August 15, 2026 • 22 mins
As the summer heat sets in, many of us are feeling the strain on our air conditioning systems. But did you know that there's a way to stay cool and save energy at the same time? We explore the benefits of zone heating and cooling, a technology that's been around for decades but is still not widely understood or utilized.
Gary is joined by Dick Foster, an expert in the field, who explains how zone heating and cooling works and the many benefits it offers, including improved comfort, energy savings, and even health benefits. From the challenges of uneven temperatures throughout the home to the importance of humidity control, this conversation covers it all. With the rising cost of energy and the increasing awareness of the importance of indoor air quality, it's time to learn more about this often-overlooked aspect of home comfort.
One of the key takeaways from this episode is the surprising lack of awareness about zone heating and cooling among homeowners and even professionals in the industry. Dick shares some fascinating statistics about the number of air conditioning units sold each year and the small percentage that are equipped with zoning systems. He also discusses the benefits of zoning, including reduced energy bills and improved comfort, and how it can even extend the life of your HVAC system.
If you're tired of feeling like your home is a sauna in the summer or a freezer in the winter, tune in to this interview to learn more about the benefits of zone heating and cooling. With expert insights and real-life examples, this conversation is a must-listen for anyone looking to upgrade their home comfort and save money on their energy bills.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
All right, let's get back to work. As I look
at the forecast, the real.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Field temperature in the next couple of days where I'm at, well,
just in the mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
And how many of you listening right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Now have a bedroom upstairs where it's eighty four degrees
in the family room downstairs is seventy five degrees. I
know there's a lot of you because I get that call.
And how do we balance that out? And it's interesting
in our cars, we have zone heating and cooling in
our cars, right the passenger, the driver, they got their
(00:43):
own little thermostat a lot of cases, in most cases
not in our house. So as promised Stick Foster, he's
joining us. He is with a company called Zone First.
And Dick, welcome to that home with Gary Salvan.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
How you doing.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm doing great, Gary, How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I'm wonderful. I'm wonderful.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'll tell you the weather's been a little tough this year,
a lot of rain, a lot of heat, a lot
of humidity, and we've had a lot of calls on
the scenario I just laid out with the upstairs and
the first floor, and I think you might have the
answer for us.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yes, we do a lot of people don't understand what
zone heating is. And frankly, there are very few contractors
who offered, i'll say, solve that problem. They'll come in
and fix your air conditioner, but they don't talk about
your comfort throughout your house. And that's the big challenge
most people face, and that's why you're getting the calls.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, let's face it.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You can look at a thermostat, you can look at
your thermometer, you can do all this stuff. You can
look at your humidity gauge, but it is it is
all about comfort. And if you go up exactly to
a hot, humid bedroom for your night's sleep, you're probably
not going to sleep real good.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
And that's another thing that zoning. While it provides better
comfort we talk about energy saving, it's also healthier because
if you're sleeping in a hot bedroom, sweating to death,
you're not sleeping very well. And you know, if you
don't sleep very well, that affects your health as well too.
And then in the winter time, if I might say too,
(02:15):
you know, you talk about humidity during the summer. One
of the things a lot of people don't realize is
that the humidity. Your air conditioner takes humidity out of
the air, right, and that's what makes you sweat. It's
the humidity everybody talks about, you know, thinks about Phoenix. Okay,
oh it's one hundred and ten. But it's a dry climate. Well, true,
it doesn't have the humidity at that point. And humidity
(02:38):
is very important in the house too. In the winter
time you need humidity. The summer, you don't want it.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Right, so right, right, I hear you.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
So you call it the four seas of zoning.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So we've talked about comfort. Does it save you energy? Also?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yep, the second sea is conservation. I'll run through the
fourth comfort, conservation, convenience and common sense. And when you
talk about energy savings, zoning is there. Because again you
don't want you think about this. You said before the
light switch in your every room, right, you wouldn't turn
your lights on and off with one switch. However we
(03:18):
all do with our heating and your air conditioning. And
if nobody's in the room, why are we turning the
lights on? If nobody's in the room, why are we
turning the air conditioning on? And what costs you more?
Heating and air conditioning especially right now in the summer,
many of your homeowners are feeling the effects of high
energy costs. But again, you're cooling the whole house. If
(03:38):
you could just cool one zone, especially the bedroom at night, okay,
that will cost a lot less than cooling the whole house.
