How Zoning Can Help You Increase Energy Efficiency and Productivity This Summer

By using commercial services, business owners can learn how zoning can improve the performance of their HVAC system and the comfort of their employees and customers. Zoning an HVAC system allows it to heat or cool only one section of a building at a time. Read on to learn how this can improve your energy efficiency and productivity this summer.

What Is Zoning?

With zoning, your HVAC system is set up to create "zones" within a building, where each zone has independently controlled heating and cooling capability. A traditional or non-zoned HVAC system has one heating or cooling unit and one thermostat to control the temperature for the entire building. But due to the layout of the building and other features, such as rooms that have more doors and windows, the temperature isn't going to be the same throughout the entire building. Zoned HVAC systems recognize this and allow separate heating or cooling for a specific area.

How Zoning Works

Let's look at a hypothetical office building. This building has two floors. In the summer, because hot air rises, the second floor will often be warmer than the first floor. If the thermostat is on the first floor, it will shut off after reaching the set temperature that makes that floor comfortable, even though it's still a few degrees warmer upstairs.

This can result in the business owner setting the thermostat to a lower than normal temperature to compensate. This uses more energy and often leaves the first-floor occupants uncomfortably cold. The alternative is to keep the thermostat as it is, but then the occupants on the second floor are uncomfortably warm. It's a no-win situation!

In a zoned HVAC system, the business owner can set a separate temperature for each floor. The air conditioner sends cool air to each floor as needed, instead of constantly cooling the entire building. This improves the comfort of the building's occupants and saves the business owner money on cooling costs in the summer.
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Setting up a zoned HVAC system can be a significant job that will require commercial services. To learn more about a zoned HVAC system for your business, don't hesitate to contact Smoak's Comfort Control online.