Like all areas in the current world, the air conditioning sector has seen many innovations designed to improve any products’ operation and energy efficiency. As a result, the options you now have when shopping for an air conditioner are as varied as they can get.
The leading options nonetheless remain split air conditioning units and heat pumps. Heat pumps will move heat from the outdoors to the indoors and vice versa based on the climatic conditions. Though it has a high initial cost, services for heat pump installation are relatively inexpensive and straightforward.
Moreover, the simple operation of the heat pump makes it one of the most energy-efficient options for indoor heating and cooling. Split air conditioning units, on the other hand, have indoor and outdoor units. The outdoor unit comprises condenser and expansion coils, and a compressor while the indoor one has the air filter, blower and cooling coil.
Here are the alternatives available for split air conditioning systems.
Wall-Mounted Units
These come in two primary varieties; engineer and easy fit units. Engineer-fit split ACs have no inbuilt connection pipes. This means that the installation of your AC is bespoke to your building. Though expensive, engineer-fit split ACs have a neat and exact installation and will thus raise your property’s value.
Easy-fit split ACs have inbuilt interconnecting cables and pipework that allow them to be quickly and easily installed. Though in the past, anyone could install this unit, a change in regulations now requires their installation to be done by a qualified and licensed expert.
Wall-mounted units are suitable for the cooling or heating of single rooms.
Ceiling Cassette Units
These are also called cartridge units and are commonly used in offices that have suspended ceilings. They are installed in the space between two ceiling tiles and the bulk of the unit thus remains mostly invisible.
The only visible section of the ceiling cassette unit is its decorative lower side that has four outlet louvers on the edge and a central inlet grille. There are now also under-ceiling cassette ACs that can be used in rooms without suspended ceilings. The primary benefit of ceiling cassette units is its aesthetic value.
Portable Units
These often have higher cooling capacities compared to ceiling cassette and wall-mounted units and can thus have ratings of up to 16000 BTU. Portable units have a plastic-sheathed cord that contains the refrigerant pipes and electrical lines with one end having a quick connect facility.
This makes it easy to break the unit such that the indoor unit can be easily installed through a hole in your wall or the window.
Multi-Split Units
These resemble other split ACs but can link several indoor units to one external unit. While they need a larger and more powerful condenser unit compared to monobloc split ACs, the indoor units are the same as the latter’s.
Multi-split units are ideal for properties with multiple rooms and save on the space for your AC installation.
Compared to other AC units, the above split units have a quieter operation since the noisy parts are outside. Though often more expensive compared to other options, they are quite energy efficient. The savings on energy expenses will thus make it worth their price.