So I say, you know, it costs a lot of
energy to heat and cool the whole house, it only
takes a small amount to raise or lower the temperature.
In a lot of cases, you only have to raise
and lower a couple of degrees in one room or zone.
(04:01):
So zoning I've got studies showing on our website we
could save anywhere from twenty five to thirty percent. So
it's a payback thing too.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I believe it.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And the comfort I know is definitely there. I don't understand.
I think in our house we might use the dining
room four times yet to thermostats in the dining room,
nobody sleeps in the dining room, nobody's in theatroom, and
then upstairs you know there's a six seven degree variable
of temperature.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
So let's talk about zoning. How does it work?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Very simple again, thinking we got a light switch in
every room in our house. But what we're doing is
putting a thermostat. Now not necessarily in every room, okay,
but you know the upstairs bedrooms for sure, the downstairs
living room, that's the most common. Because warm air rises
hold their falls, so whatever air conditioning tries the go
upstairs ends up falling downstairs. So that's why downstairs is
(04:57):
often cooler. But again there's the thermostat. That's all right.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, I said, the downstairs with the big TV is
freezing in the.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Summertime exactly exactly. And then you know, think about in
the winter time, your January, you're watching the Super Bowl
on that big screen TV downstairs, your thermostats downstairs, and
you got a roaring fire in the fireplace, right, and
then you go upstairs and upstairs is freezing. Okay, so
it all depends upon the weather. What zoning does is
(05:27):
we put motorized dampers in the duckwork. A damper is
a device that it's like your registers or your grills
that your outlet. You can manually open and close them. Okay,
we do it automatically from a thermostat, so you don't
have to run around and change louvers and registers every
every season. So to speak or every day in some
cases too. So that's the convenience factor. Okay, if I'm
(05:49):
in my living room, I can heat and cool my
living room, and my thermostat's in the living room, not
in the dining room. Okay. One of the other things
most common area is a lot of people have their
therm is that in a hallway? Who lives in a
hallway too? At least you're in a dining room when
you might be eating, when the family's around, But the
thermostat's always in the center portion of the house. So
(06:11):
think about the sun. Sun comes up in the morning.
You know one side of your house is probably warmer
than the other in the afternoon at three o'clock your son,
Now is that in the other side, western side of
your house, so that side's warmer. And then at ten
o'clock at night, there's no sun. So how do you
where do you put the thermostat?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
And a lot of people you know, talk to me,
is to I want to move my thermostat to another room?
All right, Well, thermostats unfortunately have to be wired. There
are wireless thermostats, but today everybody wants to operate something
from their phone. Right, So again, you want to have
something that's Wi Fi. So in order to have Wi Fi, well,
then you need power. We've actually got a cool little
(06:53):
thermostat we call a thermostat light switch. I call it
invisistat because it's invisible. You can replace the thermost are
the light switch with this and visits at, which will
turn on your light and you're heating and you're cooling.
So this allows us to put zoning in any older home,
your existing home. I can move that thermostat from your
dining room, put or leave it there, but we'll put
(07:15):
another little visits sat there. We'll put one up in
your bedroom, put one in the living room, maybe you've
got a basement, recroom, et cetera. And we can control
them from any room in the house. And what happens
is when the thermostat calls, that turns on your heating,
you're cooling whatever you need. And then the motorized zampers
and the ductwork open and close, go open to the
zones that need heating or cooling, and they close off
(07:37):
the other parts of the house automatically.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So this is a smart house. You're collecting data and
all these different zones in the house. You're bringing it
to a data center which is then sending the message out.
This stamper closes, the stamper opens, and it satisfies each
thermostat correct.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's genius.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I mean then when you think about it, I was
using the analogy in a car fed zone heating and
cooling and cars for twelve years?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
How long is that having been out for a.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
House almost as long as forced air duckwork has I
was actually just talking to guys at AHRII, which is
all the manufacturer's got Carrier a Linux train have an association.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
We kind of set the standards and the certification to
make sure the equipment is efficient as well too, And
they tracked numbers and I was trying to ask them,
you know how far back when did we start tracking?
