Written by: Becky Turgeon
When choosing an air conditioning system for your home, Town & Country offers two main solutions. The first option, and the one most people think of, is a whole home cooling system. This system uses the current duct work to distribute cool air through the whole home.
The second option we offer is a mini split system. These systems have an outdoor unit as well as indoor units. The indoor units are placed where you want the cool air to be dispersed. These units offer the advantage of zoning and they don’t require duct work. That means that if your home uses a boiler and radiators for heat, you can take advantage of a mini split system to offer home cooling. Let’s explore these options a little deeper.
Whole Home Air Conditioning
As the name implies these units work to cool your complete home. This type of system is often referred to as central air conditioning. It consists of an outdoor unit and a coil that is usually installed above your furnace. Because these units use your furnace and your home’s duct work they are able to blow cool air throughout your whole home just like your furnace would blow warm air in the winter.
Advantages:
-Whole home is cooled
-Great cooling capacity
-Most cost effective solution
-Takes advantage of any air purification systems or filters that your home already has
-Good energy efficiency
-Efficiency can be further improved with a smart thermostat
Ductless Air Conditioning
These systems are often referred to as mini split systems because they consist of two main components. There is an outdoor unit and an indoor unit. The indoor unit is mounted on the wall of the room that you want cooled. It is usually controlled by a remote control. Each room that you want cooled has a separate indoor unit that allows you to have different temperatures in different rooms. So for example your children’s bedroom could be set at a different temperature than the primary bedroom. Or at night you could just cool your bedrooms for sleeping while allowing other rooms in the house to linger at warmer temperatures thus reducing the energy requirements.
Advantages:
-Ductwork is not required
-Selected rooms are cooled
-Quiet
-Allows more control over the climate of individual rooms
-Cool bedrooms at night while rest of house is allowed to sit at a warmer temperature.
How to Choose
The primary factor that will weigh pretty heavily in the decision of how to cool your home will be whether or not your home has duct work. However, you could still choose a mini split system if you wanted to create some zoning or if you have an area of your home that doesn’t have duct work like an addition that perhaps has infloor heating. Whatever your needs are, our team will take the time to help you make the decision that bests suits your situation. You can give us a call or use the link below to request a quote. We’re your local experts.