Honeywell HZ311 TrueZONE Panel

This review is for the HZ311 since Amazon seems to group different models together in reviews. I bought this panel as a replacement for a Total Zone 4 that was going bad. The HZ311 is a significant upgrade to the older total zone boards. Since I only have 2 zones with 2 dampers each and a single stage gas furnace, this panel was the right one for me. It can actually handle 3 zones if needed. The design is much smaller and more modern than the older one with all circuitry hidden. The swap out was extremely easy as there are no dip switches or jumpers that have to be set for install. All you need to do is hook up the correct wires to the correct terminals and you are done. The terminals are simple push in type requiring no screwdriver and each terminal has two little holes in it that allow two wires to be hooked up to one terminal if needed. I needed this since I run 2 dampers per zone in parallel. Just make sure you verify that the wires are fully inserted into the terminals. There's a little resistance that makes it seem like it may be fully inserted, but then one more little push and you can tell it's now in and locked. I've had this installed for about a week now and so far, so good. I would highly recommend this panel if you need to upgrade yours or to change out an older, failing one like I had.

Our old Honeywell panel stopped working and the AC repairman wanted over $1600 to replace it. I found this exact model on Amazon and did it myself for $125 + tax. If you’re swapping out an exact match like I did, it’s an easy DIY project. Just take your time and transfer the wires from the existing panel to the new one.

I bought this because we purchased a house that had a Honeywell MM2 Trol-A-Temp master/slave thermostat controller. We already owned two Nest thermostats that ridiculously does not work with this common setup. (Come on Nest, your thermostats should be able to talk with each other and co-ordinate.) You can bodge one Nest as the master thermostat with a Trol-A-Temp by pushing the heat change-over wire in to the W1 receptacle with the W wire so that the Nest will tell the MM2 to use heat and call for it at the same time (and do the same with the cool change-over wire and Y/Yellow). But then you have to leave the dumb slave thermostat in place and it can only call for heat or cool when the Nest is doing the same. The HZ311 was easy to install and includes a C connector for each thermostat to allow your smart thermostats like Nest to charge without having to call for heat or cool. It does this with a dedicated, required 24V tranformer (not included). This assumes you have enough wires running to your thermostat of course. (I have a Fast-Stat 3-wire to 5-wire on order since I cannot pull new cable to replace the 3 wire cable for zone 2.) Be aware that Nest's trick for sipping power by fast cycling the heat when it needs to charge does not play well with the HZ311. You must find a wire you can use for a C wire. Until my 3-to-5 wire system arrives, I have re-purposed the fan (G/green) wire since the thermostat usually does not need to control that on a modern (last couple of decades or so) system (and I assume the HZ311 would take care of that necessity any way). So I only have the ability to heat from my 2nd zone at the moment. tl;dr Works great with modern connected thermostats. Provides separate power for charging/running smart thermostats without robbing the HVAC or playing games. You must find a wire to use as a C/common wire.

I'm using this for a manually zoned system. Will upgrade with zone dampers in the future, but will need to install a bypass damper and duct first. Controller allows me to manually close vents on first floor and then use a second thermostat upstairs, and vice versa. Some air deliberately leaks to first floor so it doesn't get too cold, nor the static pressure too high. Same with second floor. When I want to heat just the first floor, I set 2nd flr thermo to about 60 and close one or two vents, and I set the 1st flr thermo to 72 and open all the 1st flr vents. Might seem like a hassle, but I am not living in any of the first floor space. In short, easy to install. Don't forget a DATS. If no DATS is connected, the purge LED will blink. Note with two thermostats, whichever has the high temp setting will be the one that runs the furnace. With all vents open, eight thermo can call for heat, but it gets a bit warmer in the the other zone.

Worked as expected without any issues. Was Easy to DIY.

I purchased this unit for same reason other reviewers did: to replace an old board. The old Beutler board controlled two wall display units “fancy word for thermostat” one downstairs one upstairs, and a three-terminal (open close neutral) fresh air return damper for a duct located on the side of the branch box for the return main trunk line which used to mix fresh air with return air. I installed this unit successfully with two Honeywell Home thermostats (replacing the wall display units) and all went well until I needed to connect my fresh air damper and this is where I ran into a big issue: To control the fresh air damper you would have to also purchase separately a Honeywell fresh air controller W8150A1001 to connect to the 311 and act as the fresh air controller, but the issue is the W8150A1001 only controls two-wire dampers and does not support a three-wire damper connection. I will have to call Honeywell to inquire whether it will be ok to rig the connection in a separate manner as basic instruction packet it’s a joke, it offers absolutely squat in terms of providing alternative ways of wiring configurations such as jumpers etc. Incredible to think the Beutler board from the times of the round table would be more straight forward and offer more options.

Although the price is a bit higher than on other websites, the delivery speed is very fast, which is suitable for urgent needs.

Great controller.