Case StudiesCustom HVAC Configurations for Custom Spaces

green|spaces is a nonprofit that works to advance the sustainability of living, working and building in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the surrounding region. In 2014, green|spaces hosted a competition challenging participants to design a zero-energy, market-rate home. The winning design was adapted and built, and is now a 1,700-square-foot home – one of four planned. All four will feature Hyper-Heating INVERTER® (H2i®) technology from Mitsubishi Electric Zoned Comfort Solutions®.

Jenny and Aaron Stash wanted to buy a home in Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. When they didn’t find a home that matched their needs, they decided to build one. “Once we decided to build a house, we wanted to do it right,” said Jenny. Doing it right meant three things: sustainability, indoor air quality and energy efficiency. A three-floor, 3,500-square-foot house was carefully designed from the ground up, inside and out: bamboo flooring, indigenous plantings, fiber-cement siding, LED lighting and one extremely energy-efficient HVAC system from Mitsubishi Electric. The result: a happy family and LEED® Platinum certification.

A commercial HVAC sales representative for Seattle-base distributor Thermal Supply, Inc., Shaun Vig and his wife purchased house plans in December 2005. After a few months of searching for land, the family found an ideal 4.5-acre parcel in Gig Harbor, a small harbor town 10 minutes west of Tacoma. The house plan was 2,300-square-feet with three bedrooms and a bonus room above the garage. Vig wanted to build it himself and design his own HVAC system. Having worked for years with Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) zoning systems from Mitsubishi Electric, Vig knew the system and trusted the technology.

Lauren Westmoreland and her husband, Nick Pastore, purchased a two-unit duplex a few miles outside of downtown Atlanta. They knew they had a significant project on their hands with combining the two separate units into a single-family home. An added challenge: their renovation had to meet strict Georgia energy codes. This meant the couple needed to carefully choose energy-saving products for their home, from lights to insulation to windows. The selection of a cooling and heating system was easy, though, because Westmoreland knew about ductless systems from Mitsubishi Electric. Ultimately, a Mitsubishi Electric ductless system would offer the energy efficiency required by Georgia and the space-saving, flexible design required by the couple.

As one of the owners of Dave’s World – a supplier of modern energy-efficient equipment based in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine – Matt Scott has a long- standing relationship with ductless heat pumps. He encountered his first one while taking a refrigeration course after school and promptly fell in love. Dave’s World, his proudly Maine made and family-owned business, has been serving customers in the ductless market since 2006 and has been a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Contractor® since 2013.

McVille Manor was built in 1814 and has remained in the same family for six generations. Built out of bricks handmade on the Madison County, Alabama, premises, the home holds an honored place on the National and State Registers of Historic Places. After small additions over the years, the house now stands at 2,200 square feet – and very little of it has had any sort of cooling or heating. That lack of comfort and indoor air quality brought Marguerite Ellison and her cousin Rosemary McCrary to seek out a cooling and heating system that could finally make the house a physically pleasant place to be. Zoned Comfort Solutions® from Mitsubishi Electric offered an elegant answer, keeping the structural integrity of the home in tact while ushering in a new era of comfort. The zoning system will also allow McVille Manor to host school trips, weddings and other events no matter the season or weather.

Michelle Robb was faced with high utility bills and minimal thermal comfort in her Sandy Springs, Georgia, home. Like all homeowners, she wanted her family to feel comfortable throughout the year but not pay dearly for it. Unlike all homeowners, though, her position as Director of Product Planning for Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC US meant she was already familiar with the technology that could solve her problems: a Diamond Comfort System from Mitsubishi Electric.

The Market at Liberty Place, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, is known for its vendors’ mouth-watering array of food, playful layout and patio. Visitors bring their food to the patio, which features glass garage doors and a concrete floor. The patio is open year-round. In the middle of winter it’s not uncommon to see guests kick off their shoes and press their icy toes against the floor. The barefoot visitors are an odd but understandable sight: While it’s freezing cold outside, the patio floor stays amazingly warm. That warmth is possible because of the market’ cooling and heating system: Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) zoning technology from Mitsubishi Electric.

Developer Sloan Ritchie and his wife wanted to live in a sustainable home in Seattle. When they found a lot in a beloved neighborhood, they decided to build a Passive House – a structure that complies with the Passive House standard, which focuses on an airtight building envelope, an approximate 90 percent reduction in space heating and an overall 60-70 percent energy reduction. It would be a first for them, and a first for Seattle. The result, called Park Passive, has been so much more than a record-breaking house. For the Ritchies, it’s been a wonderful place to raise a family; for the community, it’s been an inspiration. One of the mechanical systems making this achievement possible is a zoned comfort solution from Mitsubishi Electric.

A few years ago, the Fagins heard about the passive house concept and were eager to bring a high-performance home to Texas. Knowing that efficient mechanical system selection is key to low-load homes, Fagin Partners utilized Mitsubishi Electric’s Zoned Comfort Solutions® and its Performance Construction Team to make the Lively Passive House a reality.