Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Jul 03, 2009 8:23 pm Hi everyone, We've signed up for a 41sq double storey house with m3tricon, and spending most of our spare time going through these excellent forums, other net resources and of course dissecting the preliminary contract. The last hour for me has been trying to research cooling options - I hate being hot in summer (we're building in Melbourne) especially since my last house had one old aircon that half worked and one new aircon that didn't work at all! Anyway, the builder has offered this as a cooling option for our new place: "Bonaire SBM Summer Breeze evaporative cooling to the first floor, 5 outlets, manual wall control" for $4900. Looking on the web, it seems to be the lower end version of what Bonaire offer, as they have an "Integra" line as well. The builder also offer a "provision" for future evaporative cooling for about $500 which gives a water point, power point and upgraded roof trusses. From what I've rear here, installation afterwards is a relatively simple exercise (to the first floor of a double storey building) which may also give a better quality and/or higher power evaporative unit, so I'm thinking of leaving out the builder's offer, but possible taking up the provision for future evaporative cooling addition. However, we've also had a very quick look at aircon units (like I said, I need to be cold in summer as I don't handle the heat!) and it seems refrigerated aircons will give a cooler result, especially on the ever-increasing 40+ days Melbourne has been getting over the last few year. So another option would be to add a split system, probably multihead, with one large outlet to the open plan downstairs living area, and a smaller one to the master bedroom. This would suit us for the time being (there's just two of us for now) but in the future when kids come along we could also then add evap cooling, or another head AC or another split AC to the kids bedrooms. For a 7-8kw split AC, I understand around $7k? I was thinking of adding an external 20A powerpoint to where the planned external unit would go - would this be suitable for a big AC unit, or will the installer make other arrangements anyway for a power supply? Does anyone have any constructive suggestions? We're doing other things such as big eaves, minimal east/west windows, R4 roof insulation and sarking under a colorbond roof etc as suggested by other posts in this subforum too! Thanks everyone Tim & Tina Knockdown and rebuild - building Metr1con Nolan 41 (43) @ http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com! http://www.verdantdental.com.au Re: Cooling decisions for 41sq double story in planning! 3Jul 05, 2009 8:18 pm We built a 42sq double with PD last year and moved in around Christmas. We have evap cooling to the whole house. I honestly don't think I could live in a dbl storey without cooling upstairs, heat rises and the upper level gets alot hotter than the lower. Can you get Met. to create voids to cool the upper level as well? We have a Bonaire unit but I'm not sure on the model. Back in Jan/Feb it worked wonderfully. On the day of the bush fires when it was 45 degrees it was 22 degrees inside. I'm really pleased with ours and it costs bugger all to run, 50c or something like that a day. Happy at Home Re: Cooling decisions for 41sq double story in planning! 4Jul 07, 2009 4:10 pm Hi Tim, It is usually no worries adding air conditioning to the top floor of a 2 storey home once handover has occurred. If you want air conditioning to the downstairs however, you simply must allow provisions during construction. Evaporative systems are cheap to install and run. Bare in mind they will only cool (no heating) and they do not work in humid or muggy conditions. The wall split option is good, but if you then have kids and add evaporative at a later date as well it gets a bit messy. Then you would have multisplits and evap in the same rooms which is a little much. For the same price you would also be able to get a ducted reverse cycle system upstairs to service all of the rooms anyway. Personally i would look into a ducted reverse cycle system. In the long run, it is worth spending the bit more for the comfort and flexibility they provide. The wall split option is also goog, but it is pretty hard at a later date to attach more heads to an existing system. Better off getting the whole system installed at once, even if the rooms are not yet occupied. It would be cheaper to get installation all at once rather than in stages. I hope this all makes sense. This is just my opinion, it really all depends on what system you are after. Good luck and let us know which way you decide to go. Re: Cooling decisions for 41sq double story in planning! 5Jul 07, 2009 5:52 pm We went to look at a house for sale during summer. I'd always admired it so when it came up for sale and we had been discussing future plans anyway I just had to see it. It was a beautiful big multilevel house but obviously no thought had been given to cooling during construction and the design made it difficult to add later. There was one split system in the open plan living area but you had to stand right in front of it to get any benefit. I hate to think how hard it was working and how much power it was wasting for little effect. IMO it is shortsighted to build a very large house and not budget to incorporate a heating/cooling system specifically designed for the house. Anything less risks being inefficient and inadequate, and also adversely affecting resale value. Re: Cooling decisions for 41sq double story in planning! 