Ducted Air Conditioning Installation Melbourne
Whole-home heating and cooling, zoned so you only run the rooms you actually use.
Ducted reverse cycle air conditioning heats and cools the whole house from one central system, with only discreet vents visible in each room. Smart Solar Energy installs ducted systems across Melbourne, within 50 kilometres of our Glen Waverley base — and because we also install solar, we can size the system alongside the power your roof produces.
How ducted air conditioning works
A ducted system has three main parts. The outdoor unit holds the compressor, usually against an external wall or on a pad. The indoor fan coil sits out of sight in the roof space or under the floor. Insulated ducts carry conditioned air from the fan coil to outlets in each room, and return air is drawn back through a grille, usually in a hallway.
The only things you see inside are the vents and a wall controller. That is the main reason many homeowners choose ducted over several wall-mounted split systems.
Replacing gas ducted heating?
Many Melbourne homes already have gas ducted heating, and ducted reverse cycle is the natural replacement — it heats the same way and adds cooling, which gas never provided.
One thing to check first: gas systems usually heat through floor vents, but cooling works much better from the ceiling, because cold air sinks. Existing ductwork may be reusable, or it may need to move. We assess this on site before quoting rather than assuming it will work.
Zoning: the biggest running cost lever
A ducted system without zoning heats or cools every room at once, including the ones nobody is in. Zoning splits the house into areas that can be switched on and off independently.
Day zone
Living, kitchen and dining areas. Runs through the day and early evening.
Night zone
Bedrooms. Runs in the evening and overnight while the living areas are off.
Room-by-room
Individual control for studies, guest rooms or a home office used only some days.
More zones mean more dampers and a more capable controller, but for most households the running cost saving outweighs that quickly. A system heating half the house uses roughly half the power.
What size ducted system do you need?
Ducted capacity is sized to the whole home rather than a single room. Floor area is the starting point; ceiling height, insulation, window area and the number of storeys all change the answer.
These are starting points. Poor insulation or large west-facing glass pushes capacity up. Two-storey homes often work better with separate systems or zones per floor, because heat rises and the upstairs behaves differently.
Is your home suited to ducted?
What we check on site
- Roof space or underfloor clearance to fit the fan coil and run ducts
- Condition and position of any existing ductwork from gas heating
- Where outlets can go in each room for even airflow
- A suitable spot for the return air grille, usually a hallway
- Switchboard capacity, since ducted systems often need a dedicated circuit
- Outdoor unit location, with airflow and neighbour noise in mind
Homes with a tight or flat roof cavity can still have ducted, sometimes using bulkheads or an underfloor layout. If ducting is not practical, a split system or multi split may suit better.
Running ducted air conditioning on solar
Ducted systems are one of the largest electrical loads a home can have, which makes planning them alongside solar worthwhile.
Planning the two together
- Summer cooling runs through the afternoon, which lines up well with solar generation
- Winter heating mostly runs in the evening, when panels have stopped producing
- If evening heating drives your usage, battery storage carries daytime generation into that window
- Zoning keeps the load down, so less of it has to come from the grid
- The switchboard is assessed once for both, rather than by two separate trades
Victorian feed-in tariffs have fallen to around three cents per kilowatt hour, while buying power back costs about thirty-two. Running a large load like ducted on your own generation is one of the most direct ways to close that gap.