[AOsborn]

I thought this was absolutely the solution but backtracking a little now based on experience so far.

We have a two-level, five bedroom new build in Auckland which came with a single-zone ducted system. So outputs are the bedrooms plus upstairs and downstairs lounges. The vents are tidy and unobtrusive - much less space than a wall unit in each location.

We're having major issues balancing the temperature across the different rooms as there is one thermostat.

Think setting the temperature overnight for one room with a couple plus a cat vs another room with one of the kids. Basically the wife and I are always far too hot because otherwise we're freezing all the other rooms. Or setting a reasonable temperature in the lounge makes all the rooms icy in short time.

I'm now thinking about forking out the couple of thousand to get a small heat pump installed directly into our room so we can run it separately from the rest of the house.

So if building from scratch, either look into a multi-zone system or separate heatpumps. If you can get separate systems but hidden in the walls/roof that would be the best.

[TedDoesntTalk]

What about in-line duct fans or even register fans in the rooms that are not heated/cooled appropriately:

https://www.amazon.com/AC-Infinity-Register-Thermostat-Contr...

Appropriately placed In-line duct fans and register fans will pull the heated/cooled air where you want.

[dahfizz]

I had a similar problem, but I decided that simply running the fan to mix up the air was a fine solution. The fan doesn't use much electricity, and it's good not to let rooms get too stale anyway.

I have the fan programmed to run 10 or 15 minutes an hour regardless of if the heat pump needs to run. It keeps things pretty even.

[thedougd]

Have checked the ducts for dampers? They're often installed where the duct branches. It's not unusual to find they're not balanced well or the locking screws have loosened allowing the dampers to move on their own.

[throwawaylinux]

Can't you choke down the airflow from your bedroom duct?

[ianleighton]

always good to have zoning, either via small separate heat pump or with a retrofit like AirZone (not sure if something similar is available there) which modulates the flow to each duct from the air handler.