What is Zoning for my ducted heating or air conditioner?
You can think of Zoning as little doors installed in your ductwork.
These doors can open and close certain ducts, giving you the ability to control which rooms are air-conditioned.
Depending on your home’s ductwork design, you can group rooms together into different “Zones”.
The diagrams below show a house with 2 Zones – 1 Zone for the bedrooms and 1 Zone for the living areas, so you can heat or cool the living areas during the day and bedrooms of a night. You can also install Temperature Sensors to control the temperature in each zone.
You can have more Zones depending on your lifestyle. For example, if you worked from home, you may have your home office as a 3rd zone which you would use during the day.
Benefits of Zoning:
1. Save on running costs
Zoning saves on running costs, as you only heat or cool rooms you are currently using.
Why spend money air-conditioning spare or unoccupied rooms? Do you have a guest room that isn’t being used? Simply don’t heat or cool that room.
When a zone is selected, heating or cooling won’t be delivered to the rooms outside of that zone.
A home that has two zones can save significantly on running costs by simply switching off one zone.
2. Day and night comfort
During the day, keep your living areas at perfect temperature and turn off the areas you are not using, such as bedrooms.
Of a night time, turn off the living areas and heat or cool only the bedrooms.
3. Works with individual house design
Do some of your rooms face North? Do you have skylights? Or a Double Story home?
These areas may be naturally warmer on a sunny day. You can save on running costs by turning the heating down or off in these areas on sunny days.
4. Personalise your climate with Temperature Sensors
Does each member of your family have different needs when it comes to temperature?
Adding Temperature Sensors allows you to program different temperatures for different zones and is the perfect way for you to create a personalised heating and cooling experience for you and your family.
Check out our Temperature Sensor page for more information.
5. Programmable
You can either use zoning on manual mode as needed, or auto mode.
Auto-mode allows you to set a weekly program for your house’s heating and cooling.
You can program what days and times you would like what temperature and zones to be running.
So you never have to come home to a hot or cold house again!
Can I Add Zoning to my Current System?
Zoning requires Zone Motors to be installed in your ductwork to physically open and close the ducts. The Zone Motors are controlled by your Wall Controller or App if you have WIFI control.
Most existing Gas Ducted Heaters and Ducted Reverse Cycle Systems are compatible with Zoning. Depending on which type of wall controller you have, you may need to upgrade your controller.
How many Zones you can add and what rooms can be zoned together will depend on your house and duct layout.
Our technicians will be able to assess your current ductwork and let you know what is possible.
Get Professional Zoning Advice
Speak with the experts at Martin Heating & Cooling, Geelong & Melbourne’s trusted name in Heating & Cooling.
Our team are more than happy to discuss your options with you, considering the different functions of each of the rooms in your home, determining the natural heating and cooling of your home and assessing your current system and whether zoning might fit with the unit that you currently have.
