Refrigerated Ducted Air Conditioning

What refrigerated does that evaporative cannot

Evaporative cooling depends on how much moisture the air can still absorb. In dry heat that is a great deal, and it performs well. As humidity climbs, the cooling it can deliver falls away, and a humid forty-degree afternoon is exactly when an evaporative system ends up circulating air that feels warm and damp.

Refrigerated cooling is indifferent to that. It reaches the temperature you set and then cycles to hold it, whatever the outside conditions are doing. It also works in a sealed house — no open windows, which matters for security, dust and smoke through bushfire season — and, in a reverse cycle configuration, heats through the same ducts in winter.

Sizing is where most systems are won or lost

The most common complaint we are called out to diagnose is not a broken system but an undersized one: it copes in November and falls behind in the second or third day of sustained heat, once the building fabric itself has warmed through and the system never gets a chance to catch up overnight.

We size on the actual house — floor area, ceiling heights, how much glazing there is and which way it faces, insulation, and how living areas are laid out — rather than applying a per-square-metre rule. Getting it wrong by one capacity step is the difference between a system that cycles comfortably through a heatwave and one that runs flat out and never quite gets there.

Zoning

Without zoning, a ducted system conditions the whole house every time it runs. Zoning divides the home into separately controlled areas — typically living and sleeping — so you condition the part you are using.

In a larger home with a separate bedroom wing, that materially lowers running cost and helps the system hold temperature more evenly. In a compact or open-plan home the benefit is much smaller, and we will say so rather than adding dampers, a controller and commissioning time that will not repay themselves.

Installation and what it costs

The indoor fan coil is installed in the roof space, the outdoor condenser on a level pad with proper airflow clearance and sensible pipe runs, with refrigerant lines and condensate drainage between them. Ductwork is either installed new or assessed and retained on its merits. The system is then charged, commissioned and balanced across the outlets, with zoning configured where fitted. Refrigerant work is carried out under ARCtick-licensed trades and any dedicated circuit or switchboard work by a licensed electrician.

Fully installed ducted refrigerated systems in Australia typically run $9,000 to $18,000, with most three to four bedroom homes in the $9,000 to $14,000 band and complex retrofits pushing past $20,000. Replacing an existing evaporative system adds removal, roof making-good and usually ductwork work on top of that — which is why we price it after an inspection rather than from an address.