Your classic, central air conditioning consists of one outdoor unit, one indoor unit, and a series of ducts routed through your home. For it to run efficiently—not too powerfully and not too weak—the unit has to be perfectly sized according to a complex load calculation along with many other factors.
But who has time for that? The easiest thing would be to slap an AC unit in each room, run some refrigerant tubes to an outdoor unit, and call it a day.
Okay, that’s simplifying the process just a bit. But that’s basically what a ductless mini-split system is. They’re a foolproof, to-the-point, no-nonsense kind of AC system that will easily relieve you of the summer heat.
Cuts Out the Middle Man
One of the best parts of a ductless AC system is that there’s nothing standing between it and a room full of cool air.
With your traditional central AC, all the cool air must travel through the duct system. However, for this to work properly, the ducts must be sealed up as tight as possible. Sometimes this doesn’t work out because ducts that are more than a few years old might develop leaks due to rips and tears or disconnects.
For a ductless AC, the name says it all. There are no ducts, only the indoor AC unit and the room it’s installed in. The air that comes out of the unit has 0% chance of not filling up the room. The only drawback for some homeowners is that the AC doesn’t match the aesthetics of the room. However, in our experience, many ductless air conditioning owners in Naples, FL tend to forget about it soon after installation.
Install it Where You Need It
For the frugal homeowner who knows exactly what they want out of their AC, a ductless system gives them the option of installing only in the rooms that matter the most. This is because each indoor unit acts entirely independently of the other ones; you can install them in every single room or only in one. It all depends on your preferences and how you think you’ll use the system in the long-run.
For example, if you had children who have moved out, you may have some vacant bedrooms. Why bother installing ductless units there if they’re rarely visited? Instead, you can focus only on places like the living room, master bedroom, and guest room.
Another idea is to install in the garage, which tends to become extremely hot in the summer. With a central air system, routing a duct to the garage is a direct violation of building code, due to the potential for spreading toxic fumes through the home. A ductless system bypasses this rule, allowing you the possibility to turn your garage into your summer workstation.
Best of all, ductless systems have their own individual controls. This means you can accommodate everyone’s preferences and, in comparison to a central AC, you can save money by scheduling each one according to the habits of whoever occupies that room.
