Ducted Air Conditioning Illawong

Local knowledge

Ducted in Illawong homes

Ducted in Illawong starts with the roof. The late 1980s and 90s project homes carry low-pitched concrete tiles, so the cavity is shallow near the eaves and usable only along the ridge line, which is where the fan coil goes; where the ridge is too short for a full-size unit we specify a slimline fan coil and run flexible duct along the gable space instead. Zoning follows the floor plan these homes share: a rumpus and living area downstairs, three or four bedrooms upstairs, often with a west-facing master over the garage. We set upstairs and downstairs as separate zones at minimum, and split the master from the other bedrooms where the orientation warrants it, so the house is not running four rooms to cool one at night.

Heat in Illawong comes from the afternoon rather than the morning. The peninsula gets little sea breeze, and the upper floors that face west over the river toward Padstow warm steadily from lunch until sunset, so we oversize the supply to those rooms slightly and put the return air upstairs where the warm air collects. The condenser goes on hardstand at the side of the house, on a bracket or raised pad on the bush-backed blocks, clear of the leaf litter that the reserves shed every autumn, and screened where the bushfire rating requires it. On the waterfront cul-de-sacs the estuary air is mild, so a standard outdoor unit is fine with an annual coil clean. Ducted running cost here is roughly $1–$2 per hour whole-home, and with upstairs zoned off during the day it sits at the low end.