HOME COMFORT ZONES, INC ANNOUNCES INTEGRATED SUPPORT FOR TWO-STAGE TWINNING
Home Comfort Zones’ MyTemp® Enables a Significant Enhancement to Traditional HVAC Twinning for Increased Energy Savings in Residential Applications
Portland, Ore. – (September 12, 2008) – Home Comfort Zones, Inc., manufacturer of the MyTemp energy management and temperature control system, announced today the release of integrated support for two-stage twinning, an innovative enhancement of traditional HVAC twinning that can generate substantial energy savings in larger homes or homes located in extreme climates.
MyTemp delivers both energy savings and improved comfort by providing room-by-room temperature control for residential forced-air HVAC systems. It saves energy by conditioning occupied rooms only as much as needed and by reducing conditioning in unoccupied rooms. The system is unique because it provides wireless monitoring of the temperature in every room and individually controls the airflow to every vent. MyTemp is designed to work with most HVAC systems and it has specialized control logic for more advanced HVAC configurations.
Two-stage twinning is a process by which two, co-located HVAC systems can be combined (or twinned) together to create an integrated, whole house heating and cooling solution. With twostage twinning, two HVAC systems are connected together using simple duct modifications and backdraft dampers. Both HVAC systems are wired directly to MyTemp, and MyTemp’s specialized twinning control logic operates the twinned HVAC systems in a manner analogous to a large, two-stage HVAC system. Unlike traditional twinning, MyTemp’s two-stage twinning allows complete shut down of the second HVAC system and its room-by-room control expands the envelope of single HVAC system operation. Separate plenum sensors are also installed on each HVAC system to monitor temperature and pressure and ensure proper operation.
“Many homes have two separate HVAC systems to provide two zones of conditioning or to provide sufficient capacity during extreme temperatures,” said Hal Alles, chief technology officer. “When possible, two-stage twinning can dramatically reduce heating and cooling energy consumption in these houses. Since the first stage HVAC system can condition every room in the house, the second stage HVAC system only runs when maximum capacity is required. Even in extreme climates, this tends to be less than 10% of the time, resulting in significant reductions in energy consumption with improved comfort.”
“MyTemp’s industry leading software platform, combined with its configurable terminals and sensor platform, makes it easy to integrate and control a wide variety of HVAC configurations,” added Josh Gray, vice president of engineering. “Two-stage twinning is representative of the type of new and innovative HVAC configurations that are enabled with better control. We look forward to further development of this and other configurations.”
“MyTemp, combined with the two-stage twinning of my HVAC systems, has reduced our summer electricity bills by about 50% while actually making our home more comfortable,” summarized Vishwas More, a retired head engineer of the Lawrence-Berkeley research laboratory at the University of California-Berkeley and a MyTemp customer. “Like most homeowners, we typically use only a few rooms. Cooling just the rooms you use makes perfect sense. It helps the environment and it helps to reduce peak load electrical demand which is very important in California. I have extensive experience designing and maintaining HVAC systems and I have been extremely impressed with the performance of this solution.”
About Home Comfort Zones, Inc.
Home Comfort Zones, Inc. designs, manufactures and sells residential temperature control and energy management systems. MyTemp® began shipping in 2004 and delivers energy savings and improved comfort by providing room-by-room temperature control. MyTemp features a proprietary combination of software, sensors, electronics and mechanics. It can be designed into new homes or easily retrofitted into existing homes with forced-air heating and cooling. For more information about Home Comfort Zones, visit www.homecomfortzones.com.