Central AC - zones?
 

Hi all,

Please forgive my ignorance (we've always had wall units) - but are there "zones" defined for AC units in TV or is the temp set at the thermostat for the whole house?

I'm just thinking that you'd probably want it set a little lower at night in the summer, and cooling just the bedroom area(s) would be more economical than the whole house.

Thanks!

The premier homes, which they pretty much don't build anymore, typically had two HVAC systems so, yes, they were zoned. It is not clear to me that The Villages ever built any homes with a single HVAC system with duct work dampers to implement zoning (the other way to zone besides two separate system). There could be people who replaced their original system with a zoned system. I don't know any.

Depends on your home but I would guess not. Coming from MN and having a split home, we had our two levels on different zones so the lower level wasn't always cold and the upper level always hot. I don't see a need for that here unless you have a two story home or built it to separate part of the house....

Most houses do not have separate zones. I would only consider separate zones for a 2-story house.

We use the ceiling fan in the bedroom(s) to 'lower' the temperature, works great for us.

In our previous designer home in TV, we added additional living space and expanded and enclosed the lanai. After adding additional space we had approximately 2,200 square feet in the house and 420 square feet (30x14) on the lanai. We decided to upgrade the A/C and had four zones set up, each with its own thermostat. The four zones - main area (living, dining, entrance, kitchen, breakfast nook), master suite, lanai, and 2 guest bedrooms and bath. At night we could lower temperatures in master and not affect the other areas. If someone was in the guest bedrooms, they could adjust the temperature to whatever they wanted. Also, originally the single thermostat was in the hallway leading to bedroom that had the main, large return vent in the ceiling above the hallway. When we split to 4 zones, we moved that thermostat to the entrance wall closer to the living room, so it would be in the center of that zone. One nice thing about the TV designer house was it had return vents in each room (not bathrooms or closet). That made the zoning practical, because each zone needs a return vent. In a prior home we built in south Florida, there was a main return vent in the center of the house and a small return vent in the master bedroom - none in other rooms. A zoned A/C would not have been feasible.

Additional Sumter County information: To add A/C to lanai, we had to remove existing concrete floor and add vapor barrier and new concrete. This also worked best because we wanted the lanai floor level. We left the new concrete floor the same level at the sliding doors and below the main flooring because we wanted the extra 3-4 inches in ceiling height. The lanai ceiling is only about 8 ft high. Also, we had to add electric outlets per code to be able to upgrade the lanai to allow for A/C. We installed new lighting and fans (not required) and a floor outlet near the exterior window side to allow for a lamp next to sofa. Since we expanded the width of the lanai, we installed electric outlets in the new columns - code, not sure, but we added for convenience. I believe this made the lanai a class 5 addition per Sumter County code.
We left the sliding doors. Here's where most folks are misinformed. We did not add the 420 sqft on A/C lanai to our square footage for the property appraiser. The square footage for the A/C lanai is only counted if the sliding doors are removed. Leveling the floor does not count. Adding A/C does not count. Only removing the sliders makes the lanai additional square footage for the property appraiser.
The above does not apply to the A/C mini-split. The mini-split is considered a dehumidifier and is exempt.

An additional thought: When we listed the house for sale, we listed it as 2,200 sqft under area with a 4-zone A/C. Lanai is 420 sqft and has a separate zone for A/C. That way it matched Sumter County Property Appraiser website for square footage.

We have zones.
Installed four years ago.

We close off the master (& master bath) at night and only cool a fraction of the house.

During the evening hours for TV, reading, etc., we only cool the great room.

With smart thermostats, we get statistics comparing our usage with other homes.

I have a Bridgeport model, built in 2021. I have 3 zones. I did have to upgrade the AC unit, and I recall it was an expensive upgrade. I like to sleep cold, 68-70degs, and don’t want to freeze out any visiting guests. My zones are the living room, master bedroom and both guest bedrooms in the same zone. Three thermostats.

These are all great ideas but is it worth the conversion. I see this equivalent to solar panel, most of the people here in The Villages are at an age where they will not get a return on their investment. On the other hand, if you are focus on comfort then money should not be an issue.

We did the same thing 2 years ago with a 4 zone Trane system. There is a master control and then each zone has its own t-stat board. Guests can control temps that they like for sleeping at their end of the house. In the evening in great room, we have that zone cooling us. During sleep time, only our master bedroom is running AC at 71and the rest of the house is 79. It was pricey but we love it. We figured about 10 years to recoup the efficiency savings as we are really noticing a nice reduction in our HVAC bills.

The villages construction doesn't
t zone its' houses. You have one thermostat for the entire house. When I replaced my AC unit, I zoned the house. I have three thermostats. One for the master bedroom and bath; one for the front two bedrooms, and one for the main part of the house including guest bathroom. I love it!

I don't think it's cost effective to zone your A/C here in the Villages unless you have a 2 story home. Because of the open floor plan you would have to close doors of the rooms you didn't want conditioned during the day or at night,

You need to remember, most people like to keep the bedroom cooler at night and it doesn't take a lot of A/C to do that because there is no heat gain from the Sun.

