Learn the basics of Arzel Zoning installation with this quick webinar. It covers panel mounting, damper installation, types of dampers, and how to run the tubing for an Arzel Zoning system.
So the first thing with installing any of our products is going to be where to mount the panel itself. So with our system, the only source of noise on the whole system is going to be the panel box itself. And that’s due to the pump being inside the panel because of all.
All of our dampers are pneumatically driven. To get those dampers to open and close, we have a pump built into the bottom of each of our panels. And that is the only sense of noise. You’re going to want to keep that in mind when you’re installing the panel itself. When looking for a pristine mounting position, the best thing you can do is, if you’re in a basement, is the mount to a block wall.
When you’re doing that, you’re going to want to put it on a piece of three-quarter-inch plywood. That’s just to absorb the sound a little bit so you don’t have it echoing on the cinder block itself. If you don’t have access to a cinder block wall or something like that, and you got to do it on a drywalled wall, what you’re going to want to do is still put it on the three-quarter-inch piece of plywood, but typically you’re going to want to cover that across at least 2 joist spaces to kind of absorb some of that sound.
And one of the things I always did when I was in the field is I took vibration pads, kind of what you’d put underneath the furnace, and I would always put those behind the panel in between the plywood and the panel itself, and that alleviates any kind of vibration, noise you may get.
You always want to kind of be aware of where you’re mounting it as well. You’re going to want to stay away from an adjacent living space. So if they got a bedroom in the basement or something like that, you’re not going to want to put it on the opposing side of that wall, because they will get some echoing, and you never want to mount it to the equipment or the return duct and the reason being is because of that pump vibration. If you mounted on the return, you’re going to hear that echo throughout the whole house, because it’s going to vibrate that sheet metal and you’re going to get that sound going throughout the entire home.
So whenever possible, onto a block wall, if not, you’re going to want to, you know, at least cover two joists’ space with the three quarter inch plywood and then mount your panel to that.
And just a tech tip, I mean, vibration pads are a lifesaver. We use them all the time. When I was in the field. You put a couple of those behind that and you will have, you know, very little noise whatsoever as far as the dampers go.
Our most used damper is going to be our EzySlide damper. And this is either going to come in a round style damper or a square rectangle duct. So you can do trunk dampers, or you could do branch dampers with this particular damper. They’re going to come from anywhere from round sizes 4 to 16 inches. And we do carry rectangle sizes for the trunk dampers as well. Those will be from anywhere from 4 to 48 inches.
And then all of our dampers are going to have a three-quarter-inch gasket seal around the blade itself. So it’s going to be 100% sealed when the damper closes. So you get no bleed-by on the dampers themselves. And then we do offer a lot of custom sizes as well. If you have a custom size, it needs to be ordered. You can call your local distributor. Usually as long as we get it early enough in the day, it’ll ship out that same day or early next morning. Typically within 24 hours we’ll get any custom sized damper out to you guys. So there’s no real waiting around or lead times with that.
As far as installing our EzySlide dampers, they’re pretty easy to install. Each one of the dampers is going to come with a template. All your round dampers are going to have two sizes on each template. So just look to see what size you have. If you got a 5 or 6, it’s going to be on the same template. It’s going to be a triangle cutout. So you’re going to mount it up to the ductwork. And then you’re just going to cut that triangle out pretty quick. And once you do a couple of these you can usually do you know, a damper a minute on installation.
Once you get your hole cut out, you’re going to enter the damper in sideways and hold the blade with your finger so it stays in the closed position. Once you get it inside the duct, you just do a 90-degree turn with it. The little air tube on the damper itself: So if you can see in the picture right on the right hand by a pinky finger there, there’s a little nipple there. And that’s where your hose will actually attach to. So you’re always going to want that pointing towards the equipment that you have or against the airflow if you look at it that way.
And that’s just for a cleaner install, so that your tubing all goes back to the main plenum. And then you can route that back to your panel. So it makes it a lot cleaner. If you do need to put it the opposing way, it’s not going to affect the way that the damper works at all. It’s just more of an aesthetics thing.
Once you get the damper turned in place, you’re just going to put four inch-and-a-quarter zip screws in, and then you’re going to attach the airline to the tubing.
So the airline is going to come in eight different colors. If you guys don’t know, the biggest panel that we offer is an eight-zone AirBoss panel. You can do each individual damper zone with its own color. That way, if a service contractor needs to go back and troubleshoot, it’s easier for them to identify what dampers are on what zone, especially when you’re doing branch runs and you have 15 or 20 different dampers on one job. Definitely speeds up if you ever have to do any troubleshooting or anything like that.