How many air conditioning units are being sold these days? Currently,
right now there's about ten million furnaces air conditioners and
then heat pumps, which is a big popular way to
(08:42):
heat and cool your home. So that's about how many
are sold every year, but less than five percent of
them getting zoning. And so that's the big challenge. It's
still not accepted for as long as air conditioning has
been around, which will carrier I'll say, you know, giving
him a plug. You know, invented air conditioning not to
keep people cool, but for printing presses so the picsher
(09:04):
wouldn't stick together when they're trying to print stuff in
the summertime. Yeah, that's really the history behind it, you know.
Then it went from there to movie theaters keep everybody
cool at night. So think about in the thirties twenty
from the thirties, movies boom because people didn't want to
stay hot and they went out to the movies and
it was cool in the movie theater.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, we just had to move the homes.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
We just had some mess of storms through Cincinnati and
we had a bunch of people without power for three days,
and a couple of my kids lost power and going
that's the way I grew up.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Yeah, how'd that work for exactly?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
How that works for you? Well, there's gotta be you know, you.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Talked about conservation energy. There's got to be a decent
savings here. So the comfort I think everybody can just
hear and feel that. So what is a payback on
a system like zone first?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I know, now it's usually five years. Here's the big one. Okay,
let's talk about utility rates. Okay, when do utility rates
go down.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, they're never going down exactly going down.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The more they go up. I know my utility down here,
which happens to be a co op. They're notice the
early part of the year was you know, eight percent increase,
which I thought was fairly hefty. So again, the quicker
goes up, the quicker your payback. The average payback is
usually going to be less than five years for sure.
OK So that's the good thing, you know. I always say,
(10:38):
you know if you're and it always depends upon how
you use the system too. You don't want to keep
all the thermostats set at the same temperature because that
could actually cost you probably more. But think about when
we put in heating and air conditioning. Again, you're designing
it to move a certain amount of air around the
house all the time. But if we're shutting off rooms
(10:59):
we don't need to. We can more concentrate that cooling
into one room. Absolutely takes a lot of fuel and
energy to turn on the air conditioner for the whole house,
which could run for twenty minutes or a half an hour,
where here all we need to do is run it
for maybe five ten minutes to cool down a couple
of degrees.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Boy, And I'll tell you what family life and homes changes.
Kids come and go, we may stay, oh absolutely, but
you know, sometimes all rooms are are full and sometimes
they're not so big savings there comfort again.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Think about COVID. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Everybody came home, so now everybody's working from home, the
kids are doing their schoolwork in their rooms, et cetera,
et cetera. So that's the one time hang you know,
the whole house has been used. But again in one
side of the house, you know, the sun's there, so
it's heating it up in the wintertime. Yeah, or that's
where we need more cooling.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, yeah, Frank, I talked about zone heating and cooling
I'm going to say ten or twelve years ago for
a pretty.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Decent amount of time.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And there was some interest in But why do we
not hear much about either from our HVAC dealers or
why did so many people not know about zone heating?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
You think? I mean, is it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Out of reach for most people? Or it seems like
the payback's pretty.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Quick, The payback's quick, the comfort's quick. People will recognize
when once they have it in Oh my gosh, how
did they live without it? Okay, but it's been it's
been an acceptance, Okay, it's an education. And here's the
bigger one. When when do people think about fixing their
heating and air conditioning system when it's broken? I hear you, okay,
(12:39):
So you know there's not at that point. It's not
a matter of price, Okay, it's a matter of when
can you get it?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Six?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And when can you get here?
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So, of course all of the contractors are really busy
right now this time of year because they don't have
time to go add the other stuff. They're just trying
to get somebody air conditioning. Okay, So it's one time
to talk about it. But two our friends and Carrier
did a great presentation many years ago, and I'm going
(13:08):
back thirty years ago maybe, where they invited editors and
guys like you to talk about what they called environment
I n enviruns in your home and you talked about heating, cooling,
air cleaning, humidification, ventilation. So there's more to heating and
(13:29):
air conditioning than just heating and cooling, and of course
zoning is part of that as well. And an editor
who went to that session Better Homes and Gardens. Our
air Conditioning News trade paper covered it, and the editor said,
you know, I file this under what I call DBI
Dull but important. Okay, you know who you know, a
(13:51):
typical homeowner doesn't know how a furnace and an air
conditioner work. They don't know about duckworks, CFM airflow, et cetera,
et cetera. It's kind of a very scientific formulas when
you do a load calculation on a home. That's again
a very scientific mathematical et cetera. So again, and even
our industry et cetera. You know, we work by rules
(14:13):
of thumb more than anything. And I'm not trying to
beat everybody up, but you know, there's only so much
time you can do. One of these equipment's got more
expensive because of government regulation, et cetera. I don't want
to get on my soapbox here. But again, it's one
of those things people don't know unless they feel it.