Also, Ecobee now has a thermostat that has individual temperature sensors that also senses motion so you can put one in your main living area, the bedroom and maybe the office and tell Ecobee what temperature you want, when or if it senses you are in the room. So for example, I tell Ecobee to lower the temperature in my bedroom at night and it uses that remote sensor, not the main one in the living room.

You can say you are cooling the whole house which is true but the cost to do this vs one section of you home is minimal.

With the Ecobee you can see when the A/C or heat is On or Off during the day and night to convince yourself of what I'm talking about.

With a multi-story home, totally different situation.

One important thing, a lot of our homes have a 2-wire thermostat system so when you go to install a new thermostat many are surprised. Always pull the cable out a little from the wall because you should find the rest of the wires. BUT, you will need to remove and re-wire the white thermostat communicator box at the inside A/C air handler. If you have questions, PM me since I've done several friends thermostats.

(a) false.

(b) BINGO........................that's what "you" do.

Our son came down and cooled the guest bedroom area down to 62.........I put an end to that...............I set a min / max on that smart thermostat. :evil6::evil6:

Unless you have two condensers you do not have two zones. Therefore whatever your thermostat is set to is the same throughout your home.

No. There are also single systems with a controller to open and close dampers in the duct work to control which zone(s) are getting airflow (based on a thermostat in each zone). The better systems have multi-speed or variable speed compressors plus variable speed air handlers. How do I know this? I had such a system (Carrier Infinity) with 4 zones in a previous home . See post #2. It appears that a couple of the posters to this thread have replaced their original system with a zoned system with dampers.

You can achieve zoning with electronic air flow dampers, but you will lose some air flow in the warmer zones. But, I don't see how a multi-speed compressor or air handler would help much because the compressor can only run at one speed at a time. Personally, I don't think multi-speed compressors have much benefit in a one story house in Florida.

not sure how you can measure comfort and optionality of room temperature to get a value for return on investment. Not everything is a financial decision, especially in a home which is not an investment. .

Depending on how many zones are calling, you may need different capacity. If you are only calling for dehumidification you may want lower compressor capacity and air flow. Carrier doesn’t agree with you because their Infinity systems have variable speed compressors and air handlers. I had their system for 10 years in a ranch - worked great. It ran at half speed (back when they were using the 2 speed Bristol compressors) most of the time but did kick into full speed for a while each afternoon in the summer. The air handler changed speeds quite frequently as zones opened and closed through the day to maintain temperatures. One of the goals is to have the system running continuously and a variable speed compressor makes this more likely. Cycling is hard on equipment and inefficient. The same principle holds with the mini-split on my lanai. The compressor can run anywhere from 25 to 100% of its nominal capacity. As such, the compressor doesn’t cycle hardly at all.

I think that if Carrier only sold variable speed compressors, they would go out of business. The majority of the Carrier units in The Villages are single stage compressors. One reason that I prefer them is that you can usually get them repaired immediately because parts are readily available. I would also point out that a compressor that runs at a lower speed is not necessarily more efficient, especially if is not programmed correctly to take advantage of a reduced speed. Variable speed compressors have been available for many years, but they still lag in sales way behind the single stage compressor. Most of the time, in The Villages, you want to AC unit running full blast.

The house doesn’t matter if it’s here or any place else in the country. You can zone any hvac system. Up in Georgia we had 3 heat pumps and 5 thermostats. The hvac tech can zone areas off for better comfort and/or efficiency.
Also, you don’t have to close the doors to make it work.
I almost zoned our place here in TV but decided to get a mini split system. I would have had to increase the current hvac system so it was much more cost effective to get a split system

Power draw at half speed was almost 1/2 of full speed. In addition, you save the inefficiency of cycling. I don’t make decisions on hypotheticals regarding availability of parts that apparently have low failure rates. I would never buy a system with a one speed compressor (except when forced to in my Villages spec home). My current one-speed system cycle frequently - definitely doesn’t run full blast all the time. That is why you want varyable speed speed compressors. Carrier sells mostly one-speed compressors because most people want cheap.

:bigbow:

I want cheap, and my one-speed compressor keeps my house very comfortable. I don't see the need for anything more complicated and most people don't either.

Not sure when you built your house. I built in 2021 and at that time TV Construction gave me 3 zones (3 thermostats).

Was that option presented as standard, or did you have to ask for 3 zones and pay extra?

There's a difference.
ie, in 2019, we weren't asked about where we wanted ethernet outlets, but I requested it and paid for it. .

They asked if I wanted zones, I said yes. They said ok, tomorrow I’ll get you a price. I paid a SERIOUS premium for the three zones. I hate that I paid dearly for it but I would have paid anything they asked, or maybe walked away. I like the master bedroom 68ish, there is no way I would force guests to sleep at that room temperature.

nice! I don't remember that they asked us, but the house isn't huge. We have a 3 zone mini split system in MA, and love the ability to heat/cool specific areas.