Ducted Air Conditioning Eastern Suburbs

Local knowledge

Terraces, bungalows and four-level homes: fitting ducted in the east

The terrace streets are the hardest ducted work in the east. In Paddington, and in the terraces around Waverley Park and Trumper Park, party walls on both sides leave only the front and rear as outside walls, and the front is under heritage control. Slate or iron roofs sit over a cramped attic, often partly converted, so the fan coil is a slim model tucked into that attic or the ducts run through bulkheads down the hallway. The outdoor unit goes in the rear courtyard, on the roof of a rear addition or in the lane, and the refrigerant lines follow the same path. Nothing shows on the street.

Other parts of the east are simpler than people expect. Federation and interwar houses in Randwick, Queens Park and on the Woollahra ridge have steep terracotta or slate roofs with real space in them, so a full-size fan coil fits and the ducts reach every room without bulkheads. The post-war bungalows of Maroubra and Matraville have tiled roofs over a workable cavity too. There, double-brick walls change two things: pipe penetrations are core-drilled, which takes longer, and the walls hold heat into the night, so we size for that lag instead of floor area alone. Older Matraville ceilings get their timber joists checked before the fan coil goes up.

The harbour slopes need a different plan. Homes in Bellevue Hill, Rose Bay and Vaucluse often read as two storeys from the street and drop to three or four levels at the back. One fan coil rarely serves all of that, so we design two ducted systems, or ducted upstairs with a multi-head below, and zone by level. Contemporary rebuilds with flat or concrete roofs, which turn up on Dover Heights and the Bronte slopes, leave little cavity, so the ducts go into bulkheads or dropped ceilings. Outdoor units end up on terraced pads or lower courtyards, which means longer pipe runs and careful drainage down the slope.