Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Apr 24, 2010 9:25 pm Hey All, I'm planning on building my house through Carlisle Homes (Montrose 36, single story) and have been looking into my Air Conditioning options. The two options they have provided are as follows ___________________________________________________________ (Large Single) Provide 17.1kW (Nominal cooling capacity) Brivis add on refrigerated air conditioning to 12 points including two zone motors, larger ductwork, and XA fan to heating unit. Refrigerated air conditioning to be controlled via ducted heating units programmable thermostat located as shown on final drawings. Provide three phase underground power with surface mounted three phase switch board located in the garage and three phase 25 AMP isolator to external wall outside (Rumpus Kitchen Home Theatre) for installation of condenser, in lieu of standard single phase power connection and single phase board located in the meter box. Zone 1 = Master Suite, Bedrooms 2, 3, 4, Ensuite and Bathroom. Zone 2 = Home Theatre, Lounge, Family, Kitchen, Meals and Rumpus. $11,286 ____________________________________________________________ OR if just provisions (i.e. install unit afterwards) ___________________________________________________________ (Large Single) Provide provisions to allow for the future installation by the owners of a Brivis refrigerated cooling unit, including increased ductwork to 12No. points and increase size of outlets to accommodate clients future Brivis refrigerated air conditioning. Provide XA fan to heating unit, 2No. zone motors. Provide three phase underground power with surface mounted three phase switch board located in the garage and three phase 25 AMP isolator to external wall outside (Rumpus Kitchen Home Theatre) for future installation of condenser by client, in lieu of standard single phase power connection and single phase board located in the meter box. Zone 1 = Master Suite, Bedrooms 2, 3, 4, Ensuite and Bathroom. Zone 2 = Home Theatre, Lounge, Family, Kitchen, Meals and Rumpus. Note: minimum of 6 points per zone. Clients future Brivis refrigerated air conditioning can be controlled via ducted heating units programmable thermostat located to the ground floor as shown on final drawings. Maximum of 1 Zone at a time can be operated with refrigerated cooling, both zones may be operated with heating. $4,165 ____________________________________________________________ Is two zones enough? (also seems you can only operate 1 zone at a time?). Is the brivis add-on system good or should I be looking at installing a separate dedicated system after handover? Thanks! Re: Air Con Options, help please! 2Apr 27, 2010 9:10 pm bump, Come on, surely someone has some info! Please! Re: Air Con Options, help please! 3Apr 28, 2010 12:03 am Hi we upgraded when we built with henley 18kw ac add on 3 phase power 2 zones and 14 outlets was $10k this was 3 years ago so prices have risen . our house is 24 sq living and on 40deg day ac works well keeping living areas cool approx 22-23 deg but temp will rise to 25-28 when trying to cool whole house if i had to do again i would upgrade to21kw unit which i would recommend you get with your larger house the last thing you want to do is spend all that money and find you could have spent a little extra and been alot happier if they tell you all you need is 17.6 kw donty listen take some advice on this forum who have sim units and get the largest. I would also get independant quote for something like an actron Re: Air Con Options, help please! 4May 05, 2010 1:04 pm Hi stillwaters, I'm just going through this bit now. I don't have prices yet but am looking at a big Brivis (MX35i, I think) with add on refrigerated air con. With the addition of some 3rd party controllers, they can do 6 zones. That's the minimum for me with 2 extra area's that can have on/off control, for rooms that are rarely used. I really wanted the Actron but I found out it was reverse cycle air con which we didn't want - we want to use gas heating. If anyone has any experience with the Brivis 20kW system, love to hear about it... SK Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34120 Handover 23 Dec 11 Squatting 21 Dec 11 Fixed 12 Oct 11 Plastered 31 Aug 2011 Framed 7 June 2011 Site Start 7 Feb 2011 Land Titled 18 Jan 2010 Land Deposit 25 Jun 2009 Re: Air Con Options, help please! 5May 05, 2010 1:59 pm Just to clarify the above comments the aircond will operate having two zones open but it will not keep up properly. My recommendation to you is to consider running cost also. I built my house of 36 squares and upgraded all the min insulation and designed the house to be able to close off rooms like study and theartre rooms to be able to make the units work easier. To improve performance you either increase the size of the unit or decrease the floor space. Decrease the floors space reducing running cost. Also re size there isnt much difference is price. Infact unit pricing for 15kwatt single phase and 18kwatt 3 phase is about the same, and 20kwatt is only about 500 or so more. The bigger the unit the large the area that need to be open. You need to look at your house and usage to determine how many zones you need. Re: Air Con Options, help please! 7Nov 10, 2010 11:59 pm I think there some option might be installed through the wall in air condition unit. Like you are worrying, well many larger air condition units are available in wall mounted sleeves. Well in installing you’ll need to cut a hoe in the exterior in your wall and frame it out. My TV shows Thermostat Re: Air Con Options, help please! 8Mar 05, 2011 7:59 am Hi guys and gals, I'm currently building a 42sq double storey house with H3nL3y and are trying to get some quotes for ducted air conditioning system. I've got two quotes so far: 1/. 25kW Daikin inverter three phase split system with 4 zones and 14 outlets - $17,900, this price excludes three phase upgrade (independent air conditioner installer). 2/. 