Ducted Air Conditioning Kirrawee

Local knowledge

Ducted in Kirrawee homes

Ducted in Kirrawee is mostly a story of good roofs. The 1950s and 60s brick and fibro homes carry tiled hip roofs with a cavity that takes a full-size fan coil and rigid ducting, and because the houses are single-storey on flat blocks the fan coil sits centrally with short, efficient runs to every room. We zone them as bedrooms, living and the extension, because nearly every original Kirrawee house has had a family room or a second living area added out the back, and that room is usually the one with the most glass and the least insulation. Where a home has been rebuilt as a double-storey or a duplex, the roof is lower and flatter, so the fan coil goes into a bulkhead on each level and the zoning follows the floors instead.

The heat here is inland and still rather than coastal and breezy, so we size the living zone for a 38°C afternoon with no breeze, not for the milder day the coast gets. The condenser goes on the south or east side of the house where possible, out of the afternoon sun, and on the bush-edge streets south of the highway it is placed clear of the canopy so gum litter does not fill it by October. Reverse-cycle heating is not an afterthought in Kirrawee: the inland winter mornings are cold, and a ducted system that heats the bedroom zone for an hour before school pays for itself in comfort. Whole-home running cost is roughly $1–$2 per hour, and overnight with only the bedroom zone on it sits at the low end.