Scalability for In-Home AC Comfort

When people hear the term Mini-Split Air Conditioner, they often get the idea that these setups are a combination of a central air system and a window unit. While coming to that conclusion is understandable because of the exterior appearance of the units themselves, it’s not quite correct.

Mini-splits are entirely new systems that have been created to maximize convenience and efficiency. In fact, these systems seem to have been intentionally designed to be very unlike central or window units because they can do something that the others can’t. They can scale.

Scalability is simply the ability of a system to change as your house changes, principally through renovations. As your house expands, your mini-split system can expand right along with it.

One example: Say that you were building a new home and that you had the idea that you would probably put in an addition somewhere down the line. Installing a ductless mini-split would make a great deal of sense because it is easier to add more mini-splits instead of trying to install and connect duct work to a central HVAC system.

Rather than tunneling through your home’s walls to add bulky metal boxes of ductwork, all you need do when installing a mini-split is to drill a modest (around 8 cm) hole in the wall, through which you run a conduit that holds everything that the unit needs to do its job: Refrigerant tubing, power cord, condensate drain, suction tubing and connections to the compressor, which is located out of doors.

This efficient setup eliminates the need to install one or more large and cumbersome window units as well as a large central unit that often has a hard time pushing cooled air through the many right angles of ductwork. As noted on Energy.gov, “[D]uct losses can account for more than 30% of energy consumption for space conditioning, especially if the ducts are in an unconditioned space such as an attic."

Questions about how a mini-split system can scale with your home improvement project? Contact one of our specialists at AC World!