Our house was pretty much a gut remodel. All the systems were new-to-the-curb and I was never happy with the HVAC system. We’ve got a high end variable speed furnace with AC but in reality we would have been better off with two separate systems to heat and cool the four floors. One system can’t deal with pumping air evenly. The basement was usually 20 degrees colder than the top floor. I looked into Home Comfort Systems years ago. The cost of the install was about the same as the new furnace and AC we had just paid a boatload of money for.

Fast forward to this year and Home Comfort is now owned by emme. An improved system costs less than half of the original bid. The premiss is that a computer controls bladders in all the ducts and the wireless thermostat in every room tells the system where it needs to heat or cool. Using the fan, it can circulate air from floor to floor to adjust the temperature. The video here is sped up by a factor of 4:

There are three levels of programming available and to be totally honest, we’re using the basic mode as I haven’t taken the time to program the more complicated programs. The thermostat is disappointingly slow in its response time, even after two software updates. It’s on WiFi so at least I could sit at a computer to program. We used to use space heaters in both the home office and our son’s room and those are no longer required. The basement still runs warmer than any of the other floors when the furnace is running but the temp difference is small compared to before. The in-room controllers allow a temporary setting to be held for two hours or to send that room into “saver” mode which lowers the heat/cool for that room until it is turned off.

The control system attached to the furnace. There are also two wireless access points boosting the signal from the room controllers.