Category: HVAC

How Big Should a House Be To Need Separate HVAC Zones

Not every home needs a separate HVAC zone especially if you have standard HVAC equipment installed. Some houses can do with standard HVAC equipment and will not require variable setting HVAC equipment. On the other hand, having your house renovated to change the HVAC you have installed can also incur a pretty significant amount of time and money on your part. There are criteria that your home must meet for the variable setting HVAC equipment to be truly beneficial for you.

To know if your house is big enough to require separate HVAC zones, we first need to know what HVAC zones are. HVAC zones are areas in your house that have or you would like to have a different temperature setting than other parts or areas of your house. These zones each have their thermostat and their airflows and air ducts that run along with their ceiling or walls. A bypass duct or at least, dampers are needed to be installed for each HVAC zone. This is done to prevent an air current of different temperature settings from interfering with the rest.

The criteria for houses to have separate hvac zones are not set in stone and sometimes can be foregone altogether (although doing so would go against an HVAC technician’s advice). These criteria are the following:

  • Does your house have a finished attic or basement?

– An attic or basement, aside from being an altogether separate room from your house, often acts as a storage area for your family. This storage area optimally needs to have a fairly stable temperature setting regardless of the seasons.

  • Does your house have a vaulted or a high ceiling?

– Houses that have high ceilings need a separate HVAC zone due to different air temperature differences in differing altitudes.

  • Does your house have large glass windows?

– Apart from the relative ease of outside temperature being able to affect the temperature in a room with large glass windows, these large glass windows are often prone to air leaks affecting the temperature.

  • Rooms that are seldom occupied, like guest rooms and such

– Temperature settings for these rooms are rarely set since it is seldom occupied thus the need for it to have its HVAC zone.

By answering these questions you should be able to safely gauge how big should a house be to need separate HVAC zones. If you answered yes to all, if not most, to these questions then your house needs separate HVAC zones.

The HVAC Repair and Maintenance Tasks You Can Do Yourself

HVAC systems are expensive to buy and install. Having an HVAC system installed in your home might also require massive renovations that would just add to the overall price tag. HVAC systems are composed of multiple units operating in tamdem. That helps explain why it’s so expensive to buy and installing an HVAC system. With this in mind, an average homeowner’s mentality might be to save a few pennies here and there on HVAC repair and maintenance. While this totally understandable, you can keep your system running properly and still save money by doing some repair and maintenance work on the system yourself, to avoid a costly technician visit that would add yet another cost for your already-costly HVAC system.

DIY repairs

One of the most common and easiest yet one of the most important things you can DIY on your HVAC is replacing your air filters. HVAC systems commonly run on the forced air system. Meaning air is forcibly pushed from one place to another. This pushing action requires air filters to prevent having dust and other particulate matter go along with this pushing. Air filters frequently get clogged and would result in malfunctions to the HVAC system. Finding the dirty and clogged air filter and replacing it with a new one is a simple enough task that you can DIY.

DIY maintenance

Now, repairs are for when something is already broken but you can do many things to prevent your HVAC from being broken down. DIY maintenance tasks you can do abound to ensure that your HVAC system is always in tip-top shape.

  • Regularly changing your air filters.

– As mentioned, air filters frequently get clogged with dust and other particulate matter. Regularly replacing your filters as part of the maintenance is advisable.

  • Keeping your air conditioning unit’s condenser clean.

– Your condenser works by pushing hot air outside. This pushing action usually accumulates dirt and grime. Regularly cleaning your condenser unit can be invaluable to keeping your entire HVAC operating smoothly

  • Cleaning your home

– It is mentioned that dust and other dirt get into HVAC systems causing clogs resulting in reduced airflow. Those dust and dirt have to come somewhere first and the first place you have to look out is your own home. So, keeping a clean home is also advisable.

These are the HVAC repair and maintenance tasks you can do yourself to avoid a technician’s trip to your home and therefore saving you another hefty bill to add to your expenses.

Reasons To Consider Ductless HVAC Instead Of A Ducted System

Are you planning to revamp your HVAC system, or install a new one? Do you think that it’s still worth it to have the ducted HVAC system that’s been in the house since you bought it? There are many reasons to choose modern ductless HVAC over ducted systems; let’s look into the subject and see what’s involved.

You can certainly guess from their name that ducted air conditioning systems provide air conditioning through ducts in your office or your home and yes, there are factors to consider when staying with this type of HVAC. It’s a big unit, which consists of a compressor, condenser, and an air handling unit. This is a pretty big type of machinery so you would expect it to be somewhere hidden or out of sight, such as basements, garages, or attics. The conditioning that this HVAC has is heating and cooling throughout the building or home using ducts and vents.

With that being said, of course, there are definitely reasons for you to go to ductless HVAC. One of which is it creates a small footprint. Smaller footprint means that it takes up a smaller amount of storage or space by a lot than the ducted HVAC. The usual spots of these ductless air ducts are high up on the wall or almost to the ceiling.

Let’s face it, ducted HVACs are somehow a type of old school machinery. What you’d need to think about is the next reason. The fact the ductless HVACs should create less noise that the ducted ones. With the ducted HVAC, you would usually hear the whistling of the air through the ductwork and the vents. This is something that’s not occurring in a ductless HVAC. This is great for light sleepers and they would not wake up to the noise of the ducts and vents.

There are flexible positioning for the ductless HVAC and of course, it’s not always great as there are definitely limitations to the heating and cooling efficiency of the HVAC but will still definitely help you target the temperature that you need.

Ducted air ducts would often contain contaminants, and irritants that remains stagnant usually when the HVAC is turned off, and of course, with the ductless HVAC, you would be able to enjoy irritant-free air conditioning, less cost of HVAC duct cleaning.

Some HVAC allows you to get a control of different rooms and sections independently that would change settings even if you’re not in the room yet.

Those are just a few some of the reasons, if you want, you can check out a few more things in any search engine that would back-up the reason on why you should move on to the ductless HVAC so that you don’t miss out.