[lunargirl]

Especially those in Melbourne!

We're in the process of renovating our house - single storey old place with 3/4 bedrooms, one living space.
At the moment we have a gas heater in the loungeroom which is great in winter... for the loungeroom.

We're tossing up between getting split systems, ducted heating/evap cooling, ducted heating/refrig cooling... etc etc.

What do you have, and are you happy with it?

[starsg]

I'm in Melbourne & we have evap cooling ducted into the ceilings, it's amazing! you don't get that really crisp cold of A/c but it just feels like there is a nice cool breeze through the house and it gets the temp right down. very happy with it and I also like that you don't see any ugly a/c units inside or sticking out of the house. it's great for airing the house out too, it really moves the air around quite strongly.

[BJBubbles]

We're in Melbourne and we have ducted gas heating and evaporative cooling. The heating works really well - love it! The evaporative cooling works pretty well, but I don't like the humidity it creates. If I had my choice like you do, I would happily put in ducted gas heating and refrigerated cooling.

Only issue is it's either on or off - the whole house. So if you can get zones etc it would be even better!

Otherwise I'd do split systems.... that way you can control it in the rooms you want it on at the time...

[rosie28]

I'm in Melbourne in a three storey house, and we have split systems- they're great, we can heat or cool just one area, the costs are pretty low and we find we don't need them on for long, even upstairs on a very hot day like today, we'll just pop it on for an hour when we go to bed.

[LookMumNoHands]

We are in Melbourne, and have evap cooling. It sucks a*se, to put it mildly. Today we've had it on all day, and it's still too warm inside. I've currently got my feet in a bucket of cold water .

My mum also has evap cooling. The other week, when we had a high 30's day, she did a food shop in the morning and turned the cooling on before she left. When she got home, she was carrying some shopping bags into the kitchen and slipped on the floor and ended up with a broken arm in 2 places. The floor was so wet from the evap cooling and humidity .

[Z-girls rock]

hhhmm I am in Sydney with a 2 story. not sure if this is helpful. Although I think Sydney weather and Melbourne weather are almost the same these days. (4 seasons in one day more often then not).

we have a gas heater in the lounge - love it. for the bedrooms we have a couple of oil heaters (electric) but I wish we had ducted gas.
For cooling we have ceiling fans.

they both work really well. Primarily because when we did our reno we worked on passive heating and cooling. (thermal mass, insulation, window placement etc) and our house really works well now to remain a nice temperature.
If you are doing a reno I think this is the most important thing. get this right and whatever you install will be more effective.

[melaine]

We are in Melbourne, and have evap cooling. It sucks a*se, to put it mildly. Today we've had it on all day, and it's still too warm inside. I've currently got my feet in a bucket of cold water .

My mum also has evap cooling. The other week, when we had a high 30's day, she did a food shop in the morning and turned the cooling on before she left. When she got home, she was carrying some shopping bags into the kitchen and slipped on the floor and ended up with a broken arm in 2 places. The floor was so wet from the evap cooling and humidity .

Are you leaving all doors and windows open? This is the fourth place I've lived with evap cooling in Victoria and I've never had that much problem with humidity.

You can feel it's humid on a hot and humid day, but it still cools the place down. I DID think our house just didn't get too hot (we have a big verandah on one side which helps) but our cooling broke for Christmas and I'm noticing that is is MUCH hotter without it (and still very humid inside today!).

Anyway, OP - we have a 3 bedroom brick house in Melbourne and hav ducted heating and ducted evap cooling. We are happy with both - both systems are ancient and have minimal controls so I imagine new systems would be even better.

[bjk76]

We're in Melbourne and we have :

- a gas heater in the loungeroom - we love the radiant heat - lying on the floor in front of it in winter

- oil column heaters for the bedrooms - not ideal in terms of expense, but effective

- evaporative cooling - good for airing the house and good on a hot, dry day, as well as very cheap to run. Don't like the fact you can't really use it on a humid day.

- 2 split systems - one oldish one in the loungeroom which we use to cool the bedrooms if necessary (not exactly efficient!) and one new one (also a heater) in the kitchen area, which gets really hot in summer as that part of the house has a flat roof.

I really like having so many options for heating and cooling. Having decent insulation has also helped a lot.

[Mummy2907]

We're in Melbourne, also a single story 3 bedroom, 1 study, 1 living area house. We have ducted heating (in the floors), and air-conditioning in the main (ie. our) bedroom. The kids' rooms have ceiling fans. We also have an old Coonara in the living room which is quite effective in heating a large part of the house, but since having kids we don't use it much, partly because it's too much work getting wood, cleaning it, etc., and also because we tend to leave the door open so that it's more like an open fire; fine when it was just the two of us, but not something we want to do with young kids around.

If money allowed, I'd have air-con all through the house but our current arrangement is OK (given the kids don't seem to mind the hot weather and haven't yet complained about not having air-con in their bedrooms like we do )

[Canberra chick]

In dry Canberra. We have ducted gas heating and ducted evaporative cooling. Might be a bit more humid in Melbourne for that sort of cooling to be effective? We love it, as you have to have all the doors and some windows open so it feels more of a natural way to do things ad you get fresh air.
I also love my ducted gas heating, especially in July and August!