MULTI-ZONE DUCTLESS IN ALGONQUIN

This great ranch home in the Fox River neighborhood in Algonquin, IL didn’t have any air conditioning, making it a perfect candidate for a multi-zone ductless HVAC installation.

Like many homes in the area, this one was built before forced hot air heating was common, so it did not have any ductwork. With increasingly hot and humid summers, the family gave us a call here at Compass Heating and Air Conditioning, looking for an efficient solution that would give them comfort both on the first floor, and on the bottom level with a walk-out basement, and wouldn’t make them cry every month when they opened their energy bill.

Mitsubishi ductless systems are designed for situations just like this one. A single outdoor condenser heat-pump unit can operate up to eight indoor cassettes, or heads, and this two-part system is why these are occasionally referred to as “mini-splits.”

Each indoor wall-mounted head can be controlled and operated independently, creating a separate zone of comfort. This means that while the homeowner is upstairs in the main part of the home, they don’t have to worry about having the heat or a/c on in the master bedroom or living areas on the bottom floor. A multi-zone ductless HVAC solution offers the ability to customize your comfort where you need it, and this alone can lead to substantial savings in energy bills.

For this home, it was clear that we were going to have to design a system that would work well with their open floor plan, but make sure that the key areas, including the master bedroom got the comfort they craved. We recommended a total of five zones. Three units on the main floor, and two on the bottom floor, one for the master bedroom, and one for the living area downstairs.

Modern features like two story foyers, cathedral ceilings and open floor plans are spectacular, but they are hard to heat and cool and get the circulation you need to keep the whole house comfortable. The common solution, cranking up the system to try to get adequate heat to those hard-to-heat rooms, ends up wasting a ton of money on energy bills and turns other rooms in the house into a sauna, and conversely, into a refrigerator in the summer.

The solution for homes like these is to create separate zones of heating and cooling. Some contractors recommend creating zones by adding a second full furnace and air conditioning system to the home, but this is often a very expensive option, and you can get a much better result with a multi-zone ductless HVAC installation.

Best of all, Mitsubishi ductless systems are incredibly efficient heaters and well as air conditioners, which means the units will be able to provide supplemental heating as well as air conditioning to the home. This means that on chilly, rainy days in Spring, instead of having to turn on the heating system for the whole home, the family can get that touch of heat they want, right where they need it most. And on frosty winter mornings, instead of having to crank up the heat for the whole home, Mom and Dad can add a touch of heat to their master bedroom from a remote control, and avoid that morning dash to get dressed with chilly toes. In fact, many of the homeowners who add Mitsubishi ductless to their homes remark that they are able to put off turning on the heat for the full home, often for weeks, and end up saving significantly on their energy bills, sometimes up to 35-40%.

When we came out to the home, we saw that they had a pretty typical hot water boiler and radiator heating system, but this meant there was no ductwork. Adding ductwork for central air conditioning is expensive and can really ruin the beauty of a home, so we knew that a Mitsubishi Electric, multi-zone ductless HVAC system would be a perfect solution.

Ranch homes like this one in the area are known for their open floor plan, which means any heating or cooling option has to be able to circulate the air widely in order to prevent hot and cold spots. The system needs to be designed to create proper zones as well, to ensure that each area gets the heating and cooling it needs, but that there’s also the option to turn off zones when not in use, in order to save money on energy bills.