(14:33):
And so, you know, when it gets cold in the
room they put in as snugly okay that they buy
for nineteen ninety five or something like that. You know,
what do you do when it gets hot in the room?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Though.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
You know you've got those portable air conditioners. Guys say, hey,
you pour water into and for thirty nine to ninety five,
we're going to drop the temperature in your room. They
don't even come close to doing that, but they sell
a lot. Okay, Dick, you got about uh done and education.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, you got about ten more minutes for me. I'll
take a break and I'm beck andrap this thing up.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Absolutely, that'd be great, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Nick Foster, he is with own First, he is my guest.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
I believe I called him frank before I apologize. We'll continue.
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Speaker 7 (15:13):
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Speaker 2 (17:54):
All right, back at it we go And Dick Foster
is my guess. He is with a company called Zone First. Dick,
how do they get more information? Your website?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Please?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Our website is very simple Zone first dot com www
dot zone first dot com. And there's a link to
some YouTube videos where we've done installations into existing homes
and so they can see actually how the system operates
that way.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
It's wonderful that you can do it in existing homes,
older homes, because it doesn't really make any difference because
I know builders in a lot of cases they'll leave
like a variable four or five degrees from the first
floor to the upstairs, which seems a little crazy. And
I'm sure you've heard that before, but it's a great
(18:43):
you know, I think it's a great thing to learn about.
And again it's zone first dot com. This has also
got to extend the life of your systems, does it not?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Absolutely? You know. That's one of the things we actually
have to say we don't talk about too much because
if your equipment's used less, it's going to last longer.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Okay, And so again I have a study that shows
how how many fewer cycles we had because we are
zoning it as well too.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, so tell me about reactions of systems you folks
have put in homes, I mean from the homeowner, the feet.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
From the homeowners. Yeah, there's a little one. I'll say,
a show called This Old House and specifically, and I
don't know if I should be using his name, but
one of the guys on This Old House parents he's
down to visit them down the Jersey Shore, and he
calls me up and says, hey, excuse me, I need
(19:47):
zoning in my parents' house. We're here at the shore,
it's August. It's hot to tack upstairs. How do I
get more cooling upstairs? So I said, I'll be right down.
I went down. I looked at it. Their house. Their
duckwork was all in what we call a crawl space.
Sure you know what a crawl space is, so it
was really easy to access the duckwork. Unfortunately, it was
(20:09):
the middle of August, so getting a contractor down to
do that, they didn't get there untill later in September.
The mom and their bedroom was on the first floor,
so we made it their bedroom was his zone, the
living room was his zone, and then the upstairs bedrooms.
And he called me up after it was in and said,
my mom loves it. She never felt the bedroom get
(20:29):
warmer so quick than now that we have zoning. And
you know, that was just one perfect reaction. I've got
a guy who sent me a picture of a thermometer
from Vermont, and of course it was like right around zero.
And he was very thankful that his zoning system was
working and keeping him warm through those zero degree temperature
(20:52):
days at that point. So people will notice that in
their energy savings. Say, you actually don't talk about that
because they don't pay attention to their bill as much.
And then I got another story for that real quick.
But again it's more the comfort. I had a neighbor
of mine. We put zoning in his house, and he
(21:13):
called me the next year and he said, hey, you know,
my electric bill is still the same and this is
actually gas okay for heating. And I said, show me
the bills. And I looked at the bills and I
showed him that it wasn't that his he wasn't saving energy.
