HOW TO GET CENTRAL AIR IN A HOME WITHOUT DUCTS [AND SAVE MONEY!]

A ductless mini split is the most effective way to get central air in a home without ducts. This system can cool your entire home, just like traditional air conditioning — better, in many cases. And, you don’t need to add ductwork to run it throughout your home.

This feature is just one of the many reasons why ductless is becoming more and more popular in the United States.

In this article, we’ll look at how these work, how they differ from traditional air conditioners, and the benefits they offer — particularly in homes where central air isn’t an option.

We’ll also highlight a specific model with a few features you don’t see in every system.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions, or want to know how a system like this would fit in your home, call us at (630) 504-8688 or email us here at Compass Heating and Air.

Starting with a phone call or free consultation, we’ll help you decide if a system like this is the right fit for your home.

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Daikin VRV Mini Split In A Home Without Ducts

A Daikin VRV mini split is an excellent way to get air conditioning in a home without ducts. While there are many brands out there, we’re highlighting Daikin for some of the specific features their models offer. But, we’ll get into those benefits a little later. First, let’s look at the systems themselves.

How a Mini Split Works

The big difference here is, as we’ve stressed, you don’t need ductwork to get air conditioning in every room of your house. You also don’t need a loud and clunky box sticking out of your windows or poking through your walls.

Instead, you place air handlers in each part of your home — usually one per room. The most popular models are called high-wall units. They’re about two feet wide and a foot tall, and we can place them up near the ceiling.

The air handler acts as a vent, return duct, and dehumidifier all in one. It sucks in warm air, removes moisture, and sends that warm air to an outdoor heat pump. Outside, the heat pump expels the heat and sends the cooler air back to the air handler. Then, that cool air gets distributed throughout the room.

How a Mini Split Works

So, how do we connect the two? The answer, as you can imagine, doesn’t involve ducts.

Instead, narrow, flexible plastic lines connect the indoor and outdoor components. And, you’ll hardly notice them.

We bundle them all in a line set that’s only a few inches wide. In most cases, it runs behind the wall, just like electrical wires, where you can’t see them at all.

And, that’s how it’s done! Now, you can have cooling in every room in your house without doing any major construction.

With this setup, there’s just one component hanging on the wall. And, since the air handlers do a fantastic job circulating the air, we can often tuck them away in a corner or out of sight.

They don’t need to be located in any specific part of the room to do the job.

There are other benefits, too, particularly energy efficiency and customized comfort especially for problem rooms.

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Cool Problem Rooms In Your Home

You can read up on those in the links above. And, if you’re having trouble picturing what this would look like in your home, check out our article here. Now, we’ll focus on a Daikin product with some features you don’t always see on these systems.

Daikin VRV Fit for Cooling Near Barrington, IL

Daikin Fit offers all the benefits we talked about for mini splits. Then, on top of that, they made these especially easy to install outside. In general, the heat pumps — and especially the indoor air handlers — are amazingly quiet. But, the FIT model takes this to another level. First, the outdoor component is exceptionally quiet. It uses a different kind of compressor than conventional units, so there’s much less noise while it operates. As a result, you can place one of these near — or even right on — a deck or patio. You can talk over the sound without having to shout. You can also read or just enjoy the quiet outdoors even while it’s at work keeping your home comfortable. And, the design is smaller and narrower than even most heat pumps — and, of course, it’s nowhere near as large as a traditional condenser. So, it takes up less room while also working silently.

Of course, no one wants to put equipment like that on their patio. But, depending on your home’s layout, sometimes that’s the only option. Or, maybe there’s one other way to do it! Another unique aspect of the Daikin FIT is its side discharge. When you picture a regular outdoor unit, you see the grill on the top, and if you look down into it, you can see the fan. That means the exhaust blows straight up into the air. It’s why you can’t put one of these underneath a deck or patio: Even if it fit, that air would back up into the system if it couldn’t rise and escape. But, the side-discharge changes all that. Instead of pushing the exhaust up, that heat goes to the side. That way, you can “fit” (see what they did there?) it into a smaller space. As long as the exhaust side has plenty of clearance, you don’t need a lot of overhead room. The narrow design is also handy in neighborhoods where you don’t have a lot of space between houses. Or, where you have community regulations about where you can place outdoor HVAC equipment.

Ductless Mini Split Installation In and Around Barrington, IL

While we have great things to say about Daikin FIT, that’s certainly not your only option for a ductless mini split in the Fox River Valley. In fact, just about any make or model comes with plenty of potential for customization. We’ve talked about these as an alternative to central air in this article. But, you can also opt to place them only in problem rooms. Either way, you get better control over the comfort throughout your home than with central air or portable units. Call or email us here at Compass if you’re ready to learn more. We offer free consultations to help you get started finding the system that’s right for you and your home.

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