Ducted Air Conditioning Paddington

Local knowledge

Ducted in Paddington homes

Ducted in a Paddington terrace is a precision job rather than a big one. The slate or iron roof is steep and the attic beneath it is shallow and often half taken by a converted bedroom, so we use a slim fan coil laid along the ridge or, where there is no attic space at all, a bulkhead running down the upstairs hall with short branches into each room. Zoning follows the terrace: upstairs bedrooms as one zone, the downstairs living and kitchen as another, and a third for a rear addition that usually has its own flat roof and its own heat problem. Vents are small and kept away from ceiling roses and cornices.

The outdoor unit is where every Paddington plan starts. Heritage rules keep it off the street elevation, and the party walls mean there is no side passage, so the compressor goes in the rear courtyard, on the flat roof of a lean-to or kitchen extension, or in the rear lane with a bracket where the lane is wide enough. Refrigerant lines run up the back wall to the attic. The climate case is the upstairs bedroom on a still, hot afternoon: the brick and slate soak up heat all day and release it at night, so the upstairs zone gets the larger share of capacity and the system is sized to that room, not the average.