Single-Zone vs Multi-Zone Ductless Systems (Video)

Mike Cappuccio with Jones Services explains when to choose a single versus a multi-zone ductless system. He talks about single zone systems for home offices and porches, for example. Then, he talks about multi-zone systems for the whole home.

Hi, I’m Mike Cappuccio with Jones Services. And today, I’m here to talk to you about single-zone ductless systems and multi-zone ductless systems. I’m going to cover the differences between the two, where would I use them, and when would I use them.

Let’s first tackle the single-zone system. Where would I use the single zone system? Well, typically those are installed in additions on home, sunrooms on a home, maybe a home office or a big open area where you’re just trying to cool or heat one area. All right, example: Let’s take the three season porch, for example.

You have a three season porch on the back of your home, and you’re only using it three seasons out of the year, and you want to use it four seasons out of the year. Or most times, I hate to tell you, but the three season porches are only two seasons because in the summertime, they’re really hot and in the wintertime, they’re really cold. So I don’t know why they call them three.

But anyway, we’re now going to make it a four season room with a single-zone ductless unit. We come in, we put in one indoor unit, one outdoor unit that goes outside. And now that space becomes a year-round comfort zone of heating and cooling.

Also again, home office, you want to have a unit in your office. Everyone goes off to work. You’re working at home now, in today’s environment it’s a very common thing where people do work from home. And you have the heating or cooling on in the home to heat or cool the entire home, while you’re the only one home in one area of your home. Well, if you want to pick up some significant cost savings and comfort, install a ductless single zone unit in your home office. So very common applications now today for single zones.

But let’s move on to the multi zone system. Where do I use the multi zone and when would I use it? Well, first off, when we come into your home, we’ve got to take a real good look at, “Hey, how do I live in my home?” From our perspective as comfort consultants, we come out, we have to ask you a lot of questions. First off, how many people live in the home? Where do you live in the home? What rooms do you live in? Sometimes people are using one bedroom, two bedrooms, an open area where there’s a kitchen, living room, dining room.

Well, that’s a perfect example right there for a three-zone system. Okay? So, that would be what we call our three-zone. We would put one unit in each bedroom and one unit in the open area where you’re living. Great cost effectiveness for efficiency, because you can turn the two bedrooms off when you’re not in them and go out to the living area where you’re living during the day. Vice versa, when you go to bed at night, use the two bedrooms, turn the other section off. Now the unit’s never running at full capacity either. Ramping down to the speeds to just require the heating and cooling for the spaces.

So, a lot of times it really just depends on your lifestyle. You could have up to eight indoor units in your home from a multi-zone system. It really all depends on what your needs are and how you live in your home. That determines how many zones of heating and cooling we’re going to put into your home. It could be that single-zone. It could be that multi-zone.