Home air conditioning: everything you need to know

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Before you can choose the right residential air conditioning system for your home, it’s helpful to know?how the different systems work.?

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Contrary to what you might think,?home air conditioning?doesn’t work by pushing cold air into your home. Instead, it works rather like a fridge,?pumping out the warm air?and recirculating air that has passed through chiller pipes. As the air is condensed into a liquid, the heat is removed, leaving cool air in its place.

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Floor standing units are the?simplest home air conditioners?on the market. You can put a?portable air conditioner?into any room you need to cool down and?plug it into the nearest socket.?You’ll need to put it beside an open window where the duct can pass through, and you may also need a container to catch the condensation.

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As the name suggests, window air conditioners fit into an open window and?cool the room they’re in. The condensation conveniently drips out of the window onto the ground outside. But for this type of small air conditioner, you would need one for each room.

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Split system air conditioners?have two units: generally an?evaporator inside?your home and a?condenser outside. You can also get?multiple indoor units?that work with a single outdoor unit, but you won’t be able to control them individually. However, there are multi-split AC units that do allow?individual climate control.

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Central air conditioning systems have both parts of the system in a single unit, which is usually located on the ground outside your home. The cool air is pumped back into your home through a duct system in each room.

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If you only need to cool your home occasionally, or only?need to cool certain rooms, a portable or window AC unit is probably going to work best for you. Compact air conditioners are ideal for home offices, studios and bedrooms. But those who live in hot climates may find that a split air conditioning system, which?cools throughout the entire home, is a worthwhile investment.

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If you’re renovating an older property, you may find that it’s not suitable for fully installed air conditioning systems,?which need ducting. If so, your best bet is either a portable or window air conditioner in the rooms you most need to cool.

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Building a new home provides a unique opportunity to accommodate the ducting necessary for fully installed central air conditioning systems that?cool the whole house. Multi-split air conditioning systems work well for?large, open-plan rooms?where you need more than one unit but don’t need to control them individually.

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Connecting your air conditioning unit to your smartphone or voice-enabled smart speaker via Wi-Fi?gives you more control?over your home environment.¹?By allowing you to control your air conditioning more precisely, it can also save energy and money.

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Did you know that?some air conditioning units can heat your home?as well as cool it? These use heat pump technology, so look out for this feature if you want to stay warm in the winter as well as cool in the summer.