The dollars were the same, but actually the amount of
gas that he was using had dropped, okay, And he
(21:36):
didn't he didn't, you know, co you know, rationalize that?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Sure, Zone First dot Com.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I'm sure you have contractors to recommend folks can get
a little bit more education on zoning and Dick, thank
you very much for your time. I certainly appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Gary, thank you for your time and look forward to
seeing you again.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
You're quite welcome to take care of Dick Foster of
Zone first at a zone, first dot com and a
very very interesting system. A little familiar with them, but
I wanted to have him on.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
During this pretty warm time of the year.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
We'll continue with your calls. Grab the line.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
You're at home with Garry.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
Sullivan takes it right with a call to Gary Sullivan
at one eight hundred eight two three talk. This is
(22:37):
at home with Gary Sullivan.
All right, let's get back to work. As I look
at the forecast, the real.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Field temperature in the next couple of days where I'm at, well,
just in the mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
And how many of you listening right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Now have a bedroom upstairs where it's eighty four degrees
in the family room downstairs is seventy five degrees. I
know there's a lot of you because I get that call.
And how do we balance that out? And it's interesting
in our cars, we have zone heating and cooling in
our cars, right the passenger, the driver, they got their
(00:43):
own little thermostat a lot of cases, in most cases
not in our house. So as promised Stick Foster, he's
joining us. He is with a company called Zone First.
And Dick, welcome to that home with Gary Salvan.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
How you doing.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm doing great, Gary, How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I'm wonderful. I'm wonderful.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'll tell you the weather's been a little tough this year,
a lot of rain, a lot of heat, a lot
of humidity, and we've had a lot of calls on
the scenario I just laid out with the upstairs and
the first floor, and I think you might have the
answer for us.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yes, we do a lot of people don't understand what
zone heating is. And frankly, there are very few contractors
who offered, i'll say, solve that problem. They'll come in
and fix your air conditioner, but they don't talk about
your comfort throughout your house. And that's the big challenge
most people face, and that's why you're getting the calls.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, let's face it.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You can look at a thermostat, you can look at
your thermometer, you can do all this stuff. You can
look at your humidity gauge, but it is it is
all about comfort. And if you go up exactly to
a hot, humid bedroom for your night's sleep, you're probably
not going to sleep real good.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
And that's another thing that zoning. While it provides better
comfort we talk about energy saving, it's also healthier because
if you're sleeping in a hot bedroom, sweating to death,
you're not sleeping very well. And you know, if you
don't sleep very well, that affects your health as well too.
And then in the winter time, if I might say too,
(02:15):
you know, you talk about humidity during the summer. One
of the things a lot of people don't realize is
that the humidity. Your air conditioner takes humidity out of
the air, right, and that's what makes you sweat. It's
the humidity everybody talks about, you know, thinks about Phoenix. Okay,
oh it's one hundred and ten. But it's a dry climate. Well, true,
it doesn't have the humidity at that point. And humidity
(02:38):
is very important in the house too. In the winter
time you need humidity. The summer, you don't want it.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Right, so right, right, I hear you.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
So you call it the four seas of zoning.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So we've talked about comfort. Does it save you energy? Also?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yep, the second sea is conservation. I'll run through the
fourth comfort, conservation, convenience and common sense. And when you
talk about energy savings, zoning is there. Because again you
don't want you think about this. You said before the
light switch in your every room, right, you wouldn't turn
your lights on and off with one switch. However we
(03:18):
all do with our heating and your air conditioning. And
if nobody's in the room, why are we turning the
lights on? If nobody's in the room, why are we
turning the air conditioning on? And what costs you more?
Heating and air conditioning especially right now in the summer,
many of your homeowners are feeling the effects of high
energy costs. But again, you're cooling the whole house. If
(03:38):
you could just cool one zone, especially the bedroom at night, okay,
that will cost a lot less than cooling the whole house.
So I say, you know, it costs a lot of
energy to heat and cool the whole house, it only
takes a small amount to raise or lower the temperature.
In a lot of cases, you only have to raise
and lower a couple of degrees in one room or zone.
(04:01):
So zoning I've got studies showing on our website we
could save anywhere from twenty five to thirty percent. So
it's a payback thing too.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I believe it.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And the comfort I know is definitely there. I don't understand.
