Reverse Cycle Ducted Installation

One system instead of two

The case for reverse cycle is mostly about consolidation. Rather than a gas furnace for winter and an evaporative unit for summer, each needing its own maintenance and eventual replacement, a single reverse cycle system covers both through the same ductwork and outlets, with one controller.

It also removes the roof-mounted evaporative unit entirely, along with its water consumption and the roof penetration that goes with it. For households already thinking about reducing gas connections, it moves both heating and cooling onto electricity, which pairs sensibly with rooftop solar if you have it or plan to.

The honest counterpoint is cost. Reverse cycle is the most expensive of the paths we offer, both to install and to run, and if your gas heater is sound and your evaporative unit still copes, keeping and maintaining them is a legitimate decision. We would rather say that than sell you a consolidation you did not need yet.

Zoning and sizing

Ducted systems are sized for the whole house, which means that without zoning you condition everything whenever the system runs. Zoning divides the home into separately controlled areas — typically living and sleeping — so you run the part you are using.

In a larger home this materially lowers running cost and helps the system hold temperature more evenly, because it is not attempting to condition unused rooms at the same time. In a compact or open-plan home the benefit is much smaller, and we will say so rather than adding cost that will not repay itself. Sizing is assessed on the actual house: floor area, ceiling heights, glazing and orientation, insulation and layout.

Performance in local conditions

Two questions come up regularly here, and both deserve a straight answer. On winter mornings, modern inverter reverse cycle systems continue to produce heat well below freezing, though capacity does taper as the outdoor temperature drops, which is accounted for at sizing rather than discovered in July.

On extreme summer afternoons, a correctly sized system holds temperature through a forty-degree day. An undersized one runs continuously and slowly loses ground, which is the single most common complaint we are called out to diagnose — and it is a sizing problem rather than a fault, which is why we spend the time on it before quoting rather than after.