On 8/23/2013 12:52 PM, John Albert wrote:
Hello all -

I may be buying a house before too long, and a few questions about
installing air conditioning into a home that lacks it. House will be
ranch-style, 1600-1900 sq. ft. I have no house in particular picked out
yet, but some I'm interested would be fine -- EXCEPT for the fact that
they were not built with air conditioning.

I'm wondering about the pros/cons of installing a "mini split" system
(with multiple "room units" or perhaps more than one mini split unit),
vis-a-vis going for central air...?

Just from casual browsing, it looks like mini split would be
considerably cheaper and easier to install than a full central air
system with ducting, etc. (the latter probably involving a LOT of
wall/floor work as well).

Is central air worth paying the extra $$$ and installation work?
Or can mini split do as good a job, have equal reliability, etc.?

I'm also wondering if pre-existing ducting in some homes that have
either oil or gas hot air, could also be used with a central air system?

Actually, if I found the right place with pre-existing ducting, I might
even consider going to a full geothermal system. But that's a different
topic.

Thanks,
- John

I don't have any technical knowledge about this. I can say that about 12
years ago, I had central AC added to my 1950s row house (basement plus 2
stories). The house had forced hot air, which the local utilities
company used. At the time they warned me that the outcome would be that
it would cool the 1st floor living area fine, but not so much the top
floor. They were right, although it was definitely an improvement over
what it had been like with no AC. I forget now how expensive it was, but
they used the existing duct work and fan etc which helped to defray the
costs.

Now I'm in a small 2 bedroom ranch that has central air. I'm almost
positive that was an add-on as well since it's also a 1950's house. It
does cool the house well, presumably because it's not trying to push air
uphill. There is one floor vent in a bedroom that looks out of place
and a return up on a hall wall, so they may have run some additional
duct work, but I don't know.

FWIW, one of the houses that I looked at in this area (most of the
houses in this neighborhood are identical) had been renovated and they'd
put the AC (or maybe it was a heat pump?) in the attic. That seemed to
work fairly well from what I could tell at the open house.