I think in our house we might use the dining
room four times yet to thermostats in the dining room,
nobody sleeps in the dining room, nobody's in theatroom, and
then upstairs you know there's a six seven degree variable
of temperature.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
So let's talk about zoning. How does it work?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Very simple again, thinking we got a light switch in
every room in our house. But what we're doing is
putting a thermostat. Now not necessarily in every room, okay,
but you know the upstairs bedrooms for sure, the downstairs
living room, that's the most common. Because warm air rises
hold their falls, so whatever air conditioning tries the go
upstairs ends up falling downstairs. So that's why downstairs is
(04:57):
often cooler. But again there's the thermostat. That's all right.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, I said, the downstairs with the big TV is
freezing in the.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Summertime exactly exactly. And then you know, think about in
the winter time, your January, you're watching the Super Bowl
on that big screen TV downstairs, your thermostats downstairs, and
you got a roaring fire in the fireplace, right, and
then you go upstairs and upstairs is freezing. Okay, so
it all depends upon the weather. What zoning does is
(05:27):
we put motorized dampers in the duckwork. A damper is
a device that it's like your registers or your grills
that your outlet. You can manually open and close them. Okay,
we do it automatically from a thermostat, so you don't
have to run around and change louvers and registers every
every season. So to speak or every day in some
cases too. So that's the convenience factor. Okay, if I'm
(05:49):
in my living room, I can heat and cool my
living room, and my thermostat's in the living room, not
in the dining room. Okay. One of the other things
most common area is a lot of people have their
therm is that in a hallway? Who lives in a
hallway too? At least you're in a dining room when
you might be eating, when the family's around, But the
thermostat's always in the center portion of the house. So
(06:11):
think about the sun. Sun comes up in the morning.
You know one side of your house is probably warmer
than the other in the afternoon at three o'clock your son,
Now is that in the other side, western side of
your house, so that side's warmer. And then at ten
o'clock at night, there's no sun. So how do you
where do you put the thermostat?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
And a lot of people you know, talk to me,
is to I want to move my thermostat to another room?
All right, Well, thermostats unfortunately have to be wired. There
are wireless thermostats, but today everybody wants to operate something
from their phone. Right, So again, you want to have
something that's Wi Fi. So in order to have Wi Fi, well,
then you need power. We've actually got a cool little
(06:53):
thermostat we call a thermostat light switch. I call it
invisistat because it's invisible. You can replace the thermost are
the light switch with this and visits at, which will
turn on your light and you're heating and you're cooling.
So this allows us to put zoning in any older home,
your existing home. I can move that thermostat from your
dining room, put or leave it there, but we'll put
(07:15):
another little visits sat there. We'll put one up in
your bedroom, put one in the living room, maybe you've
got a basement, recroom, et cetera. And we can control
them from any room in the house. And what happens
is when the thermostat calls, that turns on your heating,
you're cooling whatever you need. And then the motorized zampers
and the ductwork open and close, go open to the
zones that need heating or cooling, and they close off
(07:37):
the other parts of the house automatically.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So this is a smart house. You're collecting data and
all these different zones in the house. You're bringing it
to a data center which is then sending the message out.
This stamper closes, the stamper opens, and it satisfies each
thermostat correct.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's genius.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I mean then when you think about it, I was
using the analogy in a car fed zone heating and
cooling and cars for twelve years?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
How long is that having been out for a.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
House almost as long as forced air duckwork has I
was actually just talking to guys at AHRII, which is
all the manufacturer's got Carrier a Linux train have an association.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
We kind of set the standards and the certification to
make sure the equipment is efficient as well too, And
they tracked numbers and I was trying to ask them,
you know how far back when did we start tracking?
How many air conditioning units are being sold these days? Currently,
right now there's about ten million furnaces air conditioners and
then heat pumps, which is a big popular way to
(08:42):
heat and cool your home. So that's about how many
are sold every year, but less than five percent of
them getting zoning. And so that's the big challenge. It's
still not accepted for as long as air conditioning has
been around, which will carrier I'll say, you know, giving
him a plug. You know, invented air conditioning not to
keep people cool, but for printing presses so the picsher
(09:04):
wouldn't stick together when they're trying to print stuff in
the summertime. Yeah, that's really the history behind it, you know.
