Creating an energy-efficient home involves a lot of work. But the rewards are significant, both for your budget and the environment. One of the best ways to reduce your energy consumption is room-by-room heating.
How it works: room-by-room heating uses a network of sensors and motorized vent covers to divide your home into multiple zones. Each zone has its own thermostat and is controlled independently from the rest of your house. The system’s smart controls monitor the temperature of each room and automatically turn on or off your furnace to keep it at your set comfort level. By reducing the amount of time your furnace is running, you can save up to 10% on your heating and cooling bills.
A typical home has hot and cold spots — areas of the house that vary significantly in temperature from one end to the other, even with the same settings on your thermostat. This is primarily due to air leaks, which are caused by cracks and gaps around windows, doors, and other openings in the home. By repairing and sealing these leaks, you can dramatically improve your home’s efficiency.
The physics of your home also contributes to heat differences between rooms. Rooms with more east or south facing walls and/or a high percentage of windows heat up faster than rooms that don’t. As a result, the temperature at your thermostat is often 2-3 degrees higher than what most people consider their comfortable temperature. By using a zone control system that uses smart vents to regulate temperature on a room-by-room basis, Emme Room-by-Room eliminates these problems by keeping the heating and cooling system turned off in rooms that are already warm or cool. Instead, high-speed circulation mixes the rooms that are already at a comfortable temperature with the ones that need more heating or cooling.
Occupancy detection makes it easy to reduce conditioning in unoccupied rooms. The system can use a variety of data to learn when your house is occupied, including the presence of a smart phone in a certain location (for home occupancy, not just room occupancy), smart electricity meter disaggregation, on-line calendars, security systems movement detectors and more.
If you have guests staying over, it’s simple to overrule the heating schedule for any given day with a tap of the Wiser Home app. You can even have the system learn which rooms are most occupied so you can set heating and cooling preferences for specific rooms that make sense for you.
Whether you’re interested in making your home more energy efficient or simply want to keep it at the optimal temperature, you’ll find plenty of ideas and advice on this site. But don’t be overwhelmed — we’ve divided the articles into manageable sections, so you can get started on your energy-saving journey today. And remember to contact us if you have any questions or need help finding the right solutions for your home. We’re here to support you every step of the way.