reverse cycle air conditioning – is it the best option for your home and budget?
Our recent blog answered the question: What Is Reverse Cycle Air Conditioning? and examined the many benefits of choosing a reverse cycle air conditioning unit for your home.
These benefits include:
- Convenience – heating and cooling a room is done with a single unit
- Safety – no exposed elements, fans to trap little fingers, flames or hot components
- Health – inbuilt filters clean and dehumidify the air you breathe
- Aesthetic design – fewer units mean less intrusion into your space from unsightly components
Despite all these benefits, people may still be concerned that adding reverse cycle air conditioning to your home is expensive to do.
But as you’ll see in this blog, this kind of temperature control can be much cheaper to run than other systems.
Depending on the design of your system, you may even find that a single reverse cycle ducted air conditioner can be cheaper to install than multiple split systems. We compared the pros and cons of ducted air conditioning vs split systems in this article.
Energy–Efficient Heating and Cooling = Cheaper to Run
When a reverse cycle air conditioning system is designed, planned and installed by a professional, it can be the cheapest way to heat and cool your home.
The consumer comparison website Canstar Blue has published multiple reports to back this up. Their results found that reverse cycle air conditioning is the most energy-efficient heating and cooling solution for most Australian homes. The Australian Government also had similar findings.
This leads us to the question, is reverse cycle air conditioning expensive to run?
All methods of cooling and heating require some form of energy to run. Naturally, reducing the amount of energy it takes to heat and cool reduces our energy (i.e. electricity and gas) bills. Therefore, reverse cycle air conditioning systems can be the most economical choice for your home!
the cost to run Reverse Cycle Air Conditioning
Calculating the costs of running air conditioning units can be quite complex and vary depending on factors such as:
- The age of your home and the materials it is constructed from
- The positioning of windows and the air conditioning units themselves
- Air loss from the house via cracks under doors and in floors
- The age of your air conditioning unit
- How well your air conditioning unit has been maintained
If we put these factors aside for a moment, we can make a general calculation to estimate the costs of running reverse cycle air conditioning in your home as follows:
- Check the labelling on your unit and look for the “kilowatt-hours”. It is the most important factor.
- Multiply the kilowatt-hours figure by the number of hours the unit will run for, e.g. 4kw x 8 hrs per day = 32-kilowatt hours of usage per day.
- Next, multiply the daily kilowatt-hours by the number of units in the home. If this is a ducted system, there would only be a single unit. If it is a split system, multiple units will be installed in different rooms. In this example, we will assume that 4 x 4 kw split systems are installed in the home, running 8 hours per day. Therefore, the figure would be:4kw x 8 hours = 32-kilowatt hours x 4 units = 128 kilowatts of energy consumed daily.
- Finally, multiply this figure by the cost per kilowatt-hour that your electricity company charges for energy use to find the daily cost to run your reverse cycle air conditioner.
Using this formula, we can determine the running costs of your air conditioning. Still, you can also make it run more efficiently with minor changes in your home and regular maintenance and servicing.
Tips to Improve the Performance of Reverse Cycle Air Conditioning
Power Trip Services are experts in all things air conditioning and choose only to offer reverse cycle air conditioning systems to its customers. Owner Kerry advises that reverse cycle air conditioning can be extremely cost-effective to install and run with the right planning and servicing. In this article, Kerry recently drew on his many years of experience to offer some great tips to maximise energy-efficient heating and cooling.
If you’d like some further advice or to discuss how reverse cycle air conditioning can improve the liveability of your home, contact the team at Power Trip Services today.
The electrical and air conditioning specialists at Power Trip Services go above and beyond to tackle any complex installation or electrical issue you throw our way.
We are leaders in our profession in North Brisbane because we use our resourcefulness and ingenuity to deliver high-quality and affordable solutions every time. Our qualified technicians can even design your ducted air-condition in-house!
Not only do we pride ourselves on quality workmanship, but our outstanding service standards and promise to treat your property with the utmost respect. This sets us apart from our competitors.
Call Power Trip Services today on (07)3385 5833 or request a quote here.
