Split System Air Conditioning Eastern Suburbs

Local knowledge

Apartments, walk-ups and strata approvals across the east

Much of the east is apartments, and split systems are the standard answer in them. The art-deco blocks along Campbell Parade in Bondi Beach and Arden St in Coogee, and the 1960s and 70s walk-ups in Kingsford, Maroubra and near Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, have concrete or low-pitched roofs with no cavity for ducts. The outdoor unit goes on a balcony, a rear light well, a strata-agreed common wall or a rooftop plant area. In the slab-floor walk-ups of Kingsford the pipes run down the outside of the building, so we plan a neat, fixed route before the strata committee sees the drawings.

Towers bring their own logistics. Around Bondi Junction station, in the Darling Point towers and near Edgecliff station, the building usually has a set position for condensers, and the work is about lift access, pipe runs through risers and getting the condensate to a drain. In the Rose Bay blocks along New South Head Rd, and the Double Bay flats, a balcony is often the only option. We prepare the unit specifications, noise figures and proposed position for the committee. When a balcony can hold only one condenser, a multi-head system runs the living room and bedrooms from it.

Houses have their own split briefs. Daceyville's small, low-roofed heritage cottages suit a single split or a compact multi-head, with the outdoor unit kept out of street view. In Woollahra, humid summer nights are behind most of the requests for bedroom splits. Kensington student rentals are often cooled by one ageing window unit, and a wall split is the usual replacement. Near the ocean in Coogee, Bronte and South Coogee, the condenser needs shelter from spray and southerly wind, so we look at the side passage or rear yard first and specify corrosion-protected coils.