Ducted Air Conditioning Como

Local knowledge

Ducted in Como homes

Ducted in Como splits between the originals and the rebuilds. The 1960s brick homes on the Como West streets and up the Oyster Bay slopes carry pitched tiled roofs with a real cavity, so a full-size fan coil goes above the hallway and rigid duct reaches every room; we zone them as bedrooms, living and any rear extension, and on the slope-side homes we give the west-facing rooms a slightly larger supply. The rebuilt waterfront homes on the point are the design job: flat or skillion roofs mean a fan coil in a bulkhead or a dropped ceiling per level, each level as its own zone, and the glazed river-side living area on a zone of its own so it can run hard through a hot afternoon without the bedrooms above it running too.

The Como climate driver is humidity rather than peak heat, and that changes how we size. An oversized ducted system in a home on the water cools the air fast, shuts off and leaves the moisture behind, so the house feels clammy with the system on; we size to the real load and set it to run longer at lower speed on the still February evenings, and we put the return air on the upper level where the warm, wet air collects. The condenser goes on a side-wall bracket or a small pad at living-floor level on the steep blocks, shaded from the western sun where we can manage it, with the estuary air mild enough that a standard unit and an annual coil clean are all it needs. Ducted running cost here is roughly $1–$2 per hour whole-home.