Your central air conditioning unit may be getting near its end of service life. You just may need to add air conditioning to an addition to the house. You may have purchased an older home with no ductwork. In any of these cases, you are likely wondering about ductless air conditioning. Is it right for our Illinois climate and your home? At Bash Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. in Champaign, we serve the Champaign-Urbana area, and we are your local experts in air conditioning installation. There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing an air conditioning system and each case is unique.
What Is Ductless Air Conditioning?
A central air conditioning system forces conditioned air through ductwork to cool an entire home. Ductless air conditioning units do not force conditioned air through ductwork. Instead, they use refrigerant lines and a heat exchange system to deliver cool air into rooms or zones in your home. There is an outdoor unit and one or more indoor units. The outdoor unit exchanges the warm refrigerant and turns it into cooled refrigerant. It sends this cooled refrigerant to the indoor units. Each indoor unit has a fan and coil. The fan blows room temperature air over the coil, cooling it and dispersing it in the room. Then, the refrigerant heads back outside to be cooled again. There are no ducts involved.
Benefits of Ductless Air Conditioning
There are a few benefits of ductless air conditioning over central air units.
- Easy installation
- Energy-efficient units
- Can be used in a hybrid system
In order to retrofit a home for ductless air conditioning, we only need to fish 3-inch diameter lines through your walls, floors and ceilings. This is much easier, cheaper and less messy than retrofitting a home with full-size ductwork. Installing ductwork in older homes can involve ripping out walls and/or lowering ceilings. You do not have to create such a mess in order to install a ductless air conditioning system.
The units are highly energy-efficient because they are only pumping refrigerant and condensate. They do not have to blow large quantities of air through your house. They also use inverters to sip more lightly on electricity. The inverters turn your home’s alternating current into direct current, or DC. This saves on the entire system’s electricity usage. You can also turn off or raise the thermostat temperature in each room or zone in order to save more electricity. For example, you can raise the thermostat for rooms that are unused on the weekdays.
You can use them in cases where you only need to add cooling to a space without ductwork. Then, you have central air as your main system but maybe are cooling the garage with a ductless system.
Drawbacks of Ductless Air Conditioning
Ductless air conditioning units do a great job when rooms are smaller and floor plans are closed. If your home has larger rooms or open floor plans, ductless systems will not be as efficient nor as effective. Central air conditioning is best utilized in the latter cases.
The cost for multi-unit systems can go beyond the cost of many central air conditioning installations. This is due to the cost of the multiple indoor head units.
Best Use Cases
There are some best use cases for ductless air conditioning installations here in Illinois.
- A home with a closed floor plan and smaller rooms
- A workshop
- Your garage
- A finished basement
- Granny’s house in the backyard
- A sun room
- A den
Ductless air conditioning is highly energy efficient. It shines in cooling rooms and zones that are not too large. It can help you add cooling air to rooms of your home not served by your central air conditioning system.
Expert Air Conditioning Installations in the Champaign-Urbana Area
At Bash Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. in Champaign, we have been serving all of our community’s air conditioning installation needs since 1952. We provide heating and air conditioning installations, repairs and maintenance for the Champaign-Urbana area. We also will help you with all of your indoor air quality and humidifier needs. Our technicians are trained to work on all makes and models of heating and air conditioning units. Call us out for 24/7 emergency repairs as well.
We have both EPA and Energy Star certifications. We offer financing on installations through Lennox.
Call us today at Bash Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. in Champaign for air conditioning installation. Our services are detailed and reliable.
