I am house hunting right now. Most of the houses in Philadelphia suburbs, that are in my price range, have no central air and in many instances no ductwork. I am considering buying such house and installing AC system, so I want to know ball park figure of hiring HVAC person to do these jobs (parts/labor). I tried to call a few local HVAC establishments. They offered to sent somebody to the house to make an estimate. Problem is I don't have house yet!
Here is the sample house that I am looking at right now:
70 year house with little/no insulation, single pane wood windows. Radiator heat. 230V circuit exists. Basement: unfinished, no cooling/heating needed: 1st floor: Living Room: 20ftx13ft Dining Room: 12ftx12ft Kitchen: 13ftx10ft 2nd floor: room 1: 12ftx8ft room 2: 13ftx11ft room 3: 12ftx12ftThere are three solutions that I came across doing research on the web:
1) Install standard ductwork and vanilla central air system. I am not sure if there is acceptable place to run the ductwork. 2) Install high-velocity system (space-pak?) with 2" ducts. I heard this system is not as efficient as others. 3) Install two mini-split systems. My sample house has 6 rooms, but I could not find any mini-split systems with more then 4 zones (install 2 systems - 2-zones and 3-zones?).