Then it went from there to movie theaters keep everybody
cool at night. So think about in the thirties twenty
from the thirties, movies boom because people didn't want to
stay hot and they went out to the movies and
it was cool in the movie theater.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, we just had to move the homes.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
We just had some mess of storms through Cincinnati and
we had a bunch of people without power for three days,
and a couple of my kids lost power and going
that's the way I grew up.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Yeah, how'd that work for exactly?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
How that works for you? Well, there's gotta be you know, you.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Talked about conservation energy. There's got to be a decent
savings here. So the comfort I think everybody can just
hear and feel that. So what is a payback on
a system like zone first?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I know, now it's usually five years. Here's the big one. Okay,
let's talk about utility rates. Okay, when do utility rates
go down.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, they're never going down exactly going down.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The more they go up. I know my utility down here,
which happens to be a co op. They're notice the
early part of the year was you know, eight percent increase,
which I thought was fairly hefty. So again, the quicker
goes up, the quicker your payback. The average payback is
usually going to be less than five years for sure.
OK So that's the good thing, you know. I always say,
(10:38):
you know if you're and it always depends upon how
you use the system too. You don't want to keep
all the thermostats set at the same temperature because that
could actually cost you probably more. But think about when
we put in heating and air conditioning. Again, you're designing
it to move a certain amount of air around the
house all the time. But if we're shutting off rooms
(10:59):
we don't need to. We can more concentrate that cooling
into one room. Absolutely takes a lot of fuel and
energy to turn on the air conditioner for the whole house,
which could run for twenty minutes or a half an hour,
where here all we need to do is run it
for maybe five ten minutes to cool down a couple
of degrees.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Boy, And I'll tell you what family life and homes changes.
Kids come and go, we may stay, oh absolutely, but
you know, sometimes all rooms are are full and sometimes
they're not so big savings there comfort again.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Think about COVID. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Everybody came home, so now everybody's working from home, the
kids are doing their schoolwork in their rooms, et cetera,
et cetera. So that's the one time hang you know,
the whole house has been used. But again in one
side of the house, you know, the sun's there, so
it's heating it up in the wintertime. Yeah, or that's
where we need more cooling.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, yeah, Frank, I talked about zone heating and cooling
I'm going to say ten or twelve years ago for
a pretty.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Decent amount of time.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And there was some interest in But why do we
not hear much about either from our HVAC dealers or
why did so many people not know about zone heating?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
You think? I mean, is it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Out of reach for most people? Or it seems like
the payback's pretty.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Quick, The payback's quick, the comfort's quick. People will recognize
when once they have it in Oh my gosh, how
did they live without it? Okay, but it's been it's
been an acceptance, Okay, it's an education. And here's the
bigger one. When when do people think about fixing their
heating and air conditioning system when it's broken? I hear you, okay,
(12:39):
So you know there's not at that point. It's not
a matter of price, Okay, it's a matter of when
can you get it?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Six?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And when can you get here?
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So, of course all of the contractors are really busy
right now this time of year because they don't have
time to go add the other stuff. They're just trying
to get somebody air conditioning. Okay, So it's one time
to talk about it. But two our friends and Carrier
did a great presentation many years ago, and I'm going
(13:08):
back thirty years ago maybe, where they invited editors and
guys like you to talk about what they called environment
I n enviruns in your home and you talked about heating, cooling,
air cleaning, humidification, ventilation. So there's more to heating and
(13:29):
air conditioning than just heating and cooling, and of course
zoning is part of that as well. And an editor
who went to that session Better Homes and Gardens. Our
air Conditioning News trade paper covered it, and the editor said,
you know, I file this under what I call DBI
Dull but important. Okay, you know who you know, a
(13:51):
typical homeowner doesn't know how a furnace and an air
conditioner work. They don't know about duckworks, CFM airflow, et cetera,
et cetera. It's kind of a very scientific formulas when
you do a load calculation on a home. That's again
a very scientific mathematical et cetera. So again, and even
our industry et cetera. You know, we work by rules
(14:13):
of thumb more than anything. And I'm not trying to
beat everybody up, but you know, there's only so much
time you can do. One of these equipment's got more
expensive because of government regulation, et cetera. I don't want
to get on my soapbox here. But again, it's one
of those things people don't know unless they feel it.