We do offer a few different options for retrofit dampers as well. So these are all going to be internally mounted dampers. And when you’re doing this you’re going to actually be running the tubing through the plenum itself. So it’s not going to be our regular PVC tubing that you’re going to use. It’s actually a plenum-rated tubing. So it’s UL fire and smoke approved.
Typically, you’ll use these if they have a finished basement or plans to finish off the basement. That way you’re able to get to the damper in the future if there is any failure or anything like that in the system.
The first option there on the left is our RegiDamper. This is going to sit right underneath the register grill itself. You basically put it in with two screws to hold it in place, and then you silicone it in place. That’s what holds it there. And then you’d run your tubing through the ductwork itself to a centralized location in the basement, and then tie that into your panel.
The only real drawback to the RegiDamper is there’s not a gasket seal on the blades themselves. So you do get a little bit of air bleed-by with this specific damper. It’s the only damper that we do offer without that gasket seal.
But if you don’t have metal ductwork and you have a slab on something like that, it definitely will work for you. And it gives them an option of zoning where there is no real other option.
Then the next damper in the middle there is going to be our EzyFit damper. What this one does, if you guys can see in the middle of that blade there, the blade folds up in half. And then it’s got a magnet that holds it in place. So essentially you can fold this whole damper in half, kind of like a taco. And you can actually reach right through your register grill right down into the boot itself, and insert this into your supply run. The magnet holds it in place so it’s not going anywhere. And then you just run your tubing back.
The real plus side to this vs. the RegiDamper is this is a full 100% seal in the ductwork. So you will get no bleed-by with it. Very reliable dampers. The actuator on all three of these dampers is actually a glass-lined cylinder. And then it’s got a graphite plunger that actually acts to energize or de-energize the damper itself.
Then the last option we have is our InsertaDamper. So this is going to be the same thing, if you have a slab home, if they have like an octopus run or something like that, with the ductwork, is really where this comes in. If they have clay pipe or PVC pipe for their ductwork, is really where this one’s going to excel.
And essentially, if you have access to the main runs through your main trunk line, what you could do is insert this through there. So it’s got a metal band on it that you squeeze in that holds it in place. So you squeeze the band, slide that in through the ductwork, and then that holds it in place, and then you’d run your tubing back that way.
One of the questions we get a whole lot in tech support is, “How do I run the tubing through the ductwork?” So a couple of the different options that contractors have been using and found a lot of reliability with, is – the biggest one for most of the contractors? It’s just using, fish tape, just like you would use for running a wire. Essentially what you do is take a ping pong ball and put that on the end of your fish tape, and that’ll prevent it from getting stuck in any of the grooves in your sheet metal. So the seams and grooves. And then you’ll fish that through your register from the second floor or first floor, wherever you are in the home, you’re going to run that through until it gets down into the basement, and then you’re going to need an access somewhere in that basement, you know, an unfinished spot of the basement. Something that you could patch for later on, in the ductwork.
You’re going to cut an access hole so that you can look up inside the ductwork and see your fish tape when it comes back down. Then, usually, what we used was a long metal pole with a hook on it. What we used was a dryer vent cleaner. Comes in two-foot sections. Just screw them together and it’s plastic material, so it’s kind of bendy. We would slide that through the ductwork to grab a hold of the tubing, and then pull that back through. So you can either do it with the tubing attached to your fish tape or with string. We always used a string when I was on the field, it was just easier to get a hold of and work with. But once you pull that back to your centralized location, then you could tie your tubing onto the string and then pull that through your ductwork up to where you have the damper itself.
One thing to keep in mind when you’re hooking up the tubing: you’re going to want access to these dampers if there’s ever a failure. So make yourself a service loop in the tubing itself. Just do a loop with the tubing and then feed that back through behind the damper. So if you ever have to pull the damper out, you’re able to pull it out and not have to worry about damaging the damper or anything like that. Gives you plenty of slack to get to.
One of the other things that some of the techs do to run the tubing itself when you’re doing internal mounts is if you do ductwork cleaning, a lot of the guys will use their ductwork vac, and then they’ll tie a plastic bag on a string and suck that through their ductwork, and then essentially tie your tubing and pull it back through.
So there’s a lot of creative ways you can do it, but those are kind of the two top ones that most of the technicians are using out there to run the tubing itself.
