New Ducted Air conditioner

[Luxur]

Need to save power!

We have been living in our new house for about 7 months now and are amazed at our power bills :eek: , yes we do have a large ducted air conditioner so I knew what we were in for. We are looking at replacing it with a new more efficeint one, does any one have any reccommendations on what brand would be best for energy efficiency and also to stop the the big temperature swings we get?

It's a two story 5 bed house in west Sydney and the current unit is around 21kW(8hp) i think.

oh, must be able to handle the heat as well, had a few friends who air conditioners cut out on that 45c day! Would imported brands or Australian brands be better.

I'm looking at getting qoutes from 3 brands, Daikin, Fujitsu and Actron Air. Actron Air have a building down the rd from where we live, but I have never heard of them before?

thanks

[PuppyPaw]

fujitsu are good, parents had one, ducted, never missed a beat, no matter what the heat.
I could right music hahaha

Fujitsu and panasonic are the only ones I have had any personal experiance with, panasonic are an excelent brand also.

On reducing your powerbills.
Use lamps instead of over head lighting for general ambiant lighting.
replace all normal light bulbs with compact fluresants.
don't use dryers.
live with it being a little warmer and set the ac to a higher temp.
Don't leave lights on when you leave the room and so forth.
every little bit helps, I was able to save a little over 160 dollers per elec bill by just doing those few things (well except the higher temp on the ac)

[Ian007]

Welcome to the forum.

I have been in the air con game for a few years, I would only put in a daikin in to my place if I was putting a new one in.

But the house we live in has a large fujitsu that was near new when we got here so it wasnt going anywhere, and thats been fine. the outside unit sits in direct sunlight in the arvo and I have not had any problems with it cutting out.

Cheers Ian:)

[lnt9000]

luxor have you considered evaporative cooling?, they are not as efficient as refrigerant but dont cost the earth to run either, pretty useless on hot humid,muggy days though, thats why their not suited for queenslanders etc, but here in vic they work quite well, so should be okay for sydney, you can run them day & night without the feeling that your going to need a second job to pay for it.

[Ashore]

Luxor the thing with a fully ducted system is that its all matched
that is the compressor unit to the evaporator unit to the fan size to the ducting size
You may find that you can't change the compressor unit without modifying/changing some or all of the other parts of the system, and this could be very expensive. Without matching the whole system then no matter how good the compressor unit is you may not get the desired results in cost of running or efficency or even temp control.

If for example the evap unit was too large for the amount of refrigerant the new compressor could supply you would get normal temp air mixed with cool air passing through the evap to your vents, and never cool the house properly, or if it was to small then you could get icing up of the evaporator and blockages causing a drop in the mass of air being delivered.

I think I would get all the specifications of your present system and check directly with the manufactures as to what size replacement compressor unit would match your evaporator, fan capacities, ducting size , number of vents etc... because I am sure you will get all the assurances from whoever is trying to sell you the Comp that all is fine and it will all be wonderful , try to get it in writing though,

Also do you have full insulation in your roof walls, if not then fitting insulation in the roof and shadeing the sunny side of the house with a sail may help , do you have a whirly vent or two in the roof. and try running your system a couple of deg warmer on realy hot days , when its 42 outside then 28 inside is still good and your not running flat out all day trying to get to 22, lastly check and keep clean your returne filter , replace the filter cloth yearly , it only costs around $12 a meter, and is worth it in the lonk run




Rgds

[Termite]

Daikin in my opinion.