Multi Zone Heating in Calgary

All homes have natural warmer and cooler spots, depending on sunlight, windows and insulation. But like most homes, yours probably has one central thermostat on the main floor. It’s constantly trying to achieve your set temperature despite these natural variations. This is not only uncomfortable, but it wastes energy that you have to pay for.

Zone heating can fix that by adding multiple thermostats on different floors or zones. These thermostats control dampers in your air ducts that tailor the amount of heating or air conditioning that each room gets.

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Benefits of Heating Zoning

When you program each heating zone so that it only allows airflow when rooms are occupied, you stay comfortable AND you save money. They’re also the perfect solution if you have different family members with different temperature preferences.

Furnace zoning is also great for:

• Finished basements that never warm up.
• Homes with garages in front that prevent the sun from warming the main floor.
• Homes where entire floors stay unused for long periods of the day.
• Second floors that get way too hot in summer.

Your Knight heating and cooling experts can design a system that’s tailor made to your home and your needs. Multi zone furnace systems can work with most modern high-efficiency furnaces – and they can also work with your air conditioner in the summer.

Studies Show That Zoning Works

There have been numerous studies showing that zoning is effective for both increased comfort and savings on your monthly energy bill when compared to using a single thermostat.

• National Resources Canada study: 95% of home owners found zoning to be effective (page 4, top).
• This University of Virginia study found that homes saved an average of 20.5% by using multiple thermostat zones (page 10, top). In Calgary’s colder climate, we save more.
• This study by McMaster University found up to 57% savings.

If you need help deciding on what furnace is best for your home, read our buyer’s guide for furnaces.

Remember, your system needs to be correctly designed and installed by a heating and cooling expert like Knight. As few as 2 furnace zones can help, but for some homes more will be even better.

How Zoning Systems Work Best

Getting the maximum efficiency from your zoning system requires that you know your family’s daily habits and program accordingly. You could have the best zoning system in the world, but if you don’t use it correctly you won’t get the results. Luckily, Knight’s zoning systems are easy to program.

For example, on workdays, say your family is on the main floor from 5 PM – 8 PM, and then on the upper floor from 8 – 10 PM. You can program your heating to turn up and then down again accordingly on each floor. On weekends, maybe you’re upstairs longer, and then come down to the main floor where you spend most of the day. Or perhaps you tend to use your basement rec room on Sunday afternoons. Another way to think about it is if you had just one light switch that controlled all the lights in your home. The lights would be on in empty room, wasting energy. Zoning works in the same way for your heating and cooling.

It’s all thanks to some great new technology that’s come along in the last few years. The new wireless thermostats not only look great, but they’re really easy to use. They also are easy to install because you don’t have to open up the walls to run wiring. Furnaces have also come a long way too. Old single-stage furnaces used to just turn on and off, which was really inefficient. Now they have modulating speeds that adapt to the workload.

Why Pay to Heat Space You’re Not Using?

With a custom zoning system, you can get the heat where you want it, when you want it. If your home has large areas or entire floors that never seem to get warm enough, multiple heating zones may be the right solution for you.

Talk to the friendly experts at Knight. We’ll give you a quote for free, and the price is guaranteed for 30 days, so you have plenty of time to make up your mind.

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