Can someone explain multizone heating to me.

Hey people hope you can answer my questions.
I'm single and live alone.I'm building a 30sq house. At my last place I was heating the whole house but only ever in one room. This is silly.

My builder is putting in a single zone ducted heating. I'm trying to find out is it the ducted unit that multizone or the controller? I really only want to heat which ever living room I'm in and the bedroom.

My builder has suggest putting wall panel heaters in everyroom but I don't really like the look of them.

I'm also trying to decide between evap cooling, split cycles in the 3 rooms I'll be using or ducted RC .

Friends have evap in mernda and to me it's fine but I haven't seen it on a 35plus day.
ducted RC will be expensive ,I have alot or raked ceilings so not alot of roof space.

I'm installing a 4kw solar system so trying to make the most energy efficient decisions.

Any advice would be great.

Mark

Evap cooling is excellent in Melbourne. Highly reccomend it here - obviously not for humid areas like QLD/Sydney. Costs diddly squat to operate. We had it thru Black Saturday (48) and it was 27 inside... sure, not super cold but a hell of alot better than I expected it to respond in such terrible conditions!!

Totally agree regarding multi-zone heating, we have 2 zones - living areas and bedrooms (so 2 zones), cost about $1200 for the upgrade.

Having said that - if we didn't live in melbourne (ie cold winters) I would have prefered panel heaters in the bedrooms and the ducted for the living rooms only. Makes more sense - to be able to turn it off over night but still keep bedrooms toasty warm! They are pretty flat and unobtrusive, I wouldn't worry about that so much.

As for solar heating... I am sure I will get a slap over the knuckles for this, but a good friend is a plumber... solar heating is the biggest crock for melbourne - if you were in brissy or sydney, it's worth while - but here it takes you 5 years to make back the cost, at which point your system will likely break (as most solar systems are cheap imports), and the cost to repair out strip the savings. Not only that, you'll get not much benefit from April - September in Melbourne - you'll be using the gas-booster for this period.

Good luck!!!!!

AV.

We tried multizone, but our supplier (Hobart) decided to tell us AFTER installation that they have never done it before and don't recommend it for houses our size (~20 sq). Luckily they refunded all the necessary parts at no cost.

Anyway, with zoning you must have an "always on" zone (ie kitchen and living area), and then you can selectively turn on/off other zones (either manually as on or off, heating at the same time as the main zone, or with extra controllers/thermostats, selecting a desired temp. Obviously the heater will only turn on when the main zone needs heat. In other words, the zones really control a small damper in the ducting.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this was not explained to me at all before installation, so get all the facts first. Make sure you ask them "HOW" the zoning actually works - don't just rely on the brochuer either.

As for the first post, $1200 seems a bit steep to add zoning capabilities - I would guess that it only added a $400 to the initial purchase cost.

Hi,

I have added zoned heating into my new home.
You will find that most of the additional cost is due to the fact that the heating until will also need to be upgraded to allow the zoning.

It cost me about $1500 to upgrade the standard heating from a 3 star unit to a 5 star unit (I believe I had to upgrade to at least 4 start to get the zoning).
The unit I am getting I can have up to four different zones, but need to purchase additional zone motors for each zone.

I will have two different zones (to separate bedrooms and living areas into different zones).
I was quoted an additional $350 for additional zone motors and I could have up to four zones.

Good luck.

Michelle