When we first bought our house, there was a single thermostat located in the living room.
- Whenever we wanted to adjust the temperature, we needed to walk to the device and manually change the setting.
Since the house is two floors and extremely big, this was inconvenient and aggravating. Some of the rooms have very large windows which get a lot of sun. These rooms tend to heat up during the day. If I turned up the air conditioning to cool the rooms down in the summer, or reduced heating in winter, the rest of the house ended up super cold. We have other rooms that are either shaded or exposed to the brutal winter wind and difficult to keep warm. Quite a few of the rooms are rarely used, and yet I was paying to heat and cool them to the ideal temperature at all times. Even trying to conserve energy when we left the house empty for the day was difficult. We’d then come home to either hot and sticky or freezing cold conditions. I finally got an estimate from a local HVAC contractor for the update into wifi thermostats and zone control. This project was not as expensive as I expected. The HVAC contractor installed a series of valves into the ductwork which direct the heated/cooled air to specific rooms. These valves are controlled by independent thermostats in each zone. We now have access to the thermostats through our smartphones, and we’re able to customize temperature in each room. The savings on monthly energy bills will definitely recover the investment within five years. Plus, my home is so much more comfortable.