What is Zoned Air Conditioning?

  • Post category:HVAC

On LBI, as you drive through the neighborhoods, you often see window air conditioner units in homes. Many of the older homes on the island never had AC or ductwork and now, as homeowners look to add units, they find they don’t have the space for ductwork. Many of the newer homes were built with AC units pre-installed but not all are zoned. So what is zoned air conditioning and how can you achieve it in your home no matter your circumstances?

Zoned air conditioning is a system that offers different, individual cooling preferences based on the rooms or zones in your home. Zoned AC allows homeowners to control the temperatures of each separately. A lot of homes are equipped with central air setups which allow only one thermostat to control the entire home. So what are the benefits of zoned systems?

  1. Air flow and cooling is easily accessible and customizable for any area in your home
  2. Determining what areas need to be cooled and which do not will save energy and money
  3. Units won’t have to work as hard to get cool air throughout your home

What do you do if you have traditional ductwork? It is possible to convert your current central air system to zoned with the ductwork you already have in place. At Air Technical, we can design a system that can direct air to different areas of your home individually. To do this, one of our experts can install dampers inside the ductwork that open and close to allow or block airflow. Once these vents are installed, Air Tech will show you how to manually open and close vents or we can connect your thermostats to all the needed areas in your home; this will allow the thermostats to open and close based on the temperature in that zone. 

So what do you do if you don’t have traditional ductwork? A ductless system will create zones by using something called air handlers or mini-splits. These units attach to the wall and circulate air. By connecting to an outdoor heat pump, they utilize the refrigerant lines that run through the walls of your home. Each one of these units works independently from one another as they each have their own thermostat built-in for customizable control anywhere in your home. 

At Air Technical, our team of licensed, fully-insured contractors will take into consideration whether you have ductwork or not, the size of your home, room orientation, wall space, and how well your home is insulated to give our recommendation on which zoned air conditioning system is right for your home, family, and wallet!