(14:33):
And so, you know, when it gets cold in the
room they put in as snugly okay that they buy
for nineteen ninety five or something like that. You know,
what do you do when it gets hot in the room?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Though.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
You know you've got those portable air conditioners. Guys say, hey,
you pour water into and for thirty nine to ninety five,
we're going to drop the temperature in your room. They
don't even come close to doing that, but they sell
a lot. Okay, Dick, you got about uh done and education.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, you got about ten more minutes for me. I'll
take a break and I'm beck andrap this thing up.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Absolutely, that'd be great, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Nick Foster, he is with own First, he is my guest.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
I believe I called him frank before I apologize. We'll continue.
You're at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
Help for your home is just a click away at
Garysullivan online dot com. This he's at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
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Speaker 1 (17:01):
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Speaker 2 (17:54):
All right, back at it we go And Dick Foster
is my guess. He is with a company called Zone First. Dick,
how do they get more information? Your website?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Please?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Our website is very simple Zone first dot com www
dot zone first dot com. And there's a link to
some YouTube videos where we've done installations into existing homes
and so they can see actually how the system operates
that way.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
It's wonderful that you can do it in existing homes,
older homes, because it doesn't really make any difference because
I know builders in a lot of cases they'll leave
like a variable four or five degrees from the first
floor to the upstairs, which seems a little crazy. And
I'm sure you've heard that before, but it's a great
(18:43):
you know, I think it's a great thing to learn about.
And again it's zone first dot com. This has also
got to extend the life of your systems, does it not?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Absolutely? You know. That's one of the things we actually
have to say we don't talk about too much because
if your equipment's used less, it's going to last longer.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Okay, And so again I have a study that shows
how how many fewer cycles we had because we are
zoning it as well too.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, so tell me about reactions of systems you folks
have put in homes, I mean from the homeowner, the feet.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
From the homeowners. Yeah, there's a little one. I'll say,
a show called This Old House and specifically, and I
don't know if I should be using his name, but
one of the guys on This Old House parents he's
down to visit them down the Jersey Shore, and he
calls me up and says, hey, excuse me, I need
(19:47):
zoning in my parents' house. We're here at the shore,
it's August. It's hot to tack upstairs. How do I
get more cooling upstairs? So I said, I'll be right down.
I went down. I looked at it. Their house. Their
duckwork was all in what we call a crawl space.
Sure you know what a crawl space is, so it
was really easy to access the duckwork. Unfortunately, it was
(20:09):
the middle of August, so getting a contractor down to
do that, they didn't get there untill later in September.
The mom and their bedroom was on the first floor,
so we made it their bedroom was his zone, the
living room was his zone, and then the upstairs bedrooms.
And he called me up after it was in and said,
my mom loves it. She never felt the bedroom get
(20:29):
warmer so quick than now that we have zoning. And
you know, that was just one perfect reaction. I've got
a guy who sent me a picture of a thermometer
from Vermont, and of course it was like right around zero.
And he was very thankful that his zoning system was
working and keeping him warm through those zero degree temperature
(20:52):
days at that point. So people will notice that in
their energy savings. Say, you actually don't talk about that
because they don't pay attention to their bill as much.
And then I got another story for that real quick.
But again it's more the comfort. I had a neighbor
of mine. We put zoning in his house, and he
(21:13):
called me the next year and he said, hey, you know,
my electric bill is still the same and this is
actually gas okay for heating. And I said, show me
the bills. And I looked at the bills and I
showed him that it wasn't that his he wasn't saving energy.
The dollars were the same, but actually the amount of
gas that he was using had dropped, okay, And he
(21:36):
didn't he didn't, you know, co you know, rationalize that?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Sure, Zone First dot Com.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I'm sure you have contractors to recommend folks can get
a little bit more education on zoning and Dick, thank
you very much for your time. I certainly appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Gary, thank you for your time and look forward to
seeing you again.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
You're quite welcome to take care of Dick Foster of
Zone first at a zone, first dot com and a
very very interesting system. A little familiar with them, but
I wanted to have him on.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
During this pretty warm time of the year.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
We'll continue with your calls. Grab the line.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
You're at home with Garry.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
Sullivan takes it right with a call to Gary Sullivan
at one eight hundred eight two three talk. This is
(22:37):
at home with Gary Sullivan.
At Home with Gary Sullivan News
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