Home Comfort Zones
By Charles TurnerThe 2005 Street of Dreams is a showcase of the coolest things a modern home can have. The multi-million dollar houses have some pretty awesome features but the one that struck me the most was a demo in a few of the garages where vendors are set up.
The Home Comfort Zones system allows for individual room temperature control. The demo has a cut-away of a furnace duct at the heat register. Inside, a balloon-type bag inflates or deflates to block the passage of air. The wireless thermostat in each room reports back to a master thermostat and tells the system if the room is the desired temperature. Don’t use a room? Shut it off completely.
Not planning on building a new home? That doesn’t matter. The system can be installed in pre-existing duct work!
Good Day Oregon did a story a while back which does a really good job of explaining the system in an eight minute segment. It is a .wav file. Home Comfort Zones is Beaverton based. The product is new enough that it is only available locally but they have high hopes of spreading out.
I had one of their systems installed and have been totally dissatisified. What they didn’t tell me – but have since admitted – is that the design will allow a 1.7 degree variation from the set point (I have had as much as a 2.2 degree variation and froze). I was back to where I was: jumping up & down changing the setting to cut off the a/c. (Heat likely to pose the same problem). Buyer beware!