This is a basic layout for a three-zone system. So each one of the colors there is going to represent a zone. Typically when you’re running the tubing, you’re going to want to leave the panel with your tubing and go to the furthest damper on that run. So you plug your tubing into that for this damper. And then from there, you’re going to work your way back and essentially cut the tubing, install the tee, and then connect the next damper in line. And you’re just going to work your way back to the panel with the tees. So it makes it really quick. No wiring, nothing like that. So it’s a really quick install time.
Once you get all your tees done, that is pretty much what your finalized product will look like there on the front. So this is a combination of a branch and a trunk damper there. And you can always do that in the field. You could do all branch. You could do all trunk. You could do combinations of branch and trunk. If you have some internal mount dampers you could add those in. With all of our panels, you’re able to do up to 35 dampers with one pump in the system.
If you guys ever come across a job where you’re going to have more than 35 dampers, we can make a custom panel for you. And essentially it has two pumps together inside the panel box. Then you’re able to do up to 70 dampers, and that’s with no added transformers or anything like that. They’re all pneumatically driven.
So this is what the actual dampers are going to look like. The first position is your normal position. So any time there’s no call on the panel, the damper sits at about a 45-degree angle to the ductwork. So it still will allow airflow going through the ductwork.
One of the big things we get asked too is, “What do I do with my humidifier?” So our panel only works for humidity, if you’re doing a HeatPumPro or a panel like that, it’ll only work humidity with a heating call. If you want to do humidity on demand with blower activation, ignore our panel completely and wire the humidifier directly to your furnace. So that way if the humidity levels aren’t met, it energizes the humidity call, it energizes your blower on your furnace. All the dampers are in the open position, and it’ll blow through, since that normal position is open. And then if there is ever a call on an opposing zone, it’ll close that zone and just add humidity to the zone that’s actually calling for heat.
And then with our dampers, they’re pressure closed, it’s going to be 40 inches of water column is your minimum number that you would look for to close our damper. And then they’re vacuum open. And that’s going to be at least -35 inches of water column. So that’s essentially what you’re looking for with the dampers.
Then we do offer a number of different fittings as well to make installation easier for you guys. So the first fitting that we offer is just our elbows in the left there. You typically aren’t going to need these on a typical install. The tubing is pliable enough where if you’ve got to make a bend, you can do it with the tubing. But if you really have to make a real hard 90-degree turn like that, you’re going to want to use the elbows just so you don’t kink the tubing itself.
The next one over on the right of that is going to be our tees. That’s going to be the most common fitting you’re going to need on any installation. Reason being is all of your dampers are all teed together on that specific zone. So all the dampers on zone one would all be teed together. So you’re going to need this on pretty much every installation unless you’re doing all trunk dampers.
And then the next fitting there is going to be our barbed plugs. So these you’re never going to use on an installation. They’re more so for troubleshooting. If you guys do a lot of Arzel, you run into our panels a lot, I would have a box of these on your truck. If you ever have to troubleshoot a leaking damper or something like that, it really speeds up the time on diagnostics.
And essentially what you can do is if you’ve got a leak on zone one, you can pull your dampers off the tubing, plug the end of the tubing off, and then just start reattaching one damper at a time. When you reconnect your bad damper, you’re going to see your pressure drop and you’re going to know you got your bad damper. So it really speeds up the time rather than, you know, playing guesswork or playing with needlenose pliers to pinch the tubing off.
And then the last fitting we have is just our couplings. Again, you’re not going to use these a whole lot. The biggest thing is if you’ve ever cut a piece of tubing too short, this will save you in a pinch. So if you cut it too short, you can add a coupling, add a little bit extra length and you’re good to go. So it’s more just kind of a convenience thing. You definitely don’t need them, but they do come in handy.
And one of the things we offer is our installation tool kit. So this is going to come with pretty much everything you’re going to need for any standard install of any of our products.So this is going to come with a duct finder. Essentially what this is, is a noise maker. So if you’re the only guy on a job and you’re trying to find a duck in the basement and you’re upstairs, what you can essentially do is insert this into your ductwork. It’s got a magnet on it, holds it in place, and then it makes a beeping sound so you can go up to the registers themselves and figure out where that run is in the house, rather than, you know, the old times where you’re screaming down the ductwork and the helper is trying to find where you’re at in the house.
So it really comes in handy when you’re doing, you know, the InsertaDamper or something like that. It also comes with our EzyHub, which is that red piece there in the front. This is going to be used for the Insertas, RegiDampers, and the EzyFit dampers. And because you’re running that tubing all through the ductwork and you’re coming out in a centralized location, usually in the mechanical room, when you come out of the ductwork with all that tubing this allows you a home run to put all your tubing onto.
And then you can just run one tubing back to the panel from there. So essentially it just acts like a manifold on a boiler, just makes it a cleaner look.
