Ducted Air Conditioning Bronte

Local knowledge

Ducted in Bronte homes

Ducted in Bronte splits along the age of the house. The Federation cottages and interwar bungalows have high pitched terracotta roofs with cavities a technician can actually stand in, so a full-size fan coil and rigid ducting go in without compromise, and we zone them as front bedrooms, rear living and any sleepout or attic room. The rebuilds are a different design job. Flat or skillion roofs mean the fan coil sits in a bulkhead or a dropped ceiling on each level, and with three levels stacked down the gully we treat each floor as its own zone, sometimes 4–6 zones in all, so the top-floor bedrooms can run alone at night while the living level with its wall of glass is handled separately during the day.

The climate driver in Bronte is wind and salt rather than extreme heat. The sea breeze keeps most summer afternoons manageable, but the southerly buster and the spray it carries are hard on an outdoor unit, so we choose a corrosion-rated condenser as standard for anything east of Macpherson St and mount it on the leeward side of the house, sheltered from the direct southerly. On a steep block with no flat ground the unit often goes on a side-wall bracket or a lower terrace, with the extra pipe run allowed for in the fixed price rather than added later. Ducted running cost here is roughly $1–$2 per hour whole-home, and on a rebuild with proper glazing and insulation it spends more time dehumidifying than cooling.