A ducted heating and cooling system heats and cools the whole home. A wall-hung split system is designed to condition a single room. The right choice depends mainly on what the homeowner wants to achieve, and the questions below are the ones our installation team is asked most often.
Should I choose ducted heating and cooling or split systems?
A ducted system serves every room connected to it. Zoning packages allow the system to be divided into separate areas, so the house does not have to be treated as one space at all times.
A wall-hung split system is essentially a room appliance. Its purpose is to heat and cool the room in which it is installed.
For a large house, ducted heating and cooling is generally the better option. Where only one room needs conditioning, such as a bedroom, a split system is usually cheaper to install. If the aim is to heat and cool the whole home, ducted heating and cooling is the recommended option over several individual split systems.
What type of home suits each system?
Ducted systems require enough roof space for the equipment and ductwork. A house with a flat deck roof generally cannot accommodate ducted heating and cooling, so split systems are the usual solution in that situation.
What should a homeowner decide first?
The most important question is what the homeowner wants to achieve. Heating and cooling one room is a very different job from providing comfort across the whole home.
Zoning should be considered at the same stage. One common arrangement places the bedrooms on one zone and the master bedroom on another. The living area can then be given its own zone. Homeowners are free to select the layout that matches how they use the house.
What size heating and cooling system does my home need?
Sizing begins with a floor plan. The plan must be to scale, or at least include a scale figure that the installer can use for measurement.
Each room that requires air conditioning is then sized individually. The kilowatt requirement of each room is calculated, and these figures are added together to give a total for the home.
Airflow must also be assessed. It is measured in litres per second, and each room needs an adequate volume of air moving through it. A system can meet the kilowatt requirement for a room and still deliver too little air, particularly where the room has high ceilings. For this reason, both kilowatts and litres per second are used when a system is sized.
The direction the house faces has a significant effect on the result and must be included in the calculation.
Insulation and windows also play a part. In an existing home, these factors are usually fixed and cannot be changed easily. A new build is different. When the expected airtightness of the house is known, it should be included in the sizing. The same applies to window placement and glazing, including whether double glazing will be installed.
When should I replace my old heating and air conditioning system?
There is no single answer, because every brand and every situation is different. If a fault can be repaired and the unit otherwise works well, repair is a reasonable course of action.
Replacement becomes worth considering as the unit ages. Components begin to deteriorate, and parts become harder to source for older models. At that point, the cost of a repair now must be weighed against the likelihood of further failures later. In many cases, installing a new system is the more practical decision.
As a general guide, a wall-hung split system that has lasted around 15 years has performed well.
Talk to Expanding Heating & Cooling
To discuss which system suits your home, contact Expanding Heating & Cooling.