And then we have our airflow indicator tool. If you guys have digital manometers on the truck, you’re not going to really ever use this. All it really does is it tells you if you have, you know, leaks in the damper system or something like that. We included as kind of a last resort. Usually if you call tech support, we’re going to ask you to have a manometer so that we actually can tell the pump is good because with this device it’ll tell you if you got a vacuum or pressure, but it doesn’t tell you if it’s adequate pressure or vacuum.
Then you’re going to have your stapler, which is great for the tubing itself. I also used it all the time for just thermostat wire, when I was in the field, as well. You’re going to have two boxes of staples, which is I believe it’s 100 staples per box, 200 of those. And then it’s going to come with 200 tees and screws for your installation, and then it’s going to have 25 elbows, 25 couplings and 25 plugs.
So it’s actually everything you’re going to need. If you guys do a lot of installs, I would definitely have this kit on the truck. It definitely comes in handy.
And one of the things that kind of sets us apart from our competitors is the ease of the installation of our product. So the dampers themselves, they all come with a template; usually less than a minute to install per damper, if you’re wrestling with round dampers. A little bit longer on trunk dampers just because you got to cut out a bigger hole. No electrical wiring, so there’s no extra transformers for the dampers themselves, just tubing going to it. So the only real wiring is going to be your thermostat, and then from our panel to the HVAC equipment.
Lots of retrofit options as far as the dampers go. So you don’t have to redo ductwork. You don’t have to redo trunk lines. You could do it with branch dampers if they’ve, you know, the ductwork wasn’t designed to be zoned to begin with. And less noise. None of our dampers make any noise because there’s no motors on the dampers themselves. Like I said earlier, the only source of noise in our whole product is the panel. So long as you mount that correctly, you’ll virtually not notice our panel being there.
And then there’s no maintenance. So nothing to grease, nothing like that. They’re rubber diaphragms in the dampers. Really reliable. So really no reason to maintain the product at all.
Then the biggest thing, there’s no risk to the homeowner. So we offer a limited lifetime warranty that started in 2013. So all of our products, besides a couple of commercial dampers that we offer, which would be, you know, 18 and bigger, and they’re pre-installed in spiral duct. Those only have a five-year warranty, but everything else across our whole product line is a lifetime parts warranty that started in 2013. And the only thing that you have to do for the customer, or have the customer do it themselves, is register the panel within 90 days of installation.
If it’s not registered, it reverts to a one-year warranty. So any time you guys are installing the product, make sure that customer either registers it themselves or you register it. So down the road it doesn’t become an issue.
We also offer a 100% comfort guarantee. So what this actually is if you guys sell a zoning job and the customer’s not happy for whatever reason, as long as it was installed according to the installation manual and it’s done correctly, if the customer is not happy, we’ll actually buy that whole system back at no cost. So we’ll actually pay for the whole job. Pull it up, you know, pull the dampers out the sides, really get their money back. So if you got to got a customer on the fence about it and they’re not real sure about it, this definitely kind of gets them in the right direction as far as zoning is concerned. Any questions they may have, any, you know, thoughts that maybe they’re not going to be happy with it. This kind of resolves all of that for them. I mean, if they’re not happy, it’s no cost to them. And that’s within the first year of installation.
And then if you guys ever run into a job where you’re running into issues or anything like that, our tech support is available seven days a week for contractors. So we’re available seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Our regular hours are 8 to 5, and it’s Monday through Friday. So on weekends and after hours after 5:00, they get routed to our cell phones and it rolls in a rotation for all of us in tech support. So if you do call after those times, just let the phone ring a little bit longer than you normally would because we are at home where it’s our cell phones, we may not hear right away, but we’re usually pretty good about carrying it with us and keeping an eye on it.
So just let it go and we’ll eventually pick up. We’ll help you guys out with anything you may need. Whenever you guys do call tech support, you’re always connected directly to tech support. There’s no leaving voicemails typically, unless we’re in training or something like that. It’s very rare that we’re not here. Typical wait time is less than a minute.
Then we can help you guys with anything from troubleshooting to application design and technical information. And then we do custom wiring strategies as well. So if you got, you know, an oddball situation where you got a wood burner and a heat pump and a gas furnace, you’re trying to make it all work together. We can do that for you guys. We’ll make the wiring diagram, get it sent out to you. If it’s a custom panel, we can even make a custom panel to make it work for you guys. So we’re definitely, you know, very easy to get a hold of, very easy to work with. And our phone number for everything from regular hours to after-hours is 1-800-611-8312.
