Ductless air conditioning for your home is gaining popularity. Cooling your home in NYC has always been an interesting challenge. Within the interesting mix of historic and new architecture and homes stacked tightly next to and on top of each other, your choices of cooling installation are more limited, and the downsides of each option more amplified than more traditional suburban areas.
Currently, New Yorkers have three major options for installing a new AC system in their home. They can spring for central air with the two large appliances and construction to add ductwork. They can prop up a window unit in their window. Or they can try ductless air conditioning, which is an interesting and very attractive hybrid solution.
Ductless air conditioning is a unique combination of central air and room-by-room cooling. In a central air system, the central indoor unit exchanges the coolant with the outdoor unit to generate cold and expel heat. It then cools the air inside your utility closet and pumps that cool air evenly through ducts.
In a ductless system, we skip the ducts. Instead of duct-vents, you will see a small unit in the upper corner of the room. About the size of a double-long breadbox. This is a vent and a cooling system in one. The ductless vents also exchange the coolant with the outdoor compressor, but through coolant tubes so small that they can be threaded invisibly behind the walls instead of installing large ducts to channel the air. This provides room-by-room cooling with some really significant benefits over central air.
Ductless Air Conditioning is Quieter
A central air unit inside your home is remarkably loud. You can really hear it when it fires up to start compressing coolant and pumping cold air through the home. This is because of the amount of air pressure needed to push cold air through the ducts. A ductless system doesn’t need to pump air through the home. It activates the coolant and cycles the air inside the room over the coils creating cold air on the spot and blowing it into the room. So a ductless unit in each room makes only about as much noise as a small fan.
Quieter and More Attractive Than Window Units
Ductless ACs also have everything going for them in comparison to window units, and window units installed in holes in the wall. Huge window units do the compressing and blowing all in one unit, which makes a lot of noise from raucous blowers to loud gurgling. A ductless AC unit has a distant outdoor unit that makes all the system’s noise while the units inside your home only make the aforementioned soft fan whir.
Ductless AC Uses Less Electricity
Because ductless ACs are not hauling air throughout the ducts of a home, they also need considerably less electricity to run. The main electricity requirement is for the compressor. A unit shared in common with central systems. This significantly reduces the amount of energy needed for a ductless AC, which is great for your power bills.
More Affordable and Easier to Install
Ductless ACs are also considerably more affordable and practical to install. They are ideal for smaller homes that don’t have the spare room in the plans for ducts and for homes where you want AC fast without waiting for the construction necessary to put in an entire home worth of ductwork. You also get to skip the cost of the central air unit. Cutting out the ductwork and the central air unit, ductless ACs can provide serious cost savings for homeowners who want AC without a ton of added construction and expense.
Cool Each Room Individually
Finally, a ductless mini-split system is an advancement on the ductless AC, providing multiple individually controlled ductless vents for various rooms of the home. This gives you a fine amount of control to decide which rooms to make cold and which rooms to allow some of the heat to remain. In families with different temperature preferences, or for special rooms that need a constant temperature for your hobbies, ductless mini-split is the room-by-room smart home solution to air conditioning installations.
Is a ductless AC the right choice for your NYC home? Aladdin Plumbing is experienced with all forms of residential cooling and the unique requirements of NYC residents. We have installed many ductless AC units, and if you are interested in a consultation on ductless AC for your home, please contact Aladdin Plumbing today! Our experts will be happy to speak with you and answer any questions you may have.