While ducted air conditioning can cool a whole house, you probably don't want all rooms cooled at the same time and at the same rate. To allow you to vary the temperature in different rooms, you can install a zoned system. A zone is made up of one or several rooms that you group during installation. But how do you choose which rooms to combine with others in a zone? Here are some tips to help you work this out.

Day Versus Night

You can set up the zones according to the times of day that you use the rooms. For example, you put living areas in one zone and bedrooms in another. That way, you can cool the bedrooms during the night and not waste energy by cooling the living areas when they're not occupied.

You can also group little-used rooms in the same zone. If you have, say, a guest room or other spaces that you rarely use, you can group them in a distinct zone to separate them from rooms that you use constantly and that are regularly cooled.

Room Proportions and Location

Each zone that you set up will have one thermostat that it will follow. So it makes sense to group rooms of similar size, as they will probably cool at a similar rate. If you put a small room, such as a powder room, in the same zone as a large room, the powder room could become freezing cold, assuming the thermostat is in the larger space.

If you have an expansive open-plan living area, you can put that in a distinct zone because it will have unique cooling needs.

The floors of a two-story house should be treated differently. You will know that the top story is often much warmer than the lower one, which is due to the fact that hot air rises. Thus, separate the upper story from the lower-story rooms.

Sunlight and Insulation

Other factors, such as direct sunlight, also play a role in grouping like with like. If a room faces west and receives hours of hot afternoon sunlight, it will probably have different cooling needs than a south-facing room that doesn't get any sunlight. Thus, it's best to separate these spaces. If you group them, one of these rooms will be comfortable, and the other may grow too hot or cold, depending on the thermostat location. A room's insulation also affects how it retains coolness, so you could group insulated rooms.

The more zone options you have with an air conditioner, the more you can fine-tune the cooling by treating rooms differently, and the more energy you can save. 

For more info about air conditioning, contact a local company.