Ducted Air Conditioning Fairfield

Local knowledge

Two-storey estates, split-levels and slim roofs: ducted across the council area

Away from the station precincts, most ducted work in the council area is in the brick two-storey homes built through the 1970s, 80s and 90s: Bossley Park, Edensor Park, Greenfield Park, Wakeley and Abbotsbury. The fan coil lives in the roof above the bedrooms, and the ground floor is fed by rigid drops through a linen cupboard, a wardrobe, the garage or a boxed bulkhead. Flex duct kinked down between floors is what lets these houses down, so we avoid it. Upstairs and downstairs become separate zones, because the top floor takes the western sun and stays hot after dark while the lounge has already cooled. Abbotsbury's 1990s homes have lower-pitched roofs, so fan coil placement there is settled before we quote.

Plenty of these homes already have ducted, and it is tired. A typical Edensor Park or Bossley Park system went in during the 1990s with one thermostat downstairs, a capacity chosen for the ground floor, and flex ducting that has sagged over twenty summers. Swapping the two units while keeping that ductwork rarely fixes a hot upstairs, so we check the ducts and often re-lay them. St Johns Park is its own case: split-level homes put the bedrooms half a floor above the living rooms on sloping blocks, so the zones follow the levels and the condenser route is worked out around stepped access.

At the other end of the scale, the Newleaf homes in Bonnyrigg have low-pitched tiled or Colorbond roofs with little cavity and side paths under a metre, which calls for a slim fan coil, a bulkhead and a wall-bracketed condenser. On the Horsley Park, Cecil Park and Mount Vernon acreage, a shed or studio usually gets its own outdoor unit instead of a long duct run from the house. In Smithfield and Yennora, some 1950s fibro cottages sit under shallow tin or tile roofs where a slimline ducted unit or a multi-head is the honest answer.

Fairfield 2165

Ducted in Fairfield homes

Ducted in Fairfield is mostly a job in the roof of a 1950s or 60s house. The pitched tiled roofs have room for a full-size fan coil and rigid ducting, and because the houses are low-set and rectangular the duct runs are short and even, which helps the system cool the far bedrooms as well as the lounge. We zone by how the house is actually used: the front living areas as one zone, the bedrooms as another, and where a rear extension or sunroom has been added, a third zone so it can be shut off when nobody is in it. The fibro cottages need one honest conversation first: without ceiling insulation the system works twice as hard, so we recommend sorting that before or alongside the install, and size the unit for the house as it is on a 40 degree day.

Heat is the whole design brief here. With no sea breeze the outdoor unit works through a long hot afternoon, so we place it on the south or east side of the house where the shade is, off the concrete that radiates back at it, and clear of the granny flat door if there is one. Running cost is roughly $1–$2 per hour whole-home, and in a Fairfield summer the zoning is what keeps that bill sensible: cool the bedrooms only overnight, run the living zone in the afternoon, and let the inverter idle rather than cycling. In winter the same system heats a low-set brick house far more cheaply than the plug-in heaters most of these homes still rely on when the nights go near zero.