With a majority of your income being spent on utility bills, it is only natural to seek ways to cut your household expenses to a minimum. One of the biggest energy and money suckers in your home is your HVAC system. In fact, approximately 6.2 percent of your home’s energy use is consumed by your air conditioning unit—and this is during ordinary days in regard to weather. Its energy consumption understandably spikes on hot, summer days when your AC runs almost 24/7.

Fortunately, you can still reduce your consumption by optimizing air quality through a technology known as zoning.

What Is Zoning?

Generally, zoning is defined as an urban-planning tool that establishes compliance to particular codes and ordinances specific to residential, commercial, industrial, and recreational properties. Zoning maximizes the use of land under each of these categories while preventing delightful density.

Similarly, AC zoning allows the homeowner to appropriate which rooms will get a blast of air conditioning (or heating) and how much. You might think this is not a big thing until you realize that some areas in your house don’t need to be cooled or heated—especially when nobody is regularly inhabiting those areas.

With zoning technology, spaces like the kitchen and family room are appropriately cooled during the daytime while bedrooms are cooled during the night during the warm season.

How Zoning Works

To put it simply, each ‘zone’ uses its own programmable control or thermostat to automatically regulate your cooling and heating. Some zones might need more cooling than others, especially in multi-storied homes, in which case the highest floor requires the most cooling power while the basement doesn’t need so much.

A good zoning design requires a great deal of planning and imagination. You must work closely with your HVAC contractor to get the design right. Sometimes, zoning also includes fixing the air-duct system for improved airflow.
Applying zoning technology to your HVAC system reduces your energy consumption by as much as 30 percent, particularly during hot summer days.

Aside from energy efficiency, zoning also provides overall comfort because it appropriates the temperature required for each zone. It can also help determine whether you are using the right size unit for your HVAC. Since zoning disburses energy in accordance to need, it might lead you to replace and downsize your unit. This can only add up to more savings when it comes to energy bills.