Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jul 26, 2012 2:28 pm Hello! I have been watching the forum for a while but this is my first time posting. My hubby and I are building in WA. We are talking to the builder about ducted aircon and he has referred us to Don from Air& Water. The system he recommends is the Actron SRD/V230, which he says will provide for 44% of the house. I guess what we need to know is 44% enough coverage, or should we look at a bigger unit or even split systems? Re: Aircon advice please! 5Jul 26, 2012 3:28 pm We have a big house... not sure the exact meterage without looking at the plans. I know from my parents house having ducted aircon about 20years ago that it was useless and they have now installed splits in each room that is used regularly. l was originally against getting a ducted system because of this, but my hubby has talked me into it. I just don't want to spend over $20K on a system, only to need to spend the same again getting splits installed... Haha AC27... thanks, maybe it is a small mansion It will be to us anyway. Re: Aircon advice please! 6Jul 26, 2012 4:23 pm We have a 23KW Actron unit as an add-on to a Bonaire ducted gas heating system. We have 400m2 living and we're in SE Melbourne. This is divided into two zones, upstairs and downstairs. We were told that for that much area to cool we should only run upstairs or downstairs not both together (Heating is no problem for both zones to be on). We've found in practice that we CAN run both zones and keep the house comfortably cool so I would think 23KW should be OK. Keep in mind your house orientation, shading of windows, insulation, etc will impact effectiveness of any system. Re: Aircon advice please! 7Jul 26, 2012 5:07 pm 23kw sounds a big system for most houses. Ours is 14kw have 11 outlets and 5 zones and so far happy with it although not operated over a full summer yet. If you sare unsure take your plans to another air conditioning coy and get a comparative quote. See what sizing they recommend. Switch 830 in Meve Commenced 20/7/2011 Completed Early april 2012 Moved in 30/4/2012 Re: Aircon advice please! 9Jul 27, 2012 2:05 am Some good advice from ourlindrum on orientation etc Go the actron, or the platinum is good ( same bloke designed this one as the actron) pay a bit more than the average LG or Fujitsu , all built in china nowadays anyway, actron is supposedly an Aussie build. Mine's 230 Sqm and the 17 kw unit Keeps the house just fine at 18 deg in summer, and that's in Perth heat. A blast zone in the entry 9 outlets and 7 zones, Actron will go down as low as ten % operating usage, have no actual experience of this as power bills are always ridiculous in Perth with only one provider available Luck Timeline Aug 08-Land Mar 09-Demo/Titles Sept 10-Handover No1 Sept 11-Handover No2 April 12-Sold No2 Aug 14-Land/Demo Jan 15-Slabs viewtopic.php?f=31&t=25736 Re: Aircon advice please! 10Jul 30, 2012 10:55 am OurLindrum52 We have a 23KW Actron unit as an add-on to a Bonaire ducted gas heating system. We have 400m2 living and we're in SE Melbourne. This is divided into two zones, upstairs and downstairs. We were told that for that much area to cool we should only run upstairs or downstairs not both together (Heating is no problem for both zones to be on). We've found in practice that we CAN run both zones and keep the house comfortably cool so I would think 23KW should be OK. Keep in mind your house orientation, shading of windows, insulation, etc will impact effectiveness of any system. Hi Ourlindrum52, Im in the process with a builder for a similar sized home and we are building in melb as well. We cant decide whether to put in evaporative cooling or add on cooling like yours? Have you found it useful in our summer to have the add on cooling and has it been costly to run? Thanks Re: Aircon advice please! 11Jul 31, 2012 3:55 pm We vowed not to get evap again after having it for almost 20 years in our last house. Mind you, we lived in Perth which has mostly dry summers, however....at most it will cool the house down to 10c less than the prevailing outside temperature, so if it's over 40c outside, its only slightly cooler but a lot more humid inside. So your tiled floor is sticky, your bench tops are sticky and try sitting on a leather couch then getting up again! You'd want to wax first. After moving to Melbourne, which gets hot but not as long and can get humid too, we thought refrigerated was the way to go. We've only had it since we moved in January but very happy with it. Apart from just cool air, it is cool and dry air so on those warm muggy days it's very comfortable. I can't really say how much more expensive it is to run because we've only had two power bills and they were both around the same. In winter my wife runs a small electric fan heater in the bathroom when it's cold. We found with the refrigerated we don't run that as often as we did with evap cooling. Possibly also because newer houses are better insulated and also being two storey, downstairs generally stays cooler. One other thing, some builders will not run evap cooling ducts to the ground floor of double storey homes. Not sure why but maybe because the double ducts (one for heating and one for cooling) take up too much space or require additional voids to cope. (Add-on refrigerated cooling uses the sane ducts as the heating.) Re: Aircon advice please! 12Aug 01, 2012 12:16 am We are going Actron ESP+ 17kw 3 phase unit installed by Jeff Moritz Gas and Air for $16K. Our house is 298 square meters of living using 8 zones and 11 outlets. Looking at the calculations we can cool all sleeping zones or the living zones at any one time. Actron is the way to go if you can pony up the extra money to start with, as I'm sure you would get it back in energy savings and quality down the track. Re: Aircon advice please! 13Nov 12, 2013 1:01 am bradster181 We are going Actron ESP+ 17kw 3 phase unit installed by Jeff Moritz Gas and Air for $16K. Our house is 298 square meters of living using 8 zones and 11 outlets. Looking at the calculations we can cool all sleeping zones or the living zones at any one time. Actron is the way to go if you can pony up the extra money to start with, as I'm sure you would get it back in energy savings and quality down the track. Found it lol I knew if read it somewhere did you go with the Actron??? Design by Greater Concept - modified version Evolution Court Build by Premiere Homes My build viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64854 The unit normally clips into a metal plate screwed to the wall, either plate is not flush, or unit not hooked in and could be hanging from the pipes partly, either might… 2 12579 retail its around double the price of a similar sized actron/dakin system from memory, They are excellent systems though. But with how builder gouge on AC/heating, you… 4 1009 Versaloc is a mortarless besser block system that still needs a properly engineered footing. If you just do a 400x200 footing it will fail in time. At 17m long you need it… 1 3326 |