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Does anyone have a house with multi-zones? My fiance and I just bought a house that has one A/C unit, with two zones (two thermostats, one upstairs one downstairs). This is probably the dumb blond question for the day but how exactly is this supposed to work? I was under the assumption that with this system, we'd be able to keep the upstairs at one temp, and the downstairs at another. Last night before going to sleep, I set the thermostat way high (to like 78) downstairs, since I dont care if it's warm down there when no one's there, and set the upstairs thermostat to 74, so it'd keep the bedrooms cooler. When I woke up, the upstairs thermostat had set itself to 78... so I was confused. Are the two thermostats trying to sync themselves together, to keep a consistent temp throughout the house? Maybe that's the point of the zone system. I'm just not sure.
Funny you should ask..my house got zapped by lightning last week and it blew out our AC circuit board and our zone controller ($1,600 to fix!).
They are coming to put in a new zone control this afternoon. I have the exact same situation you have and I asked the AC guy to check it out. I told him it don't matter what you set upstairs to, it does whatever downstairs says.
He said it might be the way the zone control was wired when they installed it. I'll let you know what he says...
It's my understand with a multi-zone AC unit, does not truely allow you set two temps for two zones as it uses 1 unit. It more checks two zones to make sure the temps are consistant. It could use a dampening system, but with one compressor, you can't have two very diverse temps because there is no way to control the A/C coming out when it's turned on. You'd have to check out how your zones are laid out and what is controlled.
Thanks everyone! I think the thermostats are programmable, I have to check to see if that's what's going on... Uber, keep me posted on what your AC guy says!
The AC guy and replaced my zapped zone controller. He said the zone controller was wired wrong from the start. Now upstairs and downstairs run independently of each other...they way they are suppose to. Amen! No more 80 degree upstairs and 60 degree downstairs in the winter.
You can test yours by turning off both thermostats. Check the zone controller next to your furnace. The indicator lights for both zones should not be lit up. Turn on zone 2. If zone 1 lights up and you get air upstairs, its wired wrong and both zones are running on zone 1, or if zone 2 lights up and you get air downstairs, same deal.
You don't by chance know who installed your AC unit? Mine was done by Anderson, and I think my problems speak of their quality...
I had my work done by Gastonia Sheet Metal. They were very good. Pushed the "service contract" pretty hard, but very professional and I'm satisfied with their work.
Glad I didn't call Brothers or Morris-Jenkins...I couldn't live with myself knowing I helped pay for those stupid commercials...
It's my understand with a multi-zone AC unit, does not truely allow you set two temps for two zones as it uses 1 unit. It more checks two zones to make sure the temps are consistant. It could use a dampening system, but with one compressor, you can't have two very diverse temps because there is no way to control the A/C coming out when it's turned on. You'd have to check out how your zones are laid out and what is controlled.
I don't know - we have 3 zones (one on each floor). At night, we keep the downstairs levels set warmer and the upstairs a little cooler. We'll vary those depending on when we're home. It seems to work as you would think - we can have the middle floor at 74 and the upper and lower floors at 78. Not sure how it works (I'm not very more technical) but we can set significantly different temps for each floor (zone) with heat or A/C and each floor stays at the selected temperature.
It's my understand with a multi-zone AC unit, does not truely allow you set two temps for two zones as it uses 1 unit. It more checks two zones to make sure the temps are consistant. It could use a dampening system, but with one compressor, you can't have two very diverse temps because there is no way to control the A/C coming out when it's turned on. You'd have to check out how your zones are laid out and what is controlled.
Our home has 2 units, one for each floor.
We have 3 thermostats on the top floor; master bedroom, master bath, and a third for the other bedrooms and media room. I can set and maintain three very diverse temperatures for each.
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