A multi-zone climate control system for single-family homes

Most single-family homes in America today are designed with a single-zone climate control system. This is typically an energy inefficient and ineffective method of conditioning a home. Multi-zone climate control systems are considered to provide improved means of conditioning single-family homes. More so is the case with multi-story homes where thermal balance is difficult to achieve between the lower and upper floors using a single-zone system. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was applied in this research to study the performance of a single zone and two multi-zone systems in a two-story building. The study has revealed significant thermal stratification under both the single and multi-zone systems. Results also indicate there to be moderate differences in temperature distribution between the single-zone and multi-zone systems.