6Jul 08, 2009 3:30 pm Great point Macy. It is a shame when you go to a great house where air conditioning has either not been allowed for, or not put in at all. This happens to so many people building 2 storey homes. If they get air conditioning at a later date, they always end up with air conditioning to all rooms upstairs, and just a single wall split to try to cool the whole downstairs area (which does not work!). Re: Cooling decisions for 41sq double story in planning! 7Jul 15, 2009 12:53 pm Thanks for all the replies guys - we definitely want some kind of cooling, and the low running cost of evap is quite attractive. It just comes down to what's value for money - I'm not sure the model offered by M is the best value as it's the bottom line model, and the price isn't really that attractive compared to a price to install afterwards. Plus I think M only offer evap cooling to upstairs, with no vents downstairs. So it looks like we'll put in evap with ducts for upstairs, and maybe add in one big split AC system for the downstairs living area after handover - just a matter of deciding on a good evap system and finding a good installer! If we don't go with M for their evap cooling, we may choose for the evap cooling provision, I think about $500 for a water line and powerpoint to roof space and upgraded trusses for later addition of the cooling unit - sounds like a good idea? Tim & Tina Knockdown and rebuild - building Metr1con Nolan 41 (43) @ http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com! http://www.verdantdental.com.au Re: Cooling decisions for 41sq double story in planning! 8Aug 09, 2009 3:10 pm slknv - we have evap in our current house (fantastically cheap) and both love the simplicity of it, my wife has asthma and i suffer from chronic hayfever; hence RCAC is just not an option. yes it does get muggy during heatwaves but the benefits are in clean air, constantly circulated throughout the home, all you have to do is crack a window! now we just have to work on the heating of the house, hydronic-electric inslab or wall furnace-fireplace TheBoatMan - our designer pushed us for a void space above the staircase and the boss fell in love with it (simply couldn't talk her out of it) we have ceiling fans for each habitable room of the house and planning on putting an open to air skylight in the top of the void do you think the evap is good enough to push all the hot air out the top? i am concerned that the voidspace will make it differcult to heat the lower floor in winter thanks, -Nathan 2nd-Fix | Blog Building with Desyn Homes previously with the insolvent [url=https://www.facebook.com/7NewsAdelaide/videos/1162546323776021/]Endeavour Homes[/url] Re: 41sq 2 story: Use 2 evap coolers, or ducted ac? 9Sep 06, 2009 12:07 pm Bit more of a development on our cooling question - we've got an old house to demolish to build the new house on the site - it has an almost-new evaporative cooling unit, which was only installed Sept 18 08 - less than a year ago (by the previous owner). Looking up the specs on the website, it has 8.4kw of cooling power, where for our new house, we'd probably need at least 20kw. We went to Epping yesterday to check out some M display houses, and across the road was a 45sq PD house which had 2 large evaporative cooling units. I'm wondering if we can salvage the 8.4kw unit we have, and add in a 15kw unit with our new house - does that make sense? We could duct the smaller unit to the minor upstairs bedrooms, while the big unit will be connected to the master suite, upstairs leisure area and a massive duct over the stairs to direct air to the ground floor. If this is not an option, well then we've got a Breezair EXH130 evaporative cooling unit for sale at half retail price! And disappointingly M won't install evaporative ducting to the ground floor of a 2 storey house EVEN IF you buy your evaporative cooling from them in the contract! Probably something to do with not enough voids to get the ducts downstairs.... but then again, there are heating ducts all over the ground floor! This then comes back to the other alternative of adding a refridgerated unit to the heating, but I'm not 100% sure on the technicalities of how you do that. Apparently increasing the size of ducting and the heating unit is the way to go? T&T Knockdown and rebuild - building Metr1con Nolan 41 (43) @ http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com! http://www.verdantdental.com.au Hi, We have a single story MacDonald Jones house, on a waffle pod slab with steel frame. Are we able to build a second story extension? Other info is we are 900mm from… 0 8369 We bought land in Tallawong Schofields NSW size 30m X 12.5m and planning to get double story house build around 350 sqm. We are thinking about having premium inclusions… 0 4041 Hi all, sorting out the ducted air con for a 350sqm double story house. Does this placement sound reasonable to you? 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