dave99

Does anyone have or had in the past ducted air con?, I have always had places with single air con units in rooms and am going to view a property with ducted.

Can you control it per room?, does it work as well as the single units?


Thanks

spartacus

Its generally zoned, splitting the house into three or four zones, dependent on size. From what I've been told it provides more of a background coolness, rather than the instant in-your-face cold of a single unit. So there's a tendency to run ducted systems longer, making them more expensive to run.

Possibly.

jimbo_d

much much better than units especially in the bedroom as there's very little noise. unless you only run a single wall mounted, you'll find they're far more energy efficient as you're using 1 unit instead of 2 or 3


depends where you live though, the humidity in queensland can dictate what kind of system you use, the roof mounted ones are better for the southern states

comet555

We absolutley love ours. It was a definite selling point for me when I looked out the house.

The zones are great because we can just turn the bedrooms on at night and everyone can shut their doors, as there is a duct opening in each room. During the day we only leave on the loung room/kitchen areas for the most part. I find it does cool off fairly quickly, particularly if you turn the fans on to help push the cool air downwards. Our fans are right under the air con opening so that helps too.

All in all I would much rather have ducted air rather than one unit as the ducted distributes the air more evenly throughout the house. If we were to ever buy a new place I would insist on ducted, that's just me though.

sunbather

You need to find out if it's evap or reverse cycle.

Gems

The only thing to be aware of with ducted air con and heating.
Is it could aggravate asthma and allergies.

So if you have the above it could make them worse.

Gems

HazBean

Yup, find out if it's reverse cycle or evaporated and if it's zoned and how many zones.

Also, it's worth looking at where the air intake is (if it's reverse cycle). In our house the intake is in an area where we seldom use the aircon. This means it's sucking in warm air in to then blast it out into the bedrooms and living areas. If it was taking it in from the living areas then it would already be cooled so wouldn't have to work as hard.

dave99

Thanks for all the replys, makes me feel much more confident about looking at propertys with ducted, I was worried.

Whats the difference between reverse or evaporated? is one better than the other

Thanks

DadAgain

Ducted air-con is the ducks nuts!

-zones make it controllable
-all moving parts are out of the way so its super-quiet
-economies of scale mean its much cheaper to run than multiple individual units

Difference between evaporative coolers and *real* air conditioning is that evaporative coolers only work in a dry climate. If you live in a humid climate the evaporation doesnt work and you dont WANT any more humidity anyway! (You cannot buy evaporative cooling systems in Brisbane for example - I assume they are only available in southern states and inland)

comet555

Reverse cycle will also heat the house, very handy in the coldest part of winter. I'm not sure I could live without my ducted air conditioning. It's far better than the single unit types.

northernbird

Evaporative is much much cheaper to run than reverse cycle. Evap also works poorly in humid climates which isn't applicable here in Perth for the most part. Also (apparently, although I don't have it myself) you have to leave a window or door slightly ajar with Evaporative, not much good security wise if you want to set it to come on say before you get in from work. I wouldn't much like leaving windows or doors open during the day when out.

hoofie2002

I think if you don't leave an exit point for the air flow the pressure inside the house increases which cuts down the air flow rate generated by the fan. If I don't open something and put the evap on fill-tilt, the ceiling manhole access to the roof space flaps like mad !

I just leave a window partially open but still bolted and locked - thats normally enough. [And I only put it on when someone is home obviously].

kar-kier

Lol, nobody explained the air con to us when we moved in, so the manhole for the roof space would lift up. I got my husband to tape it shut, incase something crawled in! Now we leave a window or door open!

Wol

The only reason you'd ever have independent units is if you are fitting A/C in a house that can't readily accept ducting.

The ducts also carry, of course, the heating.

Our heating has been running almost continually for the last three months - it's been colder for this time of year than I remember even in the UK!

hevs

ok, I've had all of them!

Single units...expensive to run and very cold/ harder to get to a comfy temp however they work very fast on a hot day!

Ducted refridgertive....The system was zoned but slow on a very hot day, (maybe due to the inlet box being in the wrong place?)and got sick of yelling at everyone to shut the doors! Could be pricey during a hot spell...

Ducted evaporative... cheap to run and as we are in a dry climate is very efficient. You leave the doors open (A piece of dowel behind the sliding window is great for security) We have a double story so leaving a window open is fine, the breeze effect is sooo refreshing also...Very cheap to run. Downside, people say that you need to put it on in time on a very hot day??

All of that said on the hottest day on record our two split syatems were on full and we were dying! We had the keys for the new house, went down there and put the evaporative on and within 10 mins the house was perfect. Everyone that came in (and there were a lot seeking refuge from the fires) commented on how cool the house was.... Woudn't be without it now.
Ohh also a BIG fan of ceiling fans in the bedroom....