Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Dec 02, 2013 9:43 pm Hi all. Hoping someone can shed some light or share their own experience. We have to choose our heating/cooling combo this week. We are building a new home on 10 acres in rural NSW and do not have access to natural gas. I'd really like quick cool and heat option but have a very large living area to heat. The home is 300m2 and about 140m2 of it is open plan kitchen/dining/living area. It's just my husband and I at the moment and can shut off and live in the back half until kids come along so thinking ducted zoned. We are installing a wood heater to help reduce heating costs when hubby has spare time to cut wood and would like help heat our room a little too. Option 1- ducted evap cooling and ducted gas on lpg -cost approx $12k installed Very worried we won't be able to afford to run the lpg heating but might be balanced by evap being so cheap? We're also having gas cooking so will have bottles either way. Option 2- 2 units of ducted reverse cycle. One for front bedrooms and other for our room and living areas. Cost approx $14k. Have heard that the running cost are through the roof?? But thinking of getting solar when storage batteries become affordable though that could be years away. I do like the neatness of one vent and the ability to zone but the cost is scaring me :\ Can anyone share their thoughts/experiences for running costs?? Thanks in advance! Re: Rural (no natural gas) heating and cooling options- pls 3Dec 03, 2013 5:00 am When we lived in a similar situation 10 years ago (but much smaller house) with gas heating we found that running costs were huge. Changed to reverse cycle (daiken single unit) and costs dropped significantly. we reckoned we saved the cost of the unit in 2 years. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Rural (no natural gas) heating and cooling options- pls 4Dec 03, 2013 9:47 am We all live in a rural area with no natural gas. You will find using LPG cost prohibitive, read bloody expensive. House 1 we had wood heating and ceiling fans. Cheap and economical. House 2 we had wood heating and evap cooling. When cold the wood heating was far from instant even if is was still just alight. But when going was nice. House 3 we had evap cooling and slab heating. Ouch! That is as dear as poison to run. Evap was cheap to run. House 4 and current we have ducted air. By far the easiest of the lot. We have an Actron ESP+ system so you can shut down nearly the whole house if required. The heat is pretty well instant as is the cooling, and the cooling feels nicer as well than evap. Cost wise to run is not that bad when our house-single story- is about the 350 sqm mark. In percentage terms our bills are are about 60% of house three. Evap cooling is great and cheap to run. Wood heating. Absolutely luv it. The catch there is if you can get and cut your own wood for free. If you have to buy wood the price increases dramatically, and there is no "instant heat". But there is nothing like toasting yourself with a wood fire!! If affordable go with the ducted air and use the wood when you can. Depending on the brand of air you choose whether you have 2 units or just one. As said we have Actron and find it great. The plus with it is being able to shut it down to just one room. I believe it is the only make that can do this. There are many other good brands but my next choice would probably be Daikin. Hope this helps a bit. Settlement 1/2/12 New Shed 23/3/12 Slab poured 27/3/12 Frame complete 4/5/12 Roof complete 1/6/12 LOCKUP 29/6/12 Our new build blog http://kareenhillsownerbuild.blogspot.com/ Re: Rural (no natural gas) heating and cooling options- pls 5Dec 03, 2013 12:05 pm Thank you so much Daltite13 and Bashworth. You've just given me more information in 2 posts than I've managed to find in over a months worth of scrolling through forums and google! We'll definitely keep the wood heater either way as my husband has a chainsaw and access to his Father's farm (free wood) I like the idea of the evap being breezy with fresh air from having to keeping the windows open. Do you find the Reverse cycle feels stuffy? I've never had ducted reverse cycle, only natural gas heating and evaporative. In this dry heat area we haven't had many problems with Evap and hiumid days so It's really easy to think that evap is the way to go though its the heating thats is the hard one for us. All in all, I think you're right, better the devil you know - We'll probably stick with reverse cycle for the instant aircon as at least we know we'll have to be careful how we use it, hwoever I have no idea whether we could afford to to run an LPG gas ducted system. Would love to hear if anyone has used/using Ducted Gas on LPG for iterest sake. Thanks again! Kelly Re: Rural (no natural gas) heating and cooling options- pls 6Jan 05, 2014 8:53 pm Personally I'd be going for multiple reverse cycle split systems, particulary as you mention you are looking at going offgrid in the future (look at LiFePo4 lithium iron phosphate batteries). I'm looking at eventually going offgrid with our new build, but probably not for the next 3 or 4 years. Ducted a/c sucks up a lot of power and often only draw air from a single location, which you won't have oodles of power offgrid. There's been some discussion of split system a/c in offgrid situations on the Energy Matters forum, where some have suggested a couple of 2 or 2.5kw systems in the one room can operated more efficiently than 1 larger unit. Owner Building at Jimboomba Woods in Logan City Qld. Blog : http://bandlnewhomebuild.blogspot.com H1 thread : viewtopic.php?f=38&t=68283 . Hi Renee, Boundaries in NSW are generally shown on Deposited Plans. When they put boundaries into SIX Maps from these plans, there are various reasons that these often do… 1 2024 Hi, planning on using the attached stone pieces in my bathroom. I want to remove stains and gloss seal. Can I get some advice on best way to remove stains and best… 0 6713 Hi there, I'm a conplete newbie to this, but I'm looking to put a floor down in my 6x9m shed. It's currently sitting on a 100mm thick concrete perimeter (dirt floor… 0 6468 |