Choosing the Right Capacity Ducted Air Conditioner for Your Home

When you install a ducted air conditioner, you need to choose a model with the right capacity so it's not too powerful or too weak for your needs. An installer can give you advice on which systems will suit you. Here are several considerations they'll focus on when working it out.

Your House's Floor Area

Ducted systems can cover an entire building, so the footprint of your home is relevant. A larger home with five living areas and multiple bedrooms will require more powerful air conditioning than a smaller home with one lounge area and two bedrooms. You'll need to find out the square meterage of your home's floor area. When measuring rooms, you can exclude the ones where you don't want the cooling to extend, such as the bathroom.

Account for Practical Usage

When you're using the air conditioner from day to day, you'll typically want to cool some spaces more than others at a particular moment. For example, at night, you might direct the cooling to the bedrooms using a zoning feature. During the day, you'll probably focus on cooling the living areas if the bedrooms are vacant. Because of this usage pattern, the air conditioner won't need the capacity to cool the entire house simultaneously. Instead, the required capacity of the air conditioning is typically based on a reduced footprint rather than an entire house.

Other Features

The square meterage of a home's floor area doesn't convey the whole story, as rooms also extend upwards. Two rooms may be the same length and width, but one might have a low ceiling and the other a high ceiling. These two rooms will thus have different cooling requirements.

The windows are a factor as well. Glass typically provides an avenue for heat to pass into a house, especially if the afternoon sun shines directly on it. The size, number and orientation of the windows will impact the performance of the air conditioning. It is also important to know whether they have energy-efficient glass. Your house's insulation is another factor in the final equation, as better-insulated buildings are easier to cool.

Local Climate

Additionally, an air conditioner expert will account for the local climate. This provides the context—the outdoor temperatures—that the ducted air conditioning will have to battle against. Extremely hot summers will push an air conditioner harder than moderately warm summers, and this will play into the appropriate capacity unit that you will need.

For more information on ducted air conditioning, contact an HVAC professional.