20.5kW Brivis add-on air-conditioning with 2 zones and 14 outlets, with upgraded heater (HX351) and includes three phase upgrade - $14,400 (Builder contractor). I am leaning towards the Brivis just for convenience and according to our builder, there isn't a lot of room in our ceiling for two separate ducting should I go for the Daikin while keeping our ducted gas heating. However, I was told that with the Brivis, both zones cannot be used at any one time??!!! Is that so?? Also, those of you who had Brivis installed, what is the maximum number of zones can I have? I don't mind paying a little bit extra for extra zones. Thanks in advance for your advise. Cheers, Taz Re: Air Con Options, help please! 9Mar 08, 2011 1:53 am Taz I am leaning towards the Brivis just for convenience and according to our builder, there isn't a lot of room in our ceiling for two separate ducting should I go for the Daikin while keeping our ducted gas heating. However, I was told that with the Brivis, both zones cannot be used at any one time??!!! Is that so?? Also, those of you who had Brivis installed, what is the maximum number of zones can I have? I don't mind paying a little bit extra for extra zones. Taz Hi Taz, We have the Brivis in our house, and I am able to assure you that both zones are able to be operate simultaneously, for heating, cooling and on the fan only function. Our thoughts: This unit worked superbly through this rather mild summer, particularly keeping the humidity under control. Even with both zones operating, the unit had no trouble keeping the house to our selected internal temperature (24, occasionally 23 Celsius was always comfortable) on the hottest days. Decide yourself which zones which rooms should be in - don't trust the a/c installers to be sensible about this. We have one room which should ideally be included in both zones, but weren't given a choice. The Brivis installers were not interested at all in balancing the output between rooms, so some rooms receive too much air, some too little. Adjusting the outlet vents tends to create a lot of air turbulence noise. Sit down before signing the contract and specify the outlet duct size in each room. Check the size pipes used between the outside condenser unit and the internal unit - ours were initially installed with pipes that were too small and had to be replaced. Except I read the specification and measured the pipes, they would have got away with that one. Make sure that the wall insulation is reinstalled after the pipes are run through the wall. Our insulation was ripped out by the installers and dumped in the back yard. Better still, require the internal plumbing to be done before the plastering! Specify where the external condenser unit will be installed and particularly specify that it not be mounted on the wall; if it is, the walls act as a giant soundboard and the noise is very annoying inside the house. All of H's display houses were built this way, and even over the piped 'muzak', it was apparent that the noise levels in the bedrooms was unacceptable. H'y also wanted to mount the unit in a place where the heated air would not easily escape - these units have maximum operating external temperatures, so pooling the heated air on a 40+ day can lead to the unit shutting down. It might all sound a bit much, but we are very pleased we went this way rather than evaporative or a number of wall mounted units. Pfiff Pfiff Finally making progress again, with a clothesline (yippee) and some much needed little things being attended to over the holidays. 40 C on New Year's eve? We love our a/c! Re: Air Con Options, help please! 10Mar 08, 2011 3:12 pm In a gas/add-on system typically the gas unit will be sized to heat the whole home whilst the refrigerated cooling coil and C/U will not be capable of anywhere near this area of conditioning. I think a basic 2 zone system is a waste. There are modulating gas systems out there now which, similar to an inverter R/C system, can vary output dependant on usage. Why heat your whole home if you don't have to? The reason for the 2 zones (I assume) is 2 zones on for heating and only one for the cooling. Again, ducted gas is capable of conditioning a much greater area than refrigerated cooling but why should this limit you to a basic 2 zone system? It shouldn't. It is not merely a matter of how many zones you can operate at once, it is the capacity and airflow required for each room / area / zone which determines how much area the system is capable of heating / cooling. With gas / add-on this varies between each cycle (heat / cool) With ducted refrigerated systems they are essentially the same as far as operational area goes as the duct work is ideally sized (should be) for both heating and cooling. With gas / add-on there is a sacrifice made on the cooling side (duct size wise) and an upgrade in diameter on the heating side. I have ever only seen this in Victoria but seems to be an accepted form of ducted heating/ cooling there. I doubt many other states could adopt such a system which is why ducted R/C is commonplace around the rest of the country. You get what you pay for! Re: Air Con Options, help please! 11Mar 08, 2011 5:51 pm Thanks for your advise, Fiffaro and MagicMuppetMan! I'll sussed everything out with the builder! I am still trying to get the builder confirmation as to whether I can get more zoning in place. From what I read on Brivis website, the system can be set up to 5 zones. Cheers guys, Taz How do you remove one of these ceiling air con vents? And is it possible to disconnect the duct joined to the vent from inside the house, without going into the roof cavity? 0 4039 Hi all, sorting out the ducted air con for a 350sqm double story house. Does this placement sound reasonable to you? Also, I plan to have 6 zones I think. Living room… 0 0 Hi all, sorting out the ducted air con for a 350sqm double story house. I think i plan to have 6 zones I think. Living room (mainly for entertainment so not used often),… 0 0 |