I think zoned heating and cooling is a safer option
I have a lot of pets.
No, not dogs and cats.
I have more non-traditional pets. I keep hedgehogs, sugar gliders, and ferrets. I have always had one room in the house that is the pet room. All of those exotic pets need a little more heat than I like so I have always just used a portable heater in the pet room to keep them comfortable. Well, on Tuesday the ferrets got out of their cage while I was at work. They knocked over the portable heater. Thank God the portable heater has a safety off feature. I guess it turns itself off if it falls or if anything is in front of the grill. Without that, there could have been a fire. Even knowing that the safety featured did work in the portable heater I still don’t feel comfortable with it in the room unsupervised anymore. What if it fails the next time the ferrets escape? I am looking into more safe options and I came across zoned heating and cooling. With zoned heating and cooling l I wouldn’t need a portable heater at all. Each room of the house would have its own thermostat and temperature setting. I wouldn’t need a whole new HVAC system either. The different temperature settings are accomplished by having dampers in the ductwork system. These dampers control how much heating or cooling gets to each room based on the thermostat settings. I feel like this would be a safer option for my pet room so I hired a reputable HVAC company to come out and start work on it on Friday.