our opinions: ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT
In The
Comfort
Zone
By BRETT HOBSON,
CEO Comfort Experts
and MELISSA MOORMAN
Brett Hobson
Connectedness in your own home -
New Systems and advances to increase your comfort
O
ne of the recent trends in
technology is the “connected
home”. We have refrigerators you
can see inside from the grocery store
aisle to interior cameras that can be
controlled from your smart phone.
There’s no question that our homes
are getting smarter. That’s espe-
cially true with the advent of Wi-Fi
connected thermostats that came on
the scene five years ago.
As a way to control your heat-
ing and cooling comfort remotely,
or even from inside your own home,
Wi-Fi enabled thermostats are known
by a number of names made by
companies like Nest, Honeywell and
Emerson. The newest ones learn your
habits and preferences and program
themselves to meet your needs. Now,
you can have what commercial build-
ing managers have had access to for
years in your own home to make you
more comfortable than ever.
Almost 1/3 of our customers are
asking for this additional connect-
edness in new ac/heating systems.
But how does it really help the
consumer? For one thing, depending
on the model you choose can create
one portal to manage your home’s
temperature and safety. Your fire safe,
smoke, and carbon monoxide detec-
tors can all be hooked together to
keep your family safe. It can also be
cued remotely to lower or raise the
temperature in your home so it will
be at the right temperature when you
arrive home. Some will even contact
you when the temperature is dipping
down low enough for pipes to freeze
so you can raise temperatures, saving
you thousands of potential repair
costs. Some learn your habits, using
98
motion detectors to determine when
you leave and arrive back home to
have the temperature to your perfect
level, depending on your daily sched-
ule.
What it can’t do is to make your
system work harder than it possibly
can on days that are extremely hot or
incredibly cold. On a 15-degree day,
which we thankfully don’t have many
of, or a 100 plus degree day, which
unfortunately we have too many of,
your heating and cooling system
needs to run continually to just keep
up with the temperature you choose.
While the Wi-Fi enable thermostats
train themselves to raise and lower
the temperature to save energy when
you aren’t home, on extreme temper-
ature days it can make you uncom-
fortable because your system can’t
possibly catch up in the few hours
after work when you get home. You
will be trading energy savings with
your family’s comfort.
Other technological advances are
available which allow you to zone
your home to allow the temperature
to be different in different rooms with
a single system. You can have your
bedroom be cooler or warmer at
night than rooms that no one is in or
air condition and heat different rooms
at different temperatures at different
times of the day.
Other systems are being devel-
oped to combat Sick Building
Syndrome by pretreating increased
amounts of fresh air coming into
your home to remove contami-
nants. Increased fresh air is essential
because of the chemical contami-
nants from both indoor and outdoor
sources that exist in your home;
things like exhaust and dust as well
as gases and compounds from inside
your home like adhesives, carpet,
smoke, cleaning agents and synthetic
fabrics. Sick Building Syndrome’s
other contaminants can be biologi-
cal like fungus, pollen and mold or
radiation from televisions, computers
and microwaves. When oil prices
increased in the 1970s, buildings
became more air tight with less
outdoor ventilation. This reduced
ventilation rate was found to be
inadequate to maintain the health
and comfort of building occupants.
Malfunctioning heating, ventilation
and air-conditioning systems (HVAC
systems) also increase the indoor air
pollution. In order to have an accept-
able indoor air quality (IAQ) with
a minimum energy consumption,
the American Society of Heating,
Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning
Engineers (ASHRAE) recently tripled
ventilation standards to avoid the
problems related to inadequate
ventilation. New systems increase
the fresh air flow while treating
what’s coming inside while remov-
ing contaminants providing clean air
technology to your home.
All of this technology is making
our homes smarter, safer and more
efficient much of it available on a
smartphone or tablet. It’s a great thing
to have when you are almost asleep
and just want to move the thermom-
eter down a couple of degrees. It
seems like overkill all of this technol-
ogy just to change the thermostat, but
I think I remember this same discus-
sion when television remotes came
out.