Affordable Ductless Air Conditioning

If there are no ducts yet in your home, then having a central AC unit installed there may cost you a lot. The temperature of a home can easily be brought down through central AC but it is not viable for some homes. For such people, what then are the alternatives that they can look at for cooling their home?

Evaporative coolers, also known as swamp coolers, are considered efficient for dryer climates. On the other hand, they are quite noisy and have a narrow cooling capacity. A number of homeowners are now opting for ductless mini-split systems, which is a duct-free AC option popularly used in other countries for many years. These systems have a lot of benefits for homes that have no central air conditioning such as zoning, simple installation, and energy efficiency.

How does ductless air conditioning work?

The systems that don’t have ducts are fitted with outdoor condensers and air handlers in every room. Air handlers draw in room air, cool it with a refrigerant, and return it into the room. The heat is transferred to the outdoor system through a conduit that expels it into the atmosphere.

Air handler fans are designed for quiet operation and are no louder than central AC and much less so than a window fan. The condenser, which is the loudest part of the system, can be found outside the house, similar to the central air conditioning system.

The air handlers that are used in a ductless system can be mounted on a wall or a ceiling. Controls can be done individually or attained by setting up communications to a thermostat.

If you want to establish different cooling zones in your home you can have multiple thermostats installed. For example, you could have separate thermostats for upstairs and downstairs or if there’s a space in your home that’s not used often, you could zone it off and only use it when necessary. Most ductless systems offer the option of programming up to four separate zones.

What are the benefits of ductless systems?

If your home does not have ductwork, a ductless mini-split air conditioning system is a fairly easy unit to install. Homeowners typically have a choice in the type of air handlers that are mounted and where they are located in the house. Some air handlers appear seamless with the wall or ceiling and this cost more but they look better than the standard ones.

Typically to be able to fit into home ducts centralized air conditioning, holes in walls and even ceilings need to be made. With a ductless system, however, the only retrofitting needed is to cut a small home to allow the air handlers installed in your home to be connected to the condenser unit installed outdoors.

Ductless air conditioning systems are more energy efficient than central air conditioning because the cooled air doesn’t have to travel through large ducts to get to where it’s needed. The ductwork on your AC can waste up to 30% of the energy used to cool your home, which means that your power bill will suffer. Small gaps around seams, or other ways that air can leak from ductwork, account for the higher energy use.

With a ductless mini split system, there can be different zones of cool air in a house. They can have a set temperature that is appropriate for sleeping in the bedrooms. This method of zoning temperature locations can help lower power bills.

A ductless system is much better than window units due to the fact that they don’t require a window to be partially open, which can compromise the safety and pest prevention of your home. These systems also offer more flexibility on its placement as they don’t need to be placed in the window but can be placed elsewhere in the room. Additionally, a ductless system can be set to warm in the cold months, which means you can be comfy year round.

Professional Installation

An air conditioning specialist can install a ductless mini-split system in less than a day, if you determine that it is the right fit your your home’s needs. They will gauge your home to decide the necessary number of units that are necessary to cool the space and speak with you about zoning if pertinent.

Don’t assume that you can forego the services of a trained professional and try to install a ductless system in your home. You can also count on an AC professional to give good recommendations for the best air handlers for your home and where they should be placed. An experienced professional will be able to service, repair, or replace your AC system and get your home cooled to a comfortable temperature in no time.