Melbourne’s climate is a total joke when it comes to home comfort systems. One day it’s below 10°C and the next it’s up above 40°C, in the same week mind you. The city’s got a bad rep for four seasons in one lousy day, and that’s no exaggeration. In reality, a heating and cooling system just isn’t built for this sort of thing. It was designed for a milder climate than yours truly. Ducted reverse cycle air conditioning can handle both. One system does the trick for whole-home cooling in summer and heating in winter, which is a big improvement on the old setup of gas ducted heating and either a split system or portable cooling that a lot of households are stuck with. For Melbourne households looking to ditch the gas, the transition to a reverse cycle ducted system is probably the most comprehensive electrification upgrade you can get for keeping your home climate nice and comfortable.
How a Ducted System Works?
So what exactly does a ducted system entail? The core components are the outdoor condensing unit that’s paired up with the indoor fan coil unit that’s installed in the roof cavity. The conditioned air gets blown out through the ductwork network to ceiling outlets in each room. The whole system runs on the refrigerant cycle. It either sucks in heat from outside and blows it inside to warm things up, or the other way around for cooling. Inverter technology is pretty standard in quality systems, and this means the compressor can adjust its output all the time based on what the house needs, rather than just going at full power and then switching off. This makes a big difference when it comes to energy efficiency. A system running at a lower output to keep the temperature right in a room is going to use a heck of a lot less power than a fixed speed system, which is constantly switching off and back on.
Zoning: The Feature That Separates Good Installations from Great Ones
A ducted system without zoning treats the whole house like it’s one giant room, whether you’ve got someone in every room or no one at all. Zoning is a game-changer. It’s what separates a good installation from an awesome one. Zoning lets you divide the house up into different temperature zones, so you can just exclude the areas that don’t need heating or cooling. So, in a typical Melbourne household with a young family, it’s pretty normal to not need to cool the master bedroom in the afternoons, or heat the living area once everyone goes to bed.
The Gas Replacement Transition
Melbourne has got a lot more ducted gas heaters than anywhere else in Australia, and replacing them with reverse cycle ducted systems is one of the biggest, and smartest, home energy decisions being made in Victoria right now. The Victorian Energy Upgrades program has been set up to help people do just that. The financial side is pretty simple. When a VEU accredited installer comes in to replace a ducted gas heater with a reverse cycle system, you can get a rebate of anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. The rebate gets applied to your invoice at the point of sale, so you don’t have to do any paperwork yourself. Total Electrics & AC and EZYAIR are both VEU accredited providers across Melbourne.
Sizing, Specification, and Why the Installer Matters
The biggest blunder in installing a ducted system is getting the size wrong. Installing one that’s too big means your system’s on-then-off cycle is in full swing. It zips the room up to the right temperature, suddenly sucks it all back out, and then starts all over again. This gets you a bunch of issues, poor humidity control, temperature distribution is all over the shop, your components start to wear out faster than they should, and your energy bills end up higher than they need to be. All because a properly sized system was running smoothly in the background. You can’t get the sizing right without a proper on-site assessment. You need to know the layout of the house, the ceiling height, the type of glass in the windows, how well insulated the place is, and where it is to the sun. Any quote you get done without actually seeing the house can’t possibly give you a size that’ll work with our climate here in Melbourne.
Getting a VEU accredited installer to do the job will not only make sure the specs are right but you’ll also be eligible for the rebate. Unaccredited installers can’t claim it, and you can’t go back and get it if you’ve already paid. Most of the accredited ducted air conditioning Melbourne installers will do the assessment for free. That rebate can make all the difference to households already using a gas ducted heater.
