Adding Heating Zones to the House

I was cleaning out the garage at this rental we are in. I hit a bunch of curtain rods I have bought or found here and there for using to add drapes as we need them for heat constraining. I thought about it, and they are predicting rolling blackouts, and this place is weird to heat, and takes electricity.  And if I need these curtain rods, I'm going to be stressed and busy at that time. So by the time it was done, I now have rods installed where I'd want them to close off areas if I needed to. I broke the house up into 5 zones, that can be separated as needed.

The zones are:
Hall/bedrooms/bathroom
Front room/exercise space
Kitchen
Living room
Storage/pantry/small bathroom

This won't be very useful with the heat pump running, as it's irritatingly unchangeable, I can set the temp desired in the house, that's all. I'd love to be able to set things like the output temperature at the vents, when it's on cool, it outputs at 58 degrees, to me that's an ice cold wind, on a hot day it's not pleasant coolness. When it's on heat, the heat pump outputs at 120 degrees, when it's on the gas backup system it outputs at 135 degrees. That is not cozy and warm, it's scalding hot.  I'd prefer to have it run longer at less extreme output temps to keep it actually comfortable. The temps swinging wildly is not fun. Before I did a bunch of things to stop the drafts in my room, it swung in winter from 130 to 55 every half hour or so. What blankets do you use at night when that is going on?  Stability makes me happier than extreme swings.

And why I love my mom, when I said "Think I oughta put these up now, in case we need them?" She said "Absolutely!"  And I'm glad I did it now, it was more pain in the tail than  I expected, and I'd hate to be doing it under bad conditions. I have stuff I can use for curtains, and things to use for drapery hooks, don't forget about that if you do this!

My question for you all: If you lose power and need to heat or cool only sections of your house, how complex would it be, and can you make it easier now, in case you need it under bad circumstances?

:D

EDIT: A companion thread to this: Tents as space reducers for heating  about putting up tents in the house.

If I lose power none of my active cooling systems work, but our main technique is to open the house up all night. This works well for us on the west coast where even in summer most nights are in the mid-50's to 60's. Close up tight in the morning. I love blackout cellular blinds for this, super insulating, often topped with blackout curtains. I'm adding a door to my vestibule and building a mud room so both doors into the house will be double doored to reduce heating/cooling loss. And am adding more doors to keep areas separate, doors into living room and kitchen to block off hallway/bedrooms etc.

Similar for heating, but I do have wood heat, which is actually less important. In our climate, I find heating much less necessary than cooling. I can always put on more clothes, there is only so much I can take off.

As far as when we have electricity and propane, I covered all but one of the heating vents with magnetic covers and remove them when I want to heat a room. They are far more effective than merely shutting the louvers.

I also try to get live in a single room when weather is bad to minimize the need to heat the whole house. For me, it's my bedroom. I spend the vast majority of my time in the house in my room.

I posted a companion thread to this: Tents as space reducers for heating  about putting up tents in the house.

Those of us living in cheap tract houses might need to get creative this winter!

The Old Farmer's Almanac winter weather predictions for 2022-2023 are out, and they are what I expected.
Old Farmer's Almanac Winter weather 2022-2023 prediction

I reccommend adding some humidifier to the house during the winter. It made the biggest difference for me. If you want to go all out you can maybe get an aquarium and only grow java moss in it and a few endlers, so need for pumps/vaccum/lights/etc (it add a thermal back and humidity)

I have put stuff in front of my vent so that it doesn't blow directly in my face while I am on my bed trying to fall asleep. I have also moved my bed so that hot air from the vent isn't blowing directly on my bed.

If you have a fan you can turn it on and let it run in the reverse direction.

I finished my vestibule. On hot days, the vestibule can be 10F hotter than the house. So it seems like it's working as intended.

Update on the curtaining thing. It's working REALLY WELL!

We have not lost power yet, so I haven't tested it hard, but for day to day heating through that bad storm that trashed everyone, they have been VERY effective.

All of the rods have drapes off them that reach the floor, and one has a secondary that is only 20 inches long, that cuts the headspace on a large doorway down, to keep the heat from leaving that room so easily.
One wide doorway has been cut in half to stop the air flow a bit.
One doorway is now always shut off, that one has been worth it's weight in tin cans and rose petals, it blocks a bad draft that I haven't figured out how to stop. One vent of the heat pump still runs on the other side, so it's not totally freezing back there, but the wind that is being difficult to mitigate now stays on the other side. We didn't realize just how much that draft affected this room. We are still amazed!

I hope we do not lose power, but if we do, I think we will have an easier time than we did last time.

WIN!!
:D

After having curtains here and there in this house for the last year, we are REALLY happy with them. They have made a major change in how much we have to heat or cool the house. I also use ozone to clear the air here, and I can zone off the section I'm ozoning really easily, which is a GREAT thing in my book.

Definitely worth looking into doing it, we are VERY happy with ours!

those curtain rods and curtain concept can even help with other stuff besides temperature-- I have a few set up in different areas as bug baffles and to keep kitchen smells and smoke out of other spaces. The noren is a japanese split curtain used for that and also for privacy, sometimes it's short (usually from top of doorframe to eye level), sometimes the top half of the doorframe, and sometimes a bit longer. I've got all three: some is just privacy, so nobody bothers me while i'm working (out of sight, out of mind) but i can still get some air circulation, i have another longer one for when it's dry and any open window seems to involve flies in the house, which makes me bonkers.
They're easy to make and can be super cute. And the split makes it easy for you to get in and out without the old tangled-up-in-the-curtain thing every time you go through.