Two-zone air conditioning – some like it cooler
Because we find it somewhat unreasonable and wasteful to cool the whole house down to one temperature, we had already asked various house construction companies during the initial planning phase whether and if so how it would be possible to achieve at least two-zone cooling. Opinions differed here.
While some said that a second air conditioning system was absolutely necessary, which is of course expensive, others said that it would be sufficient to divide the air conditioning system into two zones, regulate the air flow via special ventilation flaps and control it via thermostats. Because that sounded logical and was much cheaper, we agreed on it and that’s how it works:
We wanted to be able to control one office and the bedroom a little cooler, because the husband likes it cooler than the wife and it is more pleasant to sleep a little cooler and we don’t want to cool the whole house. That’s how it was implemented. However, as we already know, the result is not so satisfactory.
Two-zone air conditioning not optimal
What happened? The bathroom and walk-in closet are also connected to the office and bedroom zone, which is firstly unnecessary and secondly you find a “cool bathroom” in the morning. Second disadvantage: If only this zone starts up, the noise in these rooms is louder than if both zones are running at the same time. This is because the one air conditioning unit then distributes all its power to this one zone.
However, the two-zone control basically works and the noise-insensitive American doesn’t quite understand us. However, if we had to decide again, we would install a second air conditioning system.
The placement of the air handler above the office was also not ideal. It would be better to install the system above the garage, because then you would hear even less of the noise it makes.