and zone dampers (or thermostats and radiator valves) are, in this case, the key element...
See:
Home Zoning & Central Furnaces and HVAC systems
Hot Water Radiators
Zone control & insulation
Insulation is crucial for an efficient zone heating/cooling system. A tight insulation provides smaller heating and cooling needs and smaller differences between heated (or cooled) areas, making zone control easier.
Doors are also a key element in these strategies. If the heated air in a room escapes into a non-heated area , the effectiveness of zone heating can be largely lost. Doors should provide an adequate or a minimal insulation between the home's areas: in some cases, new doors are needed to provide it…
Home zoning & Home Design, layout and Orientation
In a typical two-story home, the main floor (with the kitchen and dining and living area) is usually occupied during the late afternoon and evenings, while bedrooms are occupied later in night…
This (or other) room occupancy should be taken into account to define home zoning.
Zone control & passive solar techniques
Passive solar techniques involve a proper consideration of the sun, wind and landscape impact into the home, as well as the impact of windows and materials used on the walls and roof... Being so, they are an obviously important element for smaller heating needs, or to get smaller differences between heated areas, making the implementation of zone control easier…
See: Solar Passive Plan
Problems with zone heating
The main problem with zone heating and cooling is the variation of temperatures between the heated and non-heated (or cooled) rooms. Proper insulation (making home less dependent on outdoor temperatures) can largely offset that problem.
Home zoning strategies