How do you increase individual control without adding additional indoor units? Daikin has a Zoning Kit that allows you to increase the amount of zones that are controlled by their own thermostat while using the same indoor fan coil unit. Using the Daikin Zoning Kit eliminates the need for multiple indoor units to create individual zones, which should save you money.
Depending on the size and type of your indoor fan coil, you can add up to six (6) zones. The largest single indoor fan coil that has the ability to add this zoning kit has a capacity of 54,000 Btuh, which can be split into 6 zones or as few as 2 with air flow rates (CFM) as shown in the chart below.
Using the Daikin DZK Zoning Kit gives you the ability to have better control over individual spaces. You can have one of the 6 zones feed one space or multiple spaces depending on the cooling requirements of the space. You can combine two zone dampers together to create a bigger zone, or have one zone serve multiple supply air grilles.
The Daikin DZK Zoning Kit currently works with their FXMQ_P, FXSQ_TA, FBQ_P and the FDMQ series indoor units.
The Daikin Zoning Kit is relatively light, weighing 23 lbs. at the largest size, while only requiring 10.44” in height. It will require either 110 or 230 volts of AC power.
Daikin Controls and BACnet
The Daikin zoning kit integrates seamlessly with the indoor unit fan coil controls. You have the choice of a wired or wireless thermostat; this is in addition to the indoor fan coil unit’s navigation remote controller. The thermostats control the individual zone dampers allowing for better comfort control for each space.
BACnet
The Daikin zoning kit has the option of adding the DZK BACnet interface module to work with any BACnet IP compatible Building Management system, including the iTM BACnet Client option. This gives you 14 system-level points and 12 zone-level points for better monitoring and control of each individual zone. It allows control & monitoring of the following variables:
- Indoor unit status
- Fan status and fan speed
- Auxiliary heat stages status
- Global ventilation status
- Operation mode
- On/Off for each zone
- Set point setting for cooling & heating in each zone
- Room temperature in each zone
You can get the above using Daikin’s iTM controller in addition to the following:
- Local fan activated/deactivated for each zone
- Auto (scheduling) activated/deactivated
- Unoccupied mode status
- Vacation mode activated/deactivated
- Opening damper status for each zone
- Indoor unit and DZK errors
The wireless controllers can be up to 164 feet line of sight distance to the control box. You can connect up to 6 wired controllers to the control box. The wired controllers are sexier with its color display versus the flat single color wireless controllers.
Alarming is also available which allows the unit to be shut down and the dampers closed. You could use a refrigerant leak detector that could shut the unit down upon a refrigerant leak, or a smoke detector.
Various Zone Configurations
You can arrange the zones in various combinations from single zones to a group of five (5) zones out of six on Daikin’s 6-zone box. Below are the options for Daikin’s 4-Zone Box Kit.
Daikin Zoning Kit Air Balancing
One minor flaw in the design of the zone box kit is that on several of the zone kits, specifically the two smallest kits, model DZK030E4 & 5, the indoor unit supply air discharge doesn’t line up perfectly with the zone box. This causes the dampers in the middle of the zone box to receive more air flow than zone dampers on the outsides of the box.
You need to take this into consideration when balancing the system, or if you’re not going to use all of the zone ports, than blank-off zone #1, the outer most zones with the least amount of air flow.
Fresh Air – Ventilation
Most codes require some form of minimum ventilation for occupied spaces. The Daikin indoor unit sets a range for the inlet temperature of the mixed air (Outside Air & Return Air) entering the unit. This is to avoid burdening the indoor unit with additional cooling and heating loads above a certain range. If the entering air is going to exceed the allowable range, than the outside air needs to be pretreated.
The minimum supply air for the Daikin Zone Kit can’t be set below the code minimum outside air requirement. This can be accomplished by setting the Daikin Zone dampers to a minimum setting that corresponds to the code required minimum ventilation CFM.
According to ASHRAE 62.1 2013 any ventilation system wherein one or more air handlers supply a mixture of outdoor air and recirculated air to more than one ventilation zone, the outdoor air intake flow (Vot) shall be determined in accordance with sections 6.2.5.1 through 6.2.5.4
To understand how to calculate the required ventilation for a Multiple-Zone Recirculating System see ASHRAE 62.1 or Daikins Zoning Kit Application Guide.
Summary
The Daikin Zoning Kit (DZK) is a great option to increase individual zone control and comfort without having to add extra indoor unit fan coils.
