Air Conditioning

[Footy Chick]

Merry New Year fellow forum-ites

Given that it's going to be stinking bloody hot over the next week, it's prompted me to think about what type of air con I should install in the new house.

Having a quick read around the place it sounds like reverse cycle ducted is the way to go - however I'm not a big fan of electric heating and it looks pricey.

I think I'd rather the gas heating and split.

What are your experiences with this stuff and do you wish you'd done differently?

[mighty_tiger_79]

got a Braemair - reverse cycle ducted aircon-heating unit

got a model up that was recommended

cost around the $7k

only thing i wish id done differently was swapped teh cooling-heating vents in the bedroom, with the cooling duct on my side!

[Dog_ger]

Forget Everything Else.

You want to be cold when it's hot.

Go Refrigeration. Split System as good as you can afford. Go into hock if you have too.

I have a unit as good as the best supermarket.

I like to be in a cold room when its hot.

[mighty_tiger_79]

luckily the bedroom still has a refridgerated air-con system above my head!

[Bully]

split systems are the way to go

[Wedgie]

We have both ducted evaporative and split system refigerated with reverse cycle.Use the evaporative all the time, only use the refigerated air con 3 or 4 times a year at the most. If I had to have one or the other I'd definately go evaporative for value and I'm a person who hates to be hot. Refigerated is only used when you get about 4 or 5 days over 40 in a row or its high 30s and humid for a short time to get the water out of the air but these days have been rarer and rarer in recent years.
We have combustion heating so didnt have to worry about reverse cycle heating but we did make the mistake of using it one winter for a crazy expensive bill.
We have our ducted evaporative running either with or without the water for all of summer and it isnt even noticable on our electricity bill.
When we ran the reverse cycle one summer we suddenly had a bill for hundreds and hundreds of more dollars.

[Booney]

FC, in brief, go reverse cycle.

With today's units you can heat/cool the areas you want and not the whole house.

Evaporative cooling, as noted above, is no good for the humid weather we are seeming to get more and more of and for heating, if you only put a gas heater in your living area, every cold night you run and jump into bed in your cold bedroom you'll curse the day you installed it.

As I see you are building a new house, don't sell yourself short on being comfortable.

If you don't like the heating cycle on r/c ( which is very dry ) perhaps central gas is an option?

[dedja]

Whilst ducted R/C refrigerated air does the best job in high heat or humid conditions, is very expensive to run.

Wedgie has the right idea ...use evap for most cases but have refrigerated for the those very infrequent uncomfortable days.

I built 15 years ago and have ducted R/C refrigerated air which is zoned across the whole house for very hot days. I also have a refrigerated cooling only split in a large family room.

The split unit is cheap to run (700Wh to 1.5kWh) and is used most of the time, whilst the ducted unit drains 5-6kWh.

During a heatwave, as is expected in the next week, it's not uncommon to have the units going all day and perhaps during the night if its a stinker.

With the assistance of solar power, my average daily power consumption is 13kWh (but I make about $600-$700 per annum due to the solar feed-in benefit), but if I use the ducted air on a very hot day, that will go up to 80-100kWh on that day, which obliterates any solar feed-in benefit so I can be $20-$25 out of pocket.

If I solely use the split, I may get up to 20kWh for that day and still receive a reasonable solar feed-in benefit, so dollar wise I'm still up on the day.

So, with the benefit of hindsight, I would have put in a ducted evap system, gas heating, with a couple of cooling only split systems to help manage those very hot or humid days.

[Footy Chick]

I don't know if I'd even waste my money on evap - Mum's got it and half the time I cant even tell it's on.

If I'm going to fork out all that cash I want to FREEZE mofo!

[dedja]

be prepared to have very deep pockets then ...

[Jase]

be prepared to have very deep pockets then ...

But if FC is building her place will have yo have at least a 6.5 star energy rating so the insulation etc will help reduce the need to have the AC on as much.

Mrs Jase and I are in the same boat and I am hoping that this is the case as Mrs Jase likes the AC on so I might need to get a 2nd job if the 6.5 stars don't help.



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[Wedgie]

I don't know if I'd even waste my money on evap - Mum's got it and half the time I cant even tell it's on.

If I'm going to fork out all that cash I want to FREEZE mofo!

Must depend on the sort and power too. We moved in here in 99 and its been cold and awesome the whole time. I have to sleep in cold conditions. We very rarely have it on full.

[The Sleeping Giant]

I'm about to buy 4 split systems and 6 ceiling fans.

[Footy Chick]

I'm about to buy 4 split systems and 6 ceiling fans.

The de-humidifyer on my Kelvinator works a dream

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Wedgies full of shit, sleeps under pinball machines & pool tables (& turns on the radio at 4am)
Do not trust.

[Wedgie]

Wedgies full of shit, sleeps under pinball machines & pool tables (& turns on the radio at 4am)
Do not trust.

The pool table had evaporative air conditioning!

[Psyber]

I've gone reverse cycle ducted because of the existing structure of my house, but if I were designing a new house I'd look at several lower power split sytems. Evaporative cooling is not much use in higher humidity situations like the hills.

In the Adelaide Hills I rarely need cooling in the summer but really need heating in the winter.
In Olinda, in the Dandenong Ranges we had natural gas fired Hydronic heating for the winter and no cooling system at all.
